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Chapter 1

There is nothing so cruel as silence

Silence has become the sound of my summer … and all the days before since I was found out at the end of my first semester at Hawthorne Academy I stole a life and paid for it dearly

Sadie White was everything I ever wanted—rich, powerful, loved—but it couldn’t last I could only hide behind the face of a dead girl for so long Teddy Price is nothing more than a charity case, a liar, a fraud

I’d grown comfortable with that life before I’d known it was irl with no future ahead of her But then that girl dared to dream … and like all dreams, eventually she had to wake

And the reality that came after was so much worse than before

My shift at the local o, but I haven’t been able to bring o back to the foster home This time the silence presses around , thankless shift getting yelled at by blue-haired old ladies co that every day should be senior discount day The only sounds are the buzz of a broken streetla on and off overhead, and the crinkle of the plastic wrapping on the pack of cigarettes in my hand

The door to the back of the theater opens and light spills out over e of the curb

“Jesus, Teddy … you scared me”

Rob’s shadow passes overof teek-old popcorn and even-older nacho cheese inside His shadow juht of a rat and he quickly shoos it away, much to the rat’s displeasure It lets us knoith a flurry of furious squeaks

“Careful, Rob,” I say “He’ll bite you next time”

“Shit” His voice is low “I think he just did”