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PROLOGUE OCTOBER OF SENIOR YEAR

White headlights severed the darkness as Ariana Osgood veered frohway onto an

overgrown road near the outskirts of Easton, Connecticut She gripped the steering wheel with one hand and

adjusted the rearviewnervously into it Calm down, Ariana Just calm down

She hadn't been followed; she knew that No one had seen her slip away fros House in Josh Hollis's

Range Rover No one knew that she was retracing the route she'd taken just an hour ago with Noelle Lange,

Kiran Hayes, and Taylor Bell That she was co back for Thomas And no one knehy she needed to

find him Her secrets-their secrets-were safe Rocks and chunks of hardened earth popped underneath the

Range Rover's tires as she jerked the car off the road, cutting through the grassy field She leaned forward and

squinted into the blackness

He was somewhere out there She just had to find him, talk to him And once she did, he would understand

everything Understand that he asting his ti but a novelty

A terrible mistake Understand that he was ht

so limply from a pole Thomas "No!" She slammed on the brake pedal