Page 1

Chapter 1

Arya

Rule #1: Never go out after dark.

Rule #2: Never go into large bodies of water.

Rule #3: No social media.

“So, how strict is that rule?” Shea asked, tossing a French fry into her mouth.

My previously comfortable posture stiffened at the question, and I put down the burger I’d been about to bite into. “Which one?”

She sucked the oil and salt off her fingers. “The no-going-out-after-dark rule?”

I sighed, looking away at the other picnic tables outside the school cafeteria. “Pretty unbreakable.”

These were the rules I’d lived by my entire life, rules put in place by my eccentric mother. If a friend ever threw a birthday party after five in the afternoon, I wasn’t allowedto go. When all my friends were enjoying dips in the lake for summertime fun, I couldn’t join them. And while every other kid my age had a smartphone, I was stuck with little more than a glorified pager.

“Why?” I asked, pretending this topic didn’t bother me as much as it did.

Shea flipped her wavy brown hair over her shoulder. “There’s a party tonight. I think we should go.” Her fingers tapped an excited beat, betraying her casual tone.

“Someone in this town is actually throwing a party?” I asked, my piquing interest laced with the taint of jealousy.

Short Grove was a tiny town in Illinois. We’re talking microscopic. It had one school and no mall of any kind. Probably the smallest town in my mother’s decades-long tour of the U.S. We’d been here for three months now, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she got the itch to move us again.

Shea leaned forward, mischief burning in her green eyes. “And it’s at Michael Guido’s house.”

She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, but when I only looked at her blankly, she rolled her eyes and added, “He’s a football player. Family’s got big money, at least for this shit hole. So youknowit’s going to be epic.”

Shea was the first good friend I’d made in a long time. Maybe ever. She’d approached me on my first day at Short Grove High, and we’d been inseparable ever since. She was aware of the three insane rules, and rather than prying, she was usually content to just chill at my house after sunset.

Or, at least, she had been before today.

I dropped my shoulders and shook my head, disdain a foul taste in my mouth. “Shea, as much as I’d love to go, you know I can’t.”

Her nose crinkled, and she jammed a fry into the mound of ranch on her plate. “I was afraid you’d say that. Nothing fun ever happens inShallow Grave,” she whined, using her nickname for our lifeless town.

She leveled her gaze at me, an unspoken challenge there. “You’re a teenager, Arya. When was the last time you ever did something you weren’t supposed to?”

I snorted. “Um, never.”

Well, that wasn’t true. I’d at least attempted to sneak out a few times in the past, but my mom caught me just outside whatever door or window I’d used to escape every damn time. Like she had spidey senses or something.

“Exactly.” Shea pointed her mashed and dripping fry right at me, clearly oblivious to how ridiculous the gesture looked as Ranch slopped down on the table. “A little rebellion is healthy—no,necessary. I refuse to let you skip this important teen rite of passage.”

Angst and resentment built in my chest as I imagined telling Mom I wanted to go to a party and then the deathly stern look and lecture I’d get in return. I’d heard that lecture so many times, I had the damn thing memorized by now.

I opened my mouth to object, but Shea cut me off. “Robby Fletcher will be there.”

She flared one eyebrow and smirked. She was using my pseudo-crush as a bribe, and it was kinda working.

“Robby doesn’t know I exist,” I argued, shrugging and rolling my eyes.

“So you get to be Cinderella. Wiggle that perfect little body of yours into a little black dress. Before you know it, you’ll be sweeping him off his feet.”

“Aren’t guys supposed to do the sweeping?” I teased.