Chapter 3

Hate is a funny thing. It takes root quietly, spreading like a weed when you aren't paying attention.

I made it my mission to push back against Courtney. Whatever she wanted, I did the exact opposite.

She begged me to study, but I skipped class and started hanging out with the worst burnouts in the district.

She tried to enroll me in the prestigious prep school Carter had pulled strings to get me into.

I refused, purposely transferring to the school furthest from home, a place notorious for its rot.

I was trashing my life on purpose, a slow-motion suicide of my future, just to spite her.

And it worked. She was regretful.

She looked at me, wailing.

"I broke it off with Carter," she yelled. "I'm not seeing him anymore. Kaylee, please, I'm begging you. Stop doing this to yourself."

Seeing the raw tears spilling down her face made my chest ache so badly that I felt like I was suffocating.

The hormones of youth were a sharp edge constantly provoking the blood in my veins, but I kept it all locked inside. I met her gaze with a freezing indifference.

"You should go tell that to the plot of dirt where Dad's head is buried. Don't tell it to me."

With those words, I turned on my heel and walked out the front door, leaving her crumpled on the floor.

Honestly, the second the cold air hit my face, regret gnawed at my stomach. I made it half a block before I turned around to go back.

But as I reached for the doorknob, I heard her voice through the crack. She was on the phone, sobbing.

"Mom, please, don't force me to go through with this," she cried. "Kaylee already hates me. If I have this baby, she'll never forgive me."

Ashley's exhausted voice crackled through the speakerphone.

She spat, "Kaylee is already a lost cause. She's failing all her classes, she's smoking, and she's getting into fights.

"What kind of girl acts like that? Listen to me. Carter has never been married, and he dates you because of Wyatt Reed. Have you ever thought that maybe Wyatt's spirit sent him to take care of you?

"You cannot throw your life away for a delinquent teenager.

"You saw how Carter cried yesterday when he found out you were pregnant. Let the dead stay dead. We, the living, have to move on with our lives."

My hands shook violently. A fresh wave of rage and betrayal crashed over me.

I kicked the heavy oak door with my combat boot as hard as I could, spun around, and sprinted away.

I ran all night. The collar of my jacket was soaked with my own tears. It felt like my entire life was drowning.

After that night, I fully surrendered to the chaos.

I started running with the most degenerate kids in school.

We faked IDs, hit up dive bars, and sneaked into shady underground clubs.

We played all the twisted games. We didn't care if we made it to tomorrow.

Until one night, my supposed best friend, Sophie Cole, cornered me in a booth and slipped a tiny white pill into my palm.

"Kaylee, I'm only giving you this because you're my best friend," she whispered. "This stuff is premium. My cousin hooked me up. Just try it."

The frantic, seductive anticipation in her eyes felt like a slap to the face. It suddenly snapped me out of my self-destructive fog.

I was drunk, but as my eyes scanned the club, the reality of the room hit me.

All around me were kids my age with messy hair. They were barely dressed, grinding their teeth and thrashing on the dance floor like mindless zombies.

A sharp pain pierced my chest.

My mind flashed back to a memory I had buried deep.

When I was little, my dad was always buried in work, often not pulling into the driveway until the dead of night.

One night, I woke up to use the bathroom and found him sitting all alone on the sofa in the dark. He was weeping in total silence, smoking a cigarette.

"Dad?" I had whispered.

He jumped, quickly wiping his eyes and crushing the cigarette into an ashtray. "Hey, sweetie. Why aren't you in bed?"

I didn't answer. My eyes were glued to the open manila folder on the table.

There were two crime scene photos.

In the first shot, a gorgeous girl lay sprawled on the floor of a derelict rental room. Foam stained her mouth, and her eyes were wide open.

Another was of a man with full-sleeve tattoos, and his eyes were blown wide in a permanent stare of shock. A gaping blood-hole tore through his chest.

I pointed at them and asked, "Who are those people in the pictures?"

The eyes my father had just managed to wipe dry surged with bloodshot fury once again.

He swallowed hard before he spoke.

"They're heroes, Kaylee," he said softly. "The kind of heroes nobody ever gets to know about."

Back then, I didn't understand how a hero could be a secret until my dad died. Carter called him a hero, too.

Nobody knew why my father was truly a hero. They didn't know that when he died, there was nothing left of him but his head.

To the rest of the world, he was just some unlucky cop who died on a routine call.

The memory made my heart physically ache.

I looked at Sophie, forced a bright smile, and took the pill.

"Seriously? You're the best, Sophie," I chirped, pretending to toss it into my mouth.

After that, I immediately made an excuse to hit the bathroom.

Once I was locked in a stall, I pulled the pill from under my tongue, snapped a picture, and sent it to Carter.

[Is this some kind of drug?]