Chapter 1
My best friend and I got assigned strategy missions at the exact same time.
She was supposed to take down the crown prince of a gilded empire and drain his family fortune dry.
I was supposed to take down a cold, untouchable heir and drain his body dry.
The problem was, her target was too rich. No matter how hard she tried, his wealth never ran out.
And mine was too cold. I spent three whole years trying to warm him up, and his heart still wouldn’t thaw.
I was exhausted.
So was she.
One night, I said, “I’m done. I want to quit.”
She looked at me and said, “If you quit, I quit.”
That was all it took.
We reached for our banking apps at the same time, checked our balances, and decided to grab the money and run.
But before we did, there was one problem left to solve.
Between the two of us, who would die first?
Whoever died first could go home first.
Whoever died second would have to handle the first one’s funeral arrangements and clean up the mess before leaving too.
We stared at each other.
My best friend, Serena, answered first.
“I suffered way worse than you,” she said. “I should die first.”
“No way,” I said. “Let’s flip a coin.”
“This hellhole has me on my last nerve. Fine. Coin toss.”
She dug a coin out of her bag right away and set the rules.
Heads, she would go first.
Tails, I would.
The coin spun through the air, flashed once under the light, then dropped onto the table with a sharp little ring.
Heads.
Serena won.
For the next two days, I didn’t contact her.
Part of me was curious how exactly she planned to end things.
By the weekend, I finally decided to call her.
Before I could, my phone rang.
It was her.
“Candy…” Serena’s voice came through slurred and thick. There was static on the line, and beneath it, the roar of wind.
My heart dropped.
“You’ve been drinking?”
“Yeah.” She gave a little drunken laugh. “Needed courage for the big event.”
I bolted upright in bed.
“What event? It’s not time yet. We still have a week.”
Seven days.
That had been our plan.
She would go first, I would handle the aftermath, and then I would follow.
But Serena only laughed again, softer this time.
“I can’t wait that long. Tonight feels right. Good weather. Good timing. Good mood. I’m doing it tonight.”
Panic hit me so hard my hands went cold.
“No. Serena, stop. Where are you?”
She kept talking over me, her words blurring into the wind.
“I wanted to hear Ethan’s voice one last time. Just once. We spent three years together. More than a thousand nights in the same bed. Of course I’m a little… sentimental.”
Her voice cracked.
“But he won’t answer me. He’s with that girl again. Three years, Candy. Three years. Even a rock should have warmed up by then. But he still hates me.”
I was already throwing on clothes, running for the door.
“He doesn’t even have time for one call. Not even one. Today’s her birthday, right? Then I’ll make tonight Serena’s death date. Let him remember it forever.”
She rambled after that, drunk and disjointed, but I understood enough.
She wanted to die tonight.
She wanted Ethan to remember her forever.
And I was nowhere near ready for that.
I ran barefoot down the hallway, clutching my phone so hard my knuckles hurt.
“Serena, where are you? Tell me. I’ll come to you. Just wait for me, okay?”
She ignored the question.
“If I jump,” she said dreamily, “it’s going to be ugly, isn’t it? You have to make sure the mortician does my makeup right. And I want the new dress from Rotta House this season. Not funeral clothes. And don’t bury me somewhere cold. Spread my ashes in the river. Let me drift all the way to the ocean. Let Ethan spend his whole life trying to find me and never be able to.”
I was shaking so hard I could barely breathe, but I forced my voice to stay steady.
“I’ll do all of it. Everything. I promise. Just tell me where you are.”
Silence.
Only wind.
Then finally, in a much smaller voice, she said, “I don’t want you to be scared.”
The next second, the line went quiet.
All I could hear was wind and the thin crackle of current.
Then, very softly, as if she were already far away, Serena said, “I’ll wait for you in the next world.”
That was the last thing she ever said to me.
A few minutes later, in front of the luxury apartment tower where Ethan lived, I found her.
She had jumped from the twenty-fourth floor.
She landed headfirst.
She died at my feet like a bird with broken wings, folded wrong against the earth, blood everywhere.
I dropped beside her body and screamed until I couldn’t hear my own voice anymore.
She had always loved beauty more than anything.
How could she have chosen a death like that?
Yes, I knew we would return to our real world.
Yes, I knew we would meet again there.
But in that moment, none of it mattered.
In those three years, Serena had become my only real support.
My only witness.
The only person who truly understood what it meant to live inside a story and be slowly devoured by it.
I thought I would be ready when the time came.
I wasn’t.
Not even close.