“It’s just so cold. Isn’t it, babe?” Mikaila leans over and kisses Steven, who is staring at the TV screen.

“You could try wearing pants,” Rebecca says, her voice too low for Mikaila to hear. Rebecca keeps her coat on and starts down the hall to her bedroom, looking forward to nothing more than putting on her noise-canceling headphones and starting to read for class.

But Mikaila’s voice stops her. “Oh, hey, Becca?”

Rebecca hates it when Mikaila calls her Becca. She likes it only when her mother calls her that—not anyone else. But she’s given up on correcting Mikaila.

“What?”

“There’s a package on your desk. It was sitting outside the door when I got home.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“It’s weird.” She leans over and kisses Steven again. “There’s, like, no postage on it or anything. It’s just a fat envelope. Were you expecting something?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, cool.”

Steven finally looks away from the TV and returns Mikaila’s kisses, so Rebecca takes that as her cue to leave. She feels relief when she steps into her room and shuts the door behind her. She drops her bag and peels off her coat. She kicks one boot off as she picks the package up from her desk.

A giant yellow envelope sealed at the top with a strip of packing tape. Across the front, in Sharpie, someone has scrawled Rebecca’s name. But she doesn’t recognize the writing. It feels like a stack of papers inside. She slips her index finger under the flap and rips. It takes a few tries to get the tape and sealed flap open, but she finally does.

She tips the envelope to the side and a stack of papers slides out.

Rebecca kicks off her other boot while she turns the stack right side up.

Handwritten pages. Pen on paper. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of a handwritten manuscript that matches the writing on the front of the envelope. The first page reads “Chapter One,” like it’s a novel. No title. No author name. She flips through the pages but doesn’t recognize anything.

Has a classmate sent it? A friend?

What the hell is it doing here?

CHAPTER FORTY

CONNOR

PRESENT

The phone starts to ring just after eleven.

I’ve made sure every door is locked, every window slammed tight.