Chapter 2

My hands shook as I flipped through the pages. Every line pounded into my mind.

[March 12. Lucas took me up to the mountain to admire the stars. He said the wind was cold up there, but he'd always hold me close. He told me that I was the one and only Ms. Right to him.]

[May 20. He gave me the full set of those rare dresses Umbra had been longing for. Seeing her disappointed face, I felt a pang of guilt, but Lucas said only the best was worthy of someone as perfect as me.]

The diary slipped from my hands. All those moments I thought were unique and all those things he'd done that moved me to tears were rehearsed acts he'd played out with Soleil. Even the lines were the same.

I wasn't his Ms. Right. I was a second-rate substitute he clung to after the real Ms. Right was gone.

A sharp spasm twisted in my stomach, and I hunched over, dry-heaving until tears streamed down my face. Shaking, I kept flipping through the pages. The entries grew messier, the handwriting going from neat and delicate to frantic and terrified.

The last page was torn in several places, as if the person writing it was on the verge of a complete breakdown.

[Lucas' love was terrifying. He didn't love me; he was shaping me. Lately, the way he looked at me felt more and more like I was some object.

[He said he wanted to turn me into the most beautiful butterfly specimen, to keep me in his display case forever. I had to escape tonight.]

The diary ended abruptly. And early the next morning, Soleil was in a car accident while trying to get away.

I didn't sleep a wink that night.

Soleil's dying words haunted me like a curse. Those phrases, like the butterfly specimen and display case, dripped with a disgusting sense of blood and horror.

I couldn't wait for disaster to strike. I had this overwhelming hunch that the truth behind everything was hidden in Lucas' hillside villa, the one he'd never let me enter.

*****

At two in the morning, I used the spare key I'd secretly made, slipped past the security guards, and sneaked into Lucas' private place.

The whole villa was terrifyingly silent. The ticking from the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway stabbed at my nerves.

I remembered Soleil had written in her diary about a basement that was strictly off-limits to outsiders. Its entrance was hidden behind the massive wooden wine cabinet in Lucas' study.

My palms were slick with sweat, barely able to grip the flashlight. I shoved the heavy wine cabinet aside, exposing a door that gleamed with icy metal, fitted with a high-tech electronic lock.

Holding my breath, I shakily punched in Soleil's birthday.

The warning light indicated the wrong code.

Jaw clenched, I typed in Lucas' birthday.

But it was another error. The beep sounded especially harsh in the dead of night.

Sweat broke out across my forehead, and that sting of shame surged up again. Was the password also about her? Driven by some strange impulse, I entered my own birthday.

The heavy iron door slowly slid open to the sides. I stood frozen. Why did he use my birthday as the password? Was this supposed to be "love"? Or was I another item he was cataloging for his collection?

A wave of air thick with chemicals, reeking of formaldehyde and a musty stench, hit me as the door opened.

I nearly vomited and clamped a hand over my mouth and nose. The beam of my flashlight trembled as I peered into the darkness.

It was a massive, circular underground chamber. The lighting was dim and pale, like a private underground museum.

In the center of the room, several huge cylindrical glass containers stood in neat rows. Each was filled with clear liquid, and inside, strips were suspended.

I held my breath, inching forward step by step. When the flashlight finally landed on the first container, my scream froze before it could escape.

Suspended in the liquid was a face, one that was identical to mine and to Soleil's.