Chapter 1

My stepsister, Lily Turner, had barely set foot back in the house before she told us she could see the comments.

She was crying when she told our three brothers and Samuel, the boy I had grown up beside, that the comments were talking about me.

What they said, she swore, was that I suffered from persecutory delusions, and that on the night of her eighteenth birthday, my sickness would crest and I would close my hands around her throat and kill her.

The doctor said she had only suffered a shock and that the hallucinations had come out of it.

My oldest brother, Julian Turner, signed the committal papers anyway. My second brother, Marcus Turner, made the calls to the psychiatric hospital.

My third brother, Ethan Turner, and Samuel who carried me through its doors while I sobbed and begged anyone at all to help me.

Julian said, "Just give us one year. Once Lily gets through her birthday safe, we'll come bring you home."

Inside that place, they forced the pills down my throat.

Every time I denied that anything was wrong with me, the answer was another round of shock therapy.

What broke first was my ability to tell the truth from the answer that made the pain stop. By the end, the sound of Lily's name was enough to send me to my knees, confessing.

Every time the day came to bring me home, Lily would cry and say the comments were still there.

That was how one year stretched into three.

After three years, Lily finally said the comments had disappeared.

My three brothers and Samuel came for me only then.

Julian's eyes were red when he said, "We knew you weren't sick. But Lily's life wasn't something we could gamble with."

Marcus reached over and smoothed my hair. He said, "The pills only slowed you down. Stop taking them and it all comes back."

Ethan's voice cracked as he tried to soothe me. He said, "You've always been the reasonable one. You carried a little hardship for your sister. You won't hold it against us, will you?"

Samuel held his hand out to me. He said, "She's safe now. It's time we got married."

But the single word home was all it took. I dropped straight to my knees and pulled my hands behind my back.

I said, "I confess. I'm the one who wanted to kill Lily. Please, don't shock me again."

All three of my brothers went red around the eyes in the same instant. Samuel's outstretched hand froze in the air, and the color drained clean out of his face.

*****

They all believed three years of shock therapy had broken me for good.

But when I lifted my head, a line of comments drifted past my eyes, and only I could see them.

[Life Countdown: Seven Days.]

[When the countdown ends, the way back to the original world opens.]

Lily couldn't see the comments at all.

I was the one who could see them, and I didn't belong here either.

In seven more days, I would be going home.

Samuel sat beside me on the drive back.

He tried to take my hand more than once, but the moment his fingers touched mine, I put both hands behind my back and lowered my head, waiting for him to strap the restraints on.

Every treatment at the psychiatric hospital had started that way.

I wasn't allowed to struggle, or to argue, or to look the doctor in the eye, and if I did, they turned the current up.

Samuel looked at the layers of scars the straps had left on my wrists, and his eyes went red.

He said, "Never again. Nobody is going to lock you up anymore, and nobody is going to hurt you."

He had said the same thing three years ago, but he was the one who had held me down in the van that took me there.

The car stopped in front of Turner Manor.

Julian said they had remodeled the first floor for my homecoming.

But when the door opened, I wasn't looking at a bedroom. I was looking at a home observation room.

It had a clear isolation door, cameras that ran twenty-four hours a day, and a lock that only opened from the outside.

A narrow slot for meal trays had been cut into the wall, and inside there was no mirror, pane of glass, or anything sharp.

It was identical to the room I had lived in for three years at the psychiatric hospital.

Julian followed my gaze and explained quietly, "Lily only just confirmed the comments are gone. We can't pull all the safety measures at once. Once the two of you have settled in, we'll take it out."

My old bedroom had become Lily's closet, and her dresses hung across every rack. Her unopened presents sat stacked on the piano my mother left me.

Ethan lowered his voice. "Lily's had nightmares for three years now. She only falls asleep in your room, where she can see for herself that you're not in it. She's used to it by now. Just let her have it a while longer."

At the welcome dinner that night, Samuel had meant for me to sit at the table with everyone else. I took my seat, but I didn't pick up my fork.

At the hospital, no one ate until the bell rang.

Anyone who reached for a tray early was marked down as fighting over food.

Marcus lifted a piece of fish onto my plate. "Ashley, this used to be your favorite. You're home now, so don't wait on anyone. Eat when you want."

I stared at the fish, and I had barely picked up my fork when footsteps came down the stairs.

Lily appeared, and the moment she saw me, the color drained out of her face.

"The comments..." She pressed a hand over her chest, and her voice shook. "The comments said Ashley'd poison the soup."

The dining room went silent.

Every dish that day had been prepared by the staff, and I hadn't gone near the kitchen once since I came home.

Julian knew the accusation was impossible, but he set down his fork anyway. "I'm not gambling with Lily's life."

Marcus cleared away my plate and my silverware, then went through my pockets, slow and thorough. "Standard procedure. Cooperate with me."

Ethan crouched down beside my chair with his eyes rimmed red. "Lily's only starting to get better. Listen to us one more time, okay?"

In the end, it was Samuel who took my arm and walked me into the observation room.

When we were kids, a group of classmates locked me in a storage closet, and he was the one who broke the door open and carried me out after I had cried myself weak.

Back then, he told me, "As long as I'm here, nobody is ever locking you up alone again."

Now he shut the clear isolation door with his own hands, and he even leaned down to check the lock twice.

"It's only a few days. Once Lily stops being afraid, I'll let you out."

Through the glass, I watched them settle back in around the dining table.

Lily took the seat that used to be mine.

My three brothers closed in around her and told her there was nothing to be scared of, and Samuel softly patted her back.

Lily's eyes were red when she had one of the maids pass my dinner through the meal slot in the door. "As long as it's only a door between us, Ashley still gets to have the family dinner with us."

They all praised her for how kind she was.

The lights in the observation room went out, and the dark closed over everything.

I pulled my knees up and stayed quiet in the corner, and the comments surfaced in front of me again: [Life Countdown: Six Days.]

It was the first time being locked in a room hadn't frightened me.

It didn't matter anymore, because this time I wouldn't have to wait for Samuel to come open the door.