**CHAPTER 2: THE ACCIDENT

Aurora Veyl 💜 

The coastal highway stretched ahead of us under a sky that still looked mostly friendly. Dad had the radio on low, some soft rock station that made Mom hum under her breath. Ethan sat beside me in the back, already halfway through a bag of chips he wasn’t supposed to open until we got to Aunt Maren’s.

“You’re going to ruin your appetite,” Mom said without turning around.

“I’m building endurance,” Ethan replied. “Uncle’s promotion dinner is going to be a marathon of talking.”

I snorted. “You’re just scared she’ll ask about your grades again.”

“She asks everyone about their grades. It’s her love language.”

Dad glanced at us in the rear-view mirror, smiling. “Be nice. She went to a lot of trouble. We’re celebrating.”

I leaned my head against the window. Last night’s movie still lingered in the back of my mind—the hybrid villainess standing in the rain, furious and alone. I had gone to sleep still shaking my head at her. Now we were on our way to a family dinner, and the only drama I expected was Aunt Maren trying to set me up with another “nice young man from church.”

The rain started as a light drizzle. Within minutes it thickened into sheets that blurred the road. Dad slowed the car, wipers fighting a losing battle. Visibility dropped fast.

“Maybe we should pull over,” Mom said.

“We’re almost past the worst of it—”

Headlights cut through the rain too close, too fast. Another vehicle swerved hard into our lane. Dad yanked the wheel. Tyres screamed against wet asphalt. The world tilted.

Metal crumpled. Glass exploded inward in glittering shards. My seat belt locked across my chest hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Ethan’s voice cried out. Mom screamed. The car spun, flipped once, the night sky and rain-slick road trading places in a violent blur.

Everything stopped with a sickening final crunch.

Pain pulsed through me in distant waves. I tried to move, to call out. My body felt heavy, disconnected. Somewhere nearby voices reached me—frantic, overlapping, calling names I knew.

“Mom? Dad? Ethan?”

I couldn’t tell who was answering. Rain leaked through the shattered windshield. The scent of metal and wet earth filled my nose. I forced my eyes open a fraction and tried to reach toward the front seats, toward my brother. My arms wouldn’t obey.

*Please be okay. Please all of you be okay.*

The voices faded. Darkness pressed in at the edges of my vision. My body grew colder. Heavier. The last thing I felt was the desperate wish that everyone I loved would wake up tomorrow.

Then I was falling.

Endless black swallowed me. Fragmented images flashed without order: a towering castle of black stone beneath a blood-red moon; unfamiliar symbols carved into ancient doors; the distant, mournful howl of a wolf against a stormy sky. A voice—soft, cold, neither male nor female—whispered my name once, then vanished into the dark.

When awareness returned, it came in pieces.

Soft fabric against my skin. The low crackle of a fire. Air that smelled of night-blooming flowers and something faintly metallic. My eyes fluttered open. High carved ceilings. Velvet curtains the colour of deep wine. An unfamiliar room that belonged to another century entirely.

I sat up too quickly. Dizziness hit hard. The bed beneath me was massive, piled with silk sheets and embroidered pillows. Everything screamed wealth I had never owned.

Something was wrong. My body felt different—lighter in some places, heavier in others. The hands resting on the covers were not quite the ones I remembered.

A soft voice spoke near the door. “Lady Aurora. You’re awake.”

I turned. A young woman in a neat dark dress stood just inside the room, hands clasped tightly in front of her. She looked relieved and slightly terrified at the same time.

“Lady… Aurora?” I repeated. My own voice sounded wrong in my ears.

She stepped closer carefully. “You’ve been unconscious for two days. The healers said you needed rest after the incident at the academy gates. Your family has been informed, but they expect you to return to classes soon.”

Academy. Family. None of it matched the rain and the screaming metal still echoing in my head.

“Where are my parents?” I asked. “My brother? We were in a car. There was an accident—”

The woman’s expression flickered with confusion. “My lady, you arrived alone. There was no accident reported on the coastal roads. You collapsed near the eastern entrance of Nightshade Academy. The headmistress ordered you brought to your private rooms to recover.”

Nightshade Academy. The name settled over me like cold water. Vampires. Werewolves. Influential supernatural families. The elite school from the movie I had watched only last night.

I stared at her. “This isn’t a hospital.”

“Of course not, my lady. You’re home. In your wing of the family estate nearest the academy grounds. Once you’re stronger, you’ll resume your schedule. The semester waits for no one, even a Veyl.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. I pushed the covers aside and stood on unsteady legs. Across the room stood an ornate mirror framed in dark wood, tall enough to reflect a person from head to toe.

I walked toward it on legs that didn’t feel entirely mine.

The face looking back was beautiful in a sharp, cold way—high cheekbones, pale skin, eyes the colour of winter ice, dark hair falling in perfect waves past her shoulders. It was not my face.

Recognition hit like a second collision.

I had watched this face for two hours the night before. I had criticised her, mocked her, told my entire family she needed therapy and self-respect. I had watched her stand in the rain, furious and alone, and I had muttered that she was better than the story she was given.

The woman in the mirror was Aurora Veyl.

The hybrid villainess.

I lifted a trembling hand to my cheek. The reflection did the same.

The face staring back at me was not the one I remembered.

And somewhere deep in my chest, a single terrifying truth began to form: I was no longer in my own body, and the story I had watched was no longer just a movie.