Chapter 2

I spent seven years behind bars.

Sometimes, when the photograph wasn't near me, the fog in my head would thin.

I'd wake in the middle of the night, sick over what I'd said about Hazel. I'd told my parents she'd brought it on herself. The memory would leave me bent over my bunk, retching. Then all I had to do was picture Tessa's smile, and pity would seep back into me. Taking the blame for her would feel right again.

The two thoughts tore at each other until I could no longer tell which one was mine.

My mother came to see me once during my first year.

She didn't bother sitting down. She tossed the cremation certificate on the table.

"You had no right to attend your sister's burial."

"Mom."

She started crying, but no sound came out.

"When you had a fever as a boy, Hazel stayed up with you all night. She fell asleep clutching a cup of hot water, her hands red from the heat. She loved you so much. How could you say she had it coming?"

I opened my mouth, but I had no answer.

The glass door shut quietly behind her.

She didn't look back. I didn't call after her.

My father collapsed during my second year.

Damian Ward sent me a letter. Dad's heart had given out, and after he was hospitalized, one infection followed another. That same month, everything began to fall apart. The company lost three major contracts. A warehouse burned down. Our accounts were frozen.

Damian ended the letter with two sentences.

"Dad says he doesn't want to see you. Mom says it would be best if you died in there."

I tucked the letter under my pillow.

My cellmate laughed and said there'd be no home waiting for me when I got out.

He didn't know the Wards. Home was the one thing we could always count on.

No matter how busy my father was, he always came home for dinner. My mother made sure we spent every holiday together. Whenever Hazel found something she liked, she saved some for the rest of us.

One confession destroyed all of it.

By my third year, my mother had fallen ill too.

She couldn't eat. She couldn't sleep. The family had to sell two properties to keep things afloat, and my father's hair seemed to turn white overnight.

That was when Tessa showed up.

And Damian was with her.

He was wearing my black suit and the watch my father had given me. An E was engraved on the back, though Damian probably hadn't even noticed.

Tessa linked her arm through his and flashed a diamond ring.

"Elliot, we're engaged."

Damian couldn't look at me.

"Since Mom and Dad got sick, the Shaws have been helping us. Tessa can't wait seven years for you."

My blood ran cold.

"Do you know she's the one who killed Hazel?"

Tessa didn't bother denying it. She simply pressed the family photo against the glass.

There she was in the center, smiling as brightly as ever.

The instant I saw her face, my anger went out as if someone had pinched out a flame.

A thought that did not feel like mine settled over me: I was in prison. Tessa needed someone. Damian was my brother. If she couldn't wait for me, then giving her to him was the loving thing to do.

"I hope you'll be very happy."

Cold sweat broke across my skin the moment I heard the words leave my mouth.

Tessa stared at me.

"Elliot, you still do exactly as you're told."

By the fourth year, my family was falling apart.

My father had barely made it out of intensive care when the company lost what little working capital it had left. My mother fell down the stairs while picking up a prescription and broke her leg. That winter, even the magnolia trees that had stood outside our old house for decades died.

But while everything went wrong for us, everything went right for Damian.

A school that had rejected him suddenly admitted him off its waitlist. A business he'd almost ruined found an investor out of nowhere. The Shaws began taking him everywhere and introducing him to all the right people.

I began keeping track. Year after year, I wrote down every disaster that struck us and every stroke of luck that found Damian. None of it made sense.

Then I came across an old magazine in the prison library.

One of the photographs showed a family lined up for the camera. At the far edge stood a strange, blurry shape with no face.

I stared at the blur.

Something about it bothered me.

It looked disturbingly like the shape hidden in Tessa's family photo.

The next day, I faked a stomachache and went straight to the infirmary. I handed the magazine page to the old doctor.

He studied it in silence, then got up and locked the door.

For a long time, he said nothing. Finally, he looked at me.

"Elliot, have you ever heard of a life-transfer ritual?"