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CHAPTER ONE

Ophelia

I pullspace outside the old aparthborhood is a far cry fro ets her heart ue indefinitely andat the office, I’m the only one home on a consistent basis, so I’m required to fetch it for her

Well, not required exactly

There rown on me

Not that I’ll ever admit it out loud

I was on etfulness, and Ito Queens, where Leeza has lived for decades in her srab the medication, drop it off at my family’s townhouse on the Upper West Side and atteh school a week ago and haven’t gotten a single ray of sunshine on my pale behind It’s time

Adjusting the strap of my bikini top, I climb out of the car and lock it behind o to enter the rustedand climb the filthy staircase to the second floor We pay Leeza a sh to live inshe doesn’t need anything fancy to be happy

I can’t help but think she’s on to so, since my parents have a billion dollars and I’ve never met two more miserable people

As for me…I don’t exactly know if I’m happy

I know I should be Right? I have everything an eighteen-year-old girl could want I’ to Princeton in the fall Just likea car that isn’t even for sale yet in the United States My future is secure

I’ in the opposite direction will pass

There is also the teeny tiny issue ofblacket about that

As if I could Part of the reason I’ to the beach today is so I won’t stare atTerrified to hear that snide voice that has been haunting

Making demands

Deterht be in jeopardy—unless I coner’s demands—I shake out the correct key to Leeza’s apartment door, insert it into the lock and turn I’ht for the row of pill bottles on her kitchen sill, I al in the leather easy chair by the

When I do notice his and I stu for breath “Oh my God,” I wheeze “Who are you?”

His face is shrouded in shadows until he leans his huge—and I ray eyes cut through the mid-afternoon haze Jesus, is that…Thor? God of Thunder? They could actually be twins Although this guy is definitely the bad twin The tattoos adorning his musclebound arms are a collection of skulls, death and mayhem

“You first,” he rasps, his long, inked-up fingers flexing where they rest on his knees