Prologue
Ellis
No one survives the pass on Devil’s Bluff.
It’s one of the first things I learned after arriving at Black Mountain Academy.
A flat plateau that overlooks a scenic view of the lake, the bluff hovers below a rocky outcropping that rises up amid skinny pines and foliage known as the Devil’s Tooth.
It’s as terrifying as it sounds.
A breathtaking, chilling landscape so vastly different than the flat and unexciting terrain below. Farther out, an orange glow emits from a peak tucked behind tall trees and wiry, coarse green wilds.
That’s where lovers meet. Fires stoked to keep bodies warm while intertwined as they create their own heated friction.
You have to climb an unsteady, rock-strewn path off the main trail to reach the pass. Hike through boulder debris. Wind a path up the side of the mountain. It’s a treacherous venture to reach the top of Devil’s Tooth.
My toes curl over the sharp ridge of rock. Tiny fragments break loose and tumble down the ravine. Blackness so absolute surrounds me, the sky absent of light, as if I’m standing on the edge of the world.
I used to believe in angels.
Now it’s the devils I know are real.
With their ethereal, pale-blue eyes, and whispered professions of love, their trickery. They are devious creatures, the boys of my youth.
You know the stories: good boy is seduced by sexy girl. Good boy cheats on good girl, his girlfriend, the girl-next-door type. Sexy girl becomes too attached and she torments good boy. She’s the villain of the story, by the way.
Oh, but good boy learns his lesson.
Back with good girl he goes to run off into the sunset, leaving the villain to suffer for her crimes.
Bullshit.
How come the cheating prick gets off so easily?
There’s a moment in life when you make a decision, a choice, for who you’re going to be.
Good—or the villain?
My choice led me to the edge of this cliff.
I thought I was brave as I took life by the reins on a new path. Brand new career. Brand new school. Brand new life.
Brand new boy.
I became Ellis Montgomery, and Ellis vowed to be an angel. I was meant to save him, protect him. Love him.
A fiery ache builds in my chest cavity, like I’ve swallowed acid. The physical pain registers only slightly above the psychological anguish that burns my soul. Hell fire for the damned.
Everyone is responsible for their own choices. And as I’ve answered for mine, she has to answer for hers.
“It’s time.”
My voice echoes back at me against the stone. The cavernous basin below swallows my cry.
I grip the hilt of the knife, my hand shaking.
The truth belongs to whomever tells the story first. Their version of it. Someone else always knows the story. No matter how hard you wish it, nothing is ever secret. If you want your truth to be known, make sure you’re the first to tell the story.
I know the truth of what happened. I know our truth.
Carter Hensley fell for me. We fell for each other. Everything was beautiful…until it wasn’t.
Here’s the sad reality: I am a trope. I’m the tired cliché. I am the scorned lover, used, tossed aside and forgotten like a bad penny. There are books and movies that describe my place in all this, and that girl is always depicted as the crazy one. Obsessive. Psychotic.
But no one ever gets to hear her side of the story.
Maybe she wouldn’t be labeled so harshly otherwise.
I look down into the darkness of the ravine. From here, with the night and the silence and no judgement, the fall doesn’t feel that far.
He’ll choose me this time.
But the maddening voice inside my head won’t cease: it’s her. Her. Her. Her.
Her with the cinnamon hair, and perky, innocent smile. The good girl. The fucking saint.
I can never be her.
I’m the other girl.
Induction
Ellis
Einstein had once believed the universe was static. One of the greatest minds to ever exist in our world believed that space had reached its limit—that gravity, with the help of his cosmological constant, held the universe back from expanding.
Everything in existence was in existence.
Think about that for a moment.
How does it make you feel?
To know that you have a grasp on the universe, that it’s far-reaching, yes, but tranquil, serene, the cosmos floating in the heavens, just waiting for us to explore.
One issue with this theory, however—not to knock the great mind of our time—was his own deduction of gravity.
If gravity was the proverbial Stop sign for creation, then the force of the universe’s own gravitational pull would cause it to collapse. The universe would reverse and implode in on itself in one giant crunch.
It’s more than self-serving to envision our universe as static; it’s comforting.
The truth is far more complicated. And violent.
See, there is nothing static about the universe. It’s not just expanding, it’s expanding exponentially, at a more accelerated rate than ever before. Every minute, second, creation is taking place—the result of a violent explosion that is forever rippling outward.
More so, this acceleration may eventually overcome the fibers that hold the universe together and tear all matter apart.
Think about that for a moment.
How does it make you feel?
Like you’ve suddenly lost balance and gravity doesn’t exist? Like you’re flying through the cosmos at supersonic speed and there’s no end?
I know. I’ve felt that way before. It’s frightening to learn how insignificant and fragile we are—that nothing is in our control.
Einstein eventually adopted the model of an expanding universe, but he couldn’t explain it. Even decades later, the phenomena still had no clarification. Eventually, astrophysicists would learn there was some mysterious anti-gravity force—much like Einstein’s cosmological constant—that was causing this frantic expansion.
Dark energy.
This unknown force makes up the majority of our universe. Yet, how can you believe in a thing that you can’t feel, touch, or see?
How can something that can’t be observed be so powerful as to dominate and change the course of a whole universe?
I believe, even though some would vehemently disagree, that what these men of science were preaching was faith. The ultimate scientific conundrum and hypocrisy.
“Welcome to your enlightenment.”
The boy sitting across from me in his red-and-black academy uniform blinks. “It’s just college.”
I roll my shoulders back and lace my fingers together on my desk. I may have gotten carried away with my choose your path metaphor. “Yes, well, the point is, you have options, Mr. Thomas. You don’t have to settle for a state college…if you can bring up your grades.”
“Sure. That sounds great.” He peeks down at his lap, where he not-so-discretely slips his phone from his pocket and proceeds to check a notification.
“What I’m saying is, this is in your control—”
“Listen, my parents already have this figured out,” he interrupts.
I press my lips together. “Right. Of course.”
He’s seventeen years old. Nearly an “adult” by society’s standards. His eyes have that glazed-over, foggy look, as if he’s the epitome of boredom. He’s heard my type of lecture before. Maybe not to the extent that I took it—but he’s biding his time until I set him free.