Chapter 1
AVERY
CURRENT DAY - AGE SEVENTEEN
There’s something wrong here. With this town, this school, all of it.
I can feel it deep within my bones. How no one else seems to recognize this is beyond me.
Day in and day out, people mingle around and go about their day as if there’s nothing wrong.
As if there isn’t an unknown darkness slowly choking the life out of all those who live here.
Good old Warren, Connecticut. A place where the wealthy flaunt their status, appearances determine value, and everyone knows to avoid the old Deveroux mansion.
Rumor is it’s haunted.
That wouldn’t surprise me in the least, honestly.
This town… It beats you down time and time again.
It rips apart your soul piece by piece. Smashes all your hopes and rips apart every last dream you’ve ever had.
Yet somehow, before you know it, you don’t even want to leave.
This place becomes a part of you. No one can resist the pull.
It finds a way to keep you here while slowly draining the life from you…
changing you. Until you’re nothing like the person you used to be.
Until you’re just like them. All of those who came before you.
But not me. I’m going to make it out of this eerie, cursed hellhole one day.
Until then, I just need to play my cards right.
Now, some people may think this is a bit morbid for a person’s first thoughts of the day. But as I pull up to Wisteria High School, I can’t seem to help myself.
Through the car windshield, I watch as all the little sheeple begin to file out into the courtyard, getting ready for the day to begin. Their cliques and patterns are all painfully redundant by now. The high school stereotypes get awfully boring sometimes.
Annoyance fills me the same way it does every morning as I watch the scene unfold.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, I resign myself to waiting in my car for the first period bell to ring, giving myself an extra few minutes to finish my morning tea.
Today is going to suck epically; I can already feel it.
Finals are this week, and with college applications heading out, maintaining my perfect GPA is more important than ever.
Yep, major suckage ahead.
Pulling the visor mirror down, I take a moment to double-check my appearance.
Not out of vanity, but because I need to be sure my preppy, perfect daughter facade is always on point.
That meant ensuring my winged eyeliner is always sharp enough to kill a man and my pink pouty lips are always soft and plump.
I learned from a young age that looks were important in this aristocratic bullshit society; mine are both a shield and a weapon.
An unbreakable form of armor that keeps me safe from the world.
People only see what I want them to see.
No one ever looks past my pretty face or outgoing demeanor.
Never sees the quiet calculating side of me, or the girl who cross-trains in outdoor sports and has an IQ of 130.
But that’s just how I like it. They won’t underestimate me so much if they knew the real me.
Strategically, I’m friendly enough to fly under the radar but smart enough to make sure I get out of this wealthy cesspool of suburbia one day.
The bell dings, signaling the start of yet another school day at Wisteria High.
Tossing my keys and phone in my bag, I slide out of my car and head into the school.
My first period of the day is English Literature in room 305 with Mr. Harvester, on the complete opposite side of the school from the parking lot.
It’s a decent walk, but one I don’t mind making.
Not when it leads me to her.
Allison Beckett McKinnley, or Allie as she prefers to be called.
She doesn’t know it yet, but I call her mine.
Allie is both the moon and the brilliantly shining stars that glow in the dark abyss of my heart.
She’s my everything, and she has no idea.
I’ve been working up the courage to ask her out for years.
Ever since I laid eyes on her smooth, pale skin, beautiful blue eyes, black hair, and freckles.
Her quiet demeanor has most people walking right on by without so much as a second glance. That’s where they go wrong.
Hiding behind that shy reservation is a ferocity only someone like me can truly appreciate.
Her eyes hold a fire that could burn the world to ashes if she tried.
My little AllieCat is goofy and playful, loyal, wise beyond her years, and fiercely protective of those she cares about.
She’s the light to my dark, the fun to my seriousness, the yin to my yang.
My other, better half, in every single way.
As I go to round the corner of the hallway leading to my English Lit class, I hear a commotion.
Freezing in my tracks, I slowly peer around the corner and survey the scene around me.
Just before the doorway to our next period classroom, Allie stands with her back against the wall, talking to some idiotic male.
Based on their body language, I would say he's asking her out, she’s saying no, and of course, he doesn’t listen.
Gasp. Shocker. The men of this town are slimy.
Every last one of them. When he tries to grab her hands for the third time, despite the contact being clearly unwanted and rejected, the calm mask I work so hard to keep in place begins to slip.
How dare he touch her after she said no and pushed him away, not once but twice?
The fucking audacity of men these days is astounding.
A familiar icy sensation begins to flow through my veins, and it takes more energy than I would like to admit to keep up my preppy schoolgirl facade.
The one concealing an inner demon I’ve spent years locking down.
Standing up a little taller, I lift my chin and stride over to them. “Allie!” I squeal in my best popular girl voice, “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!” Gently linking her arm with mine, I swiftly lead her away from the man who previously felt entitled to her attention.
“Oh my god, thank you!” She lets out in a rush, completely going along with my plan. Ha. That is adorable, as if I could ever not rescue her from some sleazy meat sword-wielding douchebag. There’s no stopping the little smirk that appears on my face.
He never stood a chance.
I wish I could say I’m satisfied. Let the sting of rejection be clear as day on his face, fuel some warm, fuzzy part of me.
But the truth is, I haven’t felt a damn thing since my mother died.
It's like little me couldn’t stand the trauma and blocked everything out.
Feelings, memories, all of it. Sometimes I get glimpses, but holding on to them is like trying to grab mist by the handfuls.
I would say… less than productive. So I became very good at practicing “normal” emotions and facial features in the mirror over the years. And that has been productive.
Now, my little AllieCat is different. She invokes something new in me.
Something dark. Not love per se, but something far more…
intense. Obsession. I want to see how her brain works from the inside.
Draw out all that darkness I can feel swimming just beneath the surface.
To wrap my hands around those emotions she tries so hard to hide from the world.
Something inside of me wants to play with her, hurt her in ways only I can, and see just how far my AllieCat can bend before she breaks. It’s a sick sort of fascination, I will admit. But she’s just so goddamn pretty. And who doesn’t like pretty things?