Chapter 1
SHANNEN
You're Invited to the
South Lake High Ten-Year Reunion Masked Halloween Ball
Join us for a night of mystery, memories, and mayhem beneath the masks.
Date: October 31st
Venue: The Amberley Hotel
Time: 7:00 PM until late
Dress to impress.
Mask required.
Your past is waiting…
I stare at the invitation like it’s a death sentence written in gold lettering, and every ugly memory slams into me at once. The nights I cried until my throat was raw, curled up on my bedroom floor, begging whatever god might be listening to just let me vanish into nothing.
I can’t go back there.
Absolutely fucking not.
No.
Not a chance in hell.
But wouldn’t it feel good to shove every inch of what I’ve become down their throats and watch them choke on it?
That voice inside me, the one I keep locked in the dark…
well, she’s awake again, and she’s smiling.
She’s grinning like a sadistic bitch in heat, high on the promise of revenge.
She’d kill to walk into that ballroom and tower over those parasites who spent years making my life hell.
The ones who spat at me, laughed at me, and tore me down for their own amusement.
I wouldn’t exactly hate showing everyone that I’m not the girl who couldn’t afford clothes without holes anymore.
But then again, I’m supposed to be better than that. I’ve made something of myself—yeah, it’s under a new name, one I chose instead of inherited, but it’s mine.
I got out of Indiana as fast as I could. No goodbyes. No looking back at a life that brought me nothing but pain and misery. I bought a one-way ticket, took the scholarship in Seattle, and shoved what was left of my existence into two duffel bags.
I left for college without ever looking back.
It wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen overnight, but I built an empire from nothing, brick by bloody brick, fueled by rage and the unshakable need to prove I was more than what they tried to reduce me to.
Now, I run one of the most successful graphic and web design companies in the country.
My name opens doors, my brand builds digital worlds, and I’ve been thriving ever since.
My life is a luxury now. First-class flights that leave the world small beneath me.
A skyline view that stretches farther than the grimy trailer windows I used to press my forehead against. The sheets I sleep in are soft, the air smells like freedom, and there’s always a home waiting for me to return to.
I don’t take any of it for granted because I remember what it’s like to starve—not just for food, but for safety and kindness.
For someone to notice you exist, or to just care whether you come home at night, or if you vanished and became nothing more than a name no one bothered to say out loud.
The life I grew up with will never leave me. It clings to me like a stubborn asshole with boundary issues. It’s just learned how to dress better, walk in heels, and pretend it belongs in the room.
I used to sleep on floors so sticky with beer it stuck to my skin, surrounded by burned-out needles and the stench of stale smoke, while waiting for parents who never looked at me unless they were high enough to forget I was theirs or pissed off enough to remember to take their drug-fueled temper out on me.
Sometimes I was so scared that school felt like the only safe place I had—until even that was taken away from me.
There are a million reasons screaming at me not to go back.
Ava
Brandon
Cassie
Even that dickflap Greg, who couldn’t string a full sentence together unless it involved calling me a freak or asking if I’d washed that week.
I’m not the same girl I was when I left. But even with all the time and distance, and all the fucking therapy, there’s still one reason that makes my chest feel like it’s caving in every time I think about going home.
Phoenix Cassidy.
Best friend.
First love.
First heartbreak.
Worst enemy disguised as everything I ever wanted.
I hate him. I hate the sound of his name and the way he still appears in my dreams, uninvited yet never unwelcome enough for me to forget.
I think about that day behind the bleachers more often than I want to admit.
God, I was already breaking then. I’d been unraveling under the weight of every bad thing in my life, and I just needed to feel like he was there, even if it wasn’t real.
But then he actually showed up as if the ache in my chest had summoned him.
He found me, and for a moment, he looked at me like I was something he wanted, something he needed, and when he kissed me, I believed it.
I let myself fall into the lie and drown in the illusion that maybe I still mattered to him.
But just as quickly, he shattered everything.
He turned that moment into something cruel, and that was the last time I saw him.
I finished out the year holed up in that shitty trailer, counting down the days until I could disappear. My scholarship was my escape, and when I left, I never looked back.
Now I have enough money to feel secure for the first time in my life.
I’ve learned to hold my own in rooms where I used to feel invisible, and I’m finally the woman I always hoped I could become.
I built this life from the ashes of my old one and made damn sure no one would ever get close enough again to hurt me the way he did.
But after all this time, I still can’t get Phoenix out of my head.
I think about him more than I’ll ever admit.
I wonder where he is, if there’s a wife out there wearing his ring, if there are kids who walk around with his smile.
Of course there are.
Of course he’s given someone else the kind of care he once poured into me. The difference is, she gets to keep it.
After I drag myself out of bed and take a shower, the doorbell rings. I check the camera, and it’s the bane of my existence—otherwise known as the best friend I wish I’d had back in high school, when I actually needed someone in my corner.
You had a best friend. He fucked you over.
That intrusive bitch in my head never misses her cue.
Lianna breezes in like a storm in heels the second I open the door. “Good morning, you bad bitch. Here, hydrate before you traumatize a mirror.” She shoves my favorite coffee into my hand before I can even open my mouth to tell her to fuck right off.
“Thanks, that’s just what I needed to hear. Truly uplifting.”
She’s already stomping through my apartment like she owns the place, her designer purse tossed onto the kitchen island as she heads for the fridge. She pops it open, rifles through it, and grabs a bottle of water.
Her jet-black hair is pulled back into a sleek ponytail, looking like the poster girl for someone who’s got their life together.
However, she’s batshit crazy, impulsive, and emotionally unhinged, even on her best days.
She is, without question, the most irrational human being I’ve ever had the misfortune of loving like a sister.
“What are you doing here? I thought you had a date last night.”
“I did,” Lianna says, kicking off her heels and settling herself against the kitchen island.
“And?”
“He had pussy for breakfast, drooled all over my thighs, and then I sent him home before he got too clingy.”
“Wow.” I laugh, nearly choking on my coffee. “Are you seeing him again?”
“Undecided. He has a twin brother, though, so if I can convince them to tag-team me, maybe. If not… yeah, hard pass. Life’s too short not to fuck brothers at least once.” I open my mo uth, close it again, and just blink at her. “What about you? Did you go out with boring Brian last night?”
“Okay, he’s not boring. He’s just a little…”
“Dry as fuck? Missionary with the lights off?”
“Yeah, he’s a little vanilla.”
“That’s what happens when your entire personality is protein powder and gym selfies.”
“Okay, that’s fair… Seriously, he’s thirty-two. Why is he doing that?”
“Tiny dick energy.”
“Actually, no,” I admit, taking a long sip of coffee. “He’s packing, surprisingly. He just doesn’t know how to use it.”
Lianna wrinkles her nose. “Such a waste. I hate that for you.”
“But he’s nice,” I offer weakly, like that’s some kind of redemption.
She arches an eyebrow. “So is a supportive bra. Doesn’t mean I want it inside me.”
“For the record, I didn’t see him last night because he’s been ghosting me for the past few days.”
Lianna rolls her eyes and flicks her hand through the air. “Thank you, next. Move on, babe.” She perks up suddenly, her eyes lighting up. “We should take a trip. Seriously. Let’s fly to Italy for the weekend or something. The scenery there… ugh.” She fans herself, dramatic as ever.
“You need a doctor to check your ovaries because I swear you ovulate more than any woman I’ve ever met. It’s not normal.”
“I was talking about the architecture, if you must know! It’s a beautiful country.”
“Right… and the architecture just happens to have six-packs?”
“Listen, I’m a cultured bitch. I admire everything. Ruins, columns, cock. I’m nothing if not thorough.”
“I potentially have to go away for the weekend soon,” I say, thinking about the invitation burning a hole in my drawer beside a stack of letters that will never see the light of day.
“When?”
“Halloween.”
“Are you finally going to one of those masked men places where they pretend it’s all scary and dangerous, but really it’s just a bunch of hot men making women want to drop to their knees and say Choke me, Daddy ?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Lianna…” I can’t help but laugh. “No. It’s my high school reunion.”
“Absolutely the fuck not.”
“Yeah,” I say, exhaling slowly. “That was my first thought too.”
“Because of that asshole you told me about?”
“Yeah… but there's a part of me that wants to go.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re thinking about spending Halloween—the holiest of slut holidays—surrounded by people who used to make your life hell… for what, closure?”
“God, I don’t even know.”
She goes quiet for a second, which is rare enough to make me look up. Then her big green eyes flash, lighting up like a fucking firework.
“Okay, forget my gut reaction. I actually think you should go. Maybe the assclown won’t even show up. Maybe he died.”
My stomach bottoms out, and nausea slams into me.
The thought of Phoenix Cassidy being dead physically hurts, but if that were true, I think I’d feel it in my bones, in the hollow spaces between my ribs where he used to live.
Some things echo across continents and years. Some connections burn so deep they leave permanent scars on your soul. No matter how far I run or how much I rebuild myself, the ghost of Phoenix Cassidy would find a way to haunt me from six feet under.
“He’ll show. He was the fucking quarterback. Guys like that don’t miss a chance to jack themselves off over the good old days. His head-cheerleader wife is probably organizing the whole thing while their three Stepford sons are stashed with her parents.”
Because it wouldn’t be his parents, I know the things his dad did to him.
As two only children, we understood what it meant to grow up in houses that hurt more than they healed.
We knew the kind of loneliness that digs its claws into your soul when no one protects you—not even the people who are supposed to.
But I don’t let myself go there.
Not for him.
Phoenix doesn’t get my grief.
Lianna leans back, her smile smug. “Good, I hope he and his robot wife are both there. I hope she shows up in some sad-ass, pastel-matching outfit, and he’s still trying to squeeze into his old letterman jacket like his dick depends on it.
Then I hope they see you walk in, dressed to kill, and realize karma’s not a bitch, she’s a bombshell.
” She pauses, then looks me dead in the eye.
“I want that man to see you and be so fucking mad with himself for ever letting you go that it destroys him.”
“I’d have to go as Shannen Clarke,” I say quietly, like just saying the name gives it power.
“The girl with no friends. The freak they shoved down stairwells and had all her textbooks pissed on.” I shake my head, as if that’ll erase the memories tearing through me.
“Actually, what the fuck am I even saying? There’s no way I’m going. Why would I put myself through that?”
Phoenix. That’s why.
“Then go as who you are now, Shannen Mitchell. And fuck. Their. Shit. Up.”
The woman I am now barely resembles the Shannen Clarke I once was.
I changed my hair—going from blonde to red.
I’ve had a little work done, not because I wanted to be someone else but because I spent years being told I should hate every inch of myself.
Do I regret the boob job? Maybe, sometimes.
But mostly, I love how I look in my skin now. I finally feel like I belong to myself.
“Okay, but why is that so appealing?”
“Everyone wants revenge… or justice at least,” she says with a shrug, her gaze drifting to her lilac nails.
There’s only one person I want to make pay, and that’s the boy who broke me.
Everyone else can rot in their bland little lives.
It’s enough for me to know what I’ve become and how far I’ve climbed.
But Phoenix… well, there’s a special place in hell with his name on it, and if I had the chance, I’d hand-deliver him there myself by the throat, in heels, smiling the whole damn way.
“Is it a costume party?”
“Yeah.”
“Even better. Mask up and make every single one of them regret ever fucking with you.”