The prettiest girl in school came from a low income family and always struggled with insecurity.
Chapter 1
Three weeks before graduation, Brianna Callister stood beside my desk with tears shining in her enormous blue eyes and asked to see the federal academy nomination packet I had spent three years earning. Twenty boys immediately turned toward me as if I were holding medicine she needed to survive, and in that moment I knew exactly what was about to happen—because I had already died once trying to stop it.
“Just let me look at it, Ivy,” Brianna whispered. “I know I’ll never be smart enough to get into the same kind of school you will.”
I tightened both hands around the envelope.
Three minutes earlier, our guidance counselor, Ms. Ingram, had congratulated me for finally accepting the early nomination to Greystone Federal Institute of Science and Defense. Greystone wasn’t an ordinary college. It trained aerospace engineers, cyber-defense analysts, satellite specialists, and researchers who later worked in secure government laboratories.
My nomination came from winning a national physics competition.
It was tied to me personally.
It could not legally be transferred.
None of that mattered to Connor Briggs.
Connor stood up from the back row and held out his hand.
“Give Bri the packet.”
“No.”
The classroom became unnaturally quiet.
Connor blinked as though nobody had told him no in years.
His father owned a regional trucking company, donated heavily to our school, and treated administrators like employees. Connor had inherited the same belief about people.
“Ivy,” he said slowly, “you don’t even need early admission. You’re number one in the class.”
“It belongs to me.”
“Exactly. You can get into any university next year if necessary.”
The old memory hit so hard my stomach twisted.
In my first life, this argument had ended differently.
Brianna had cried about wanting to attend the same prestigious university as me. Connor and the boys who worshiped her had decided the only fair solution was to keep me away from the statewide admissions exam.
They told themselves one year wouldn’t matter to me.
They locked me in an abandoned storage building on exam morning.
When I tried to escape, things turned violent.
I never made it to the test.
The last thing I remembered from that life was thinking about my mother waiting outside the testing center with the thermos of chicken soup she always carried when she was nervous.
Then I opened my eyes.
I was back three weeks before the exam.
Same classroom.
Same Brianna.
Same boys.
Different Ivy.
Connor reached across my desk.
“You said at the beginning of the year that classmates should help one another.”
“Helping isn’t stealing.”
Brianna’s lips trembled.
“Please don’t fight because of me.”
That sentence worked like a whistle.
Half the boys stood.
Connor snatched the packet from my hands.
My fingers released it.
Deliberately.
He mistook that for weakness.
“Since you’re class president,” he announced, “you should respect democracy. Everyone who thinks Bri deserves the nomination, raise your hand.”
Every boy raised one.
Some raised both.
The girls remained still.
I didn’t blame them.
For two years, girls who crossed Brianna had suffered strange accidents, rumors, ruined belongings, anonymous harassment. Nothing could ever be traced directly to Brianna, but Connor and his friends always seemed close by.
Brianna accepted my packet with trembling fingers.
“You really think I deserve this?”
Connor nearly laughed.
“You deserve everything.”
She turned to me.
“Ivy, you’re not angry, are you?”
For one second, her expression changed.
The tears remained.
The innocence didn’t.
There was victory in her eyes.
I smiled.
“No.”
Her smile deepened.
What none of them knew was that I had already read every line of the Greystone paperwork.
The nomination bore my National Physics League identification code.
My competition record.
My preliminary security clearance.
Submitting someone else’s name under that code wasn’t like stealing a place in the lunch line.
It would trigger federal verification.
And because Greystone trained students for classified research, verification meant investigators.
I looked toward the surveillance camera mounted in the corner.
Everything had been recorded.
But I needed more.
I stood.
“Where are you going?” Brianna asked immediately.
“Bathroom.”
Her tears returned almost instantly.
“You’re going to report us.”
Connor crossed the room.
He seized my wrist hard enough to leave marks.
“I don’t hit girls,” he said quietly, “but don’t test me.”
Then he shoved me backward into a desk.
Pain shot through my palm.
In my first life, fear had made me fight harder.
This time I let myself tremble.
Connor smiled when he saw it.
“Thought so.”
He leaned closer.
“If you tell Ms. Ingram, your mother is going to have problems too.”
My mother cleaned a shopping mall at night.
Connor knew it.
Everyone did.
He had mocked her uniform more than once.
Behind him, Brianna wiped her eyes.
“I don’t want trouble,” she murmured. “I just want one chance to feel like I’m good enough.”
Connor released me.
“You’ll get it.”
He turned to the others.
“Watch Ivy. I’ll submit Bri’s paperwork myself. My dad knows Dean Mitchell. We’ll upload it right before the deadline so nobody can interfere.”
Perfect.
I lowered my head so nobody saw my expression.
The trap had just built itself.
