But there’s no time to think about it, because a truck whips around the corner and onto the bridge. I swerve out of the way, right up close to the rail, but there’s room, I’m safe, I just have to keep the bike straight and—

The camera strap catches on the rail and I lurch sideways.

Everything happens so fast.

One second I’m going forward, and the next, I’m going over. The grind of metal on metal, bike scraping rail, the lurch of gravity, the tumble, and then the terrifying fall, nothing but empty air as the river rushes toward me.

I throw my arms up, hit the surface with all the grace of a baseball through a windowpane. Shattering.

And I remember.

I remember, I’ve been here before, I’m not—

But then the cold closes over me, and I can’t think, can’t breathe. I’m so freaked out that I actually try, and icy water rushes down my throat, choking cold. It steals up my arms and legs, drags me down.

I know how to swim, I know, but in that moment, I’m sinking. Drowning.

The surface ripples overhead, glinting, and I claw toward it, eyes blurring with icy tears. But I can’t seem to go up. No matter how hard I kick, the surface doesn’t get closer.

I scramble.

I panic.

I reach—

And that’s when I see it.

A red lanyard wrapped around my wrist.

And I remember.

I was on the bridge. Not the one where my bike crashed. The one beyond the Veil. The Bridge of Souls. Which means this isn’t happening. It’s already happened. I crashed my bike on my birthday last year. I almost drowned. But I didn’t. Because Jacob saved my life.

Jacob. We were standing together, on the Bridge of Souls. And then he was gone, and I was falling, and I was—

No, focus. Jacob. Jacob Ellis Hale, best friend and resident ghost, who died trying to rescue his little brother’s favorite toy, who dove into the river and never came out.

This river.

I twist around in the dark water, looking down instead of up, and there he is. Jacob. His cheeks puffed full of air as he dives down, searches the bottom of the river, fingers closing around the figurine.

There he is, my best friend. Before he was mine, before he was—

Oh no.

This river isn’t just where I almost died. It’s where Jacob did.

As if on cue, the current picks up, water pulling at me, churning the silt and pebbles. Jacob tries to push off the bottom of the river, but his shoe is stuck, snagged on something he can’t see.