Prologue
I hate my left hand. I hate to look at it. I hate it when it stutters and trembles and reminds me that my identity is gone. But I look at it anyway; because it also reminds me that I’m going to find the boy who took everything from me. I’m going to kill the boy who killed me, and when I kill him, I’m going to do it with my left hand.
CHAPTER 1
Nastya
Dying really isn’t so bad after you’ve done it once.
And I have.
I’m not afraid of death anymore.
I’m afraid of everything else.
***
August in Florida means three things: heat, oppressive humidity, and school. School. I haven’t been to school in over two years. Not unless you count sitting at the kitchen table being home-schooled by your mom, and I don’t. It’s Friday. My senior year starts on Monday, but I haven’t registered. If I don’t go in today, I won’t have a schedule on Monday morning, and I’ll have to wait at the office for one. I think I’d rather skip the bad 80’s movie scene where I walk in late on the first day and everybody has to stop what they’re doing to stare at me, because while that wouldn’t be the worst thing that would ever happen to me, it would still suck.
My aunt pulls into the parking lot of Mill Creek Community High School with me in tow. It’s a cookie cutter high school. Except for the putrid color of the walls and the name on the sign, it’s an exact replica of the last one I attended. Margot—she made me drop the aunt part because it makes her feel old—turns down the radio she’s been blaring the entire way here. Thankfully it’s a short ride, because loud sounds make me edgy. It’s not the sound itself that bothers me; it’s just the fact that it’s loud. The loud sounds make it impossible to hear the soft ones and the soft sounds are the ones you have to be afraid of. I can handle it now because we’re in a car, and I usually feel safe in cars. Outside is a different story. I never feel safe outside.
“Your mother expects a phone call when we’re done here,” Margot tells me. My mother expects a lot of things she’s never going to get. In the scheme of things, a phone call is not much to ask, but that doesn’t mean she’ll get one. “You could at least text her. Four words. Registered. All is well. If you’re feeling really generous, you could even throw one of those little happy faces on the end.”
I look sideways at her from the passenger seat. Margot is my mother’s younger sister by a good ten years. She is the opposite of my mother in almost every way. She doesn’t even look like her which means that she doesn’t look like me, either, because I am a carbon copy of my mother. Margot is dirty blond with blue eyes and a perpetual tan that she easily maintains by working nights and napping by the pool during the day; even though she’s a nurse and she should know better. I have pale white skin, dark brown eyes, and long, wavy, just-this-side-of-black hair. She looks like she belongs in a Coppertone ad. I look like I belong in a coffin. People would have to be stupid to believe we’re related, even if it is one of the only things about me that’s true.
She’s still got that cocky smile on her face, knowing that even if she hasn’t convinced me to placate my mother, then at least she’s planted a little guilt. It’s impossible to dislike Margot, even when you really, really try, which makes me hate her a little, because I’ll never be one of those people. She took me in, not because I don’t have anywhere else to go, but because I don’t have anywhere else I can stand to be. Luckily for her, she really only has to see me in passing, because once school starts, we’ll rarely ever be home at the same time. Even so, I doubt taking in a sullen, bitter, teenage girl with more issues than National Geographic is at the center of the vision board for a single woman in her early thirties. I wouldn’t do it, but then I’m not a very good person. Maybe that’s why I ran like hell from the people who love me the most. If I could be alone, I would. Gratefully. I’d rather be alone than have to pretend I’m okay. But they won’t give me that option. So I’ll settle for being with someone who at least doesn’t love me as much. I’m thankful for Margot. Not that I tell her this. Not that I tell her anything. I don’t.
When I walk in, the main office is a mass of commotion. Phones ringing, copiers running, voices everywhere. There are three lines leading up to the front counter. I don’t know which one to get into so I pick the one closest to the door and hope for the best. Margot sweeps in behind me and immediately pulls me around the side, past all of the lines, and up to the receptionist. She’s lucky I saw her coming, or the second her hand was on my arm, she would have found herself face down on the ground with my knee in her back.
“We have an appointment with Mr. Armour, the principal,” she says authoritatively. Margot, the responsible adult. She’s playing my mom’s part today. This is a side of her I don’t usually see. She prefers the cool aunt role. She doesn’t have any kids of her own, so this is a little out of her depth. I didn’t even realize we had an appointment, but I see the sense in it now. The receptionist, a fiftyish, unpleasant-looking woman, motions us to a couple of chairs next to a closed, dark wood door.
We only have to wait a few minutes and no one notices or acknowledges me at all. The anonymity is nice. I wonder how long it will last. I look down at myself. I didn’t get decked out for the visit today. I expected to come in, fill out some paperwork, hand over some immunization records and be done with it. I wasn’t expecting the swarms of students crowding the office. I’m wearing jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt, both a little – ok, a lot – tighter than they need to be, but otherwise completely non-descript. The shoes are where I made the effort. Black stilettos. Four-and-a-half inches of insanity. I’m not using them so much for the height, even though I seriously need it, as for the effect. I wouldn’t have bothered with them today, except I needed the practice. My balance on them has gotten better, but I figured a dress rehearsal wouldn’t hurt. I’d prefer to avoid eating ass on my first day of school.
I look at the clock on the wall. The second hand is bouncing back and forth inside my head, even though I know I can’t possibly hear the ticking over everything else going on. I wish I could tune out the noise in this room. It’s disconcerting. There are too many sounds at once and my brain is trying to separate them, to sort them out into neat little piles, but it’s almost impossible with all of the machines and voices melting together. I open and close my hand in my lap and hope we get called in soon.