I keep trying, but I’m not good enough.
We always had lessons at the same time.
Sarah and Erin—the pianist twins.
I was never as good as she was, no matter how hard I tried. She was a natural, getting everything right the first time, but me? I had to work twice as hard. I never understood why we both had to play.
“I’m doing my best,” I say through chattering teeth. “I really am. Please, Dad. I’ll never be as good as her.”
“You will!” He bangs his fist on top of the piano. “Practice makes perfect.”
“I’ll never be perfect,” I say. “I’m not?—”
He hauls me across the room again and plunges my head into the icy water.
“Enough, Erin!”
An earthquake rips through my brain, making it throb.
This isn’t right…
This isn’t me.
Eli shaking me pulls me back to the present. “Wake up!”
“Something’s wrong,” I mutter. “Something’s wrong.”
Mom was right. I really am sick.
“We have to leave,” Lex says. “What if they find us here?”
“You two go,” Aiden says. “I’ll stay.”
“You can’t risk being seen,” Lex hisses. “It’s reckless.”
“What’s reckless is leaving her when we’re so close,” Aiden says. “I know the risks, and I make the fucking rules, remember?”
Eli hesitates. “But?—”
“Go!” Aiden roars. “Now!”
The two of them scurry out, not daring to argue after seeing his thunderous expression.
I look up at Aiden. “Am I going crazy?”
He removes his mask and kneels by my side, smiling sadly. He holds my chin and tips my face up. I stare into his gray eyes, steeped in mystery and torment. Eyes that suddenly feel so comforting.
“We’re all crazy,” he replies.
“But the things I keep seeing in my head…” My sentence trails off. I squeeze my eyes shut to erase the visions, but they don’t go. Not this time.
A few months ago, I was a star pupil at Stonybridge Academy. The most I had to worry about was a date to the Harvest Ball and college applications. Now, I’m unraveling. First, a simmering rage keeps rearing its ugly head. Now, visions that keep getting stronger the longer I’m in Sunnycrest. They feel real. Too real.
Aiden catches a tear as it slides down my cheek.
“What if I don’t want to remember, Aiden?” I murmur.
“You have no choice,” he says. “You need to come back to us. To finish what we started.”
