The more Neve remembered, the more hatred crept into her eyes.
For more than ten years, she had treated Sylvie Ashford like family.
She had called her a best friend and a sister, and she had given her everything she had without a second thought.
She had never imagined that Sylvie was a snake the whole time.
Sylvie was the one who had gotten every bodyguard and every person protecting Neve killed, one after another.
And in the end, she hadn’t even spared Neve herself.
Neve’s hands curled into fists in the sheets.
If she had truly been given another chance, she would take her revenge.
She would make sure that ungrateful woman died the most miserable death imaginable.
She forced herself to breathe and to think.
In her past life, the apocalypse had begun with rain.
A gray-black downpour had fallen from the sky without warning, thick and oily, and it hadn’t looked like any storm she had ever seen.
Most of the people caught in it turned into zombies within hours.
Only a small number awakened supernatural abilities instead.
Staying indoors hadn’t saved anyone, either.
People who had never been touched by the rain still turned, and some still awakened powers.
By then the virus was in the air itself, and the whole world was infected.
After the outbreak, Silas and Declan had begged her again and again to leave the Ashfords.
Come with us, Declan had said.
We’ll find somewhere safe, just us.
Silas never raised his voice, but he had quietly moved supplies away from the Ashford compound, preparing for the day she would finally agree to go.
That day had never come.
Neve had kept believing Sylvie.
The world had already ended, so what difference did it make where she stayed?
She never noticed that while the Ashfords grew stronger and their territory spread, the circle of people around her kept shrinking.
Her guards went out on dangerous missions for the Ashfords and didn’t come back.
The ones who did return were quietly reassigned.
Every loss had a reasonable explanation.
Then, by pure accident, she had activated the space inside her jade pendant.
And the first thing she did was tell Sylvie.
Neve closed her eyes.
Of course Sylvie hadn’t been able to resist.
A pocket world full of supplies, in the middle of the apocalypse?
Anyone greedy enough would kill for it, and Sylvie had.
Now, at last, Neve understood.
She had been stupid.
Painfully, unforgivably stupid.
But she wouldn’t be stupid anymore.
The phone on the nightstand started ringing again.
Neve picked it up and looked at the lock screen, and her breath caught when she saw the date.
It was a little over three months before the rain.
Three months.
That was enough time to prepare, protect her people, and make sure the Ashfords didn’t get a single thing from her this time.
The caller ID read Walter.
Walter Hughes had been the Sinclair family’s butler since before Neve was born, and he was the closest thing she had to an uncle.
She answered.
“Walter, please call Nana and tell her I want to see her.
Ask her to come up to my room.”
There was a short pause.
“Miss Neve, aren’t you going to class today?
Is something wrong?”
“I’m not going to class today.
I just need to see Nana.”
She hung up before he could ask anything else.
On the other end of the line, Walter frowned at his phone.
The young miss was never this abrupt.
He hesitated for only a moment before dialing Margaret Sinclair.
Margaret had just stepped out of her car at Sinclair Holdings when her phone buzzed.
“Madam,” Walter said, “Miss Neve is asking for you.
She’d like you to come home.”
Margaret stopped on the sidewalk, and an uneasy feeling settled in her chest.
She had eaten dinner with her granddaughter only last night.
Neve had been cheerful and chatty, complaining about a group project and asking whether they could go shopping on the weekend.
Nothing had seemed wrong.
Now, suddenly, she was asking for her grandmother in the middle of a weekday morning.
Something had happened.
“Where is she?
What is she doing right now?”
“She hasn’t gotten out of bed yet, madam.
I called to wake her for breakfast and remind her about class, but she said she wasn’t going today.
She said she wanted to see you.” Walter paused.
“She sounded…
different.”
Margaret was already turning back toward the car.
“Take me home,” she told her driver.
“Now.”
When she came through the front door twenty minutes later, she didn’t bother taking off her coat.
“Is she still in her room?”
“Yes, madam.
She hasn’t come down, but I’ve had breakfast sent up.”
Neve was the only granddaughter Margaret had left, and everyone in the household knew it.
Walter wouldn’t have dared to neglect her in the slightest.
Margaret hurried up the stairs faster than her seventy-one-year-old knees liked.
Neve had just finished the last bite of her toast when the door flew open.
Her grandmother stood in the doorway, slightly out of breath.
Her silver hair was pinned up neatly, and she still wore her dark wool coat and the pearl earrings she put on every workday.
She crossed the room in a few quick steps, took Neve by the shoulders, and looked her over from head to toe as if checking for injuries.
Only when she was sure Neve was whole and unhurt did the tension leave her face.
By then, Neve’s eyes had already filled with tears.
The last time she had seen this face, it had been gray and slack, with those warm brown eyes clouded over and the mouth snapping at the air.
She had run from her own grandmother.
She had never even said goodbye.
Now Nana was right here.
She smelled of her familiar rose perfume, and her hands were warm and steady on Neve’s shoulders.
In this whole world, the person who had loved her most and cared for her most had always been her grandmother.
When Margaret saw the tears spill over, her heart twisted.
“Oh, sweetheart.
Silly girl, don’t cry.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled Neve into her arms.
“Tell Nana what happened.
Whatever it is, Nana’s here.
Nana will take care of it.”
Those were the same words, in the same gentle voice, that she had spoken a thousand times since Neve was little: after scraped knees, failed tests, and the night Neve’s parents didn’t come home.
Neve broke.
She buried her face in her grandmother’s shoulder and sobbed, gripping the wool coat in both fists as though someone might tear her away.
She wanted to stay like this forever, holding on and never letting go.
In her past life, when the gray rain came, Margaret Sinclair had been one of the very first to turn.
This time, Neve swore, it would be different.