Chapter One

Chapter One

Three Years Ago

There's a special alchemy to a good party. A rhythm. A building and cresting wave. Whatever metaphor gets you going. The air smells like possibilities, or maybe it's just cheap booze and Axe body spray. But tonight could be the start of something. Or the end. You can be a new person, or the worst version of your best self.

A girl steps over the threshold of a Malibu mansion, chilly ocean bluster pushing at her back like a firm hand. She's reverent, eyes closed as she breathes it in. A shiver shimmies up her back. Tonight's the night.

She's a freshman cliché, cheeks holding on to the remnants of baby fat, the still-soft features shellacked with makeup. The blush is heavy-handed; the eyes are smudged panda black, lips a shade of red too adult for her fifteen-year-old pout. Most garish of all is the hope glittering like the highlighter on her cheekbones, forehead, and nose, so much of it you could choke. The misguided belief that tonight she'll find her social place, set herself up for high school success. She's after it all: the right friends, the best grades, a smooth runway to a bright, shining future. She'll prove it to them all.

Tonight will set her down a path with a bloody end.

But that's a later problem. Right now? She's golden.