Chapter 1

The rain in 2014 smelled different than the rain in 2022. In the future I came from, the rain always smelled like smoke—the lingering, acrid scent of the fires Dante Valenti started. But here, behind the gymnasium of St. Jude’s Academy, it just smelled of wet asphalt and rotting cardboard.

And blood.

I turned the corner, my loafers splashing in a puddle, and froze.

He was there. Just like I remembered. Just like the nightmares that had woken me up every night since I opened my eyes and found myself seventeen again.

Dante.

He was slumped against the graffiti-stained brick wall, his legs splayed out in the mud. He was wearing the St. Jude’s uniform—a navy blazer with the gold crest—but the white shirt underneath was sodden and red. A knife wound. A messy, jagged slice just above his hip.

In the first timeline, I had screamed. I had dropped my backpack and run. I had run all the way home, locked the door, and never told a soul. And because I ran, Dante dragged himself home alone. He stitched himself up with dental floss and vodka. He learned that day that no one would ever help him, that mercy was a lie, and that violence was the only language the world understood.

He survived. And seven years later, a stray bullet from his turf war punched through my chest while I was buying coffee.

"What are you looking at?" Dante snarled.

His voice wasn't the deep, terrifying baritone of the Don who ruled the city on TV screens. It was rough, cracking with adolescence and pain. He looked pathetic. A kicked dog dying in the rain.

"Get lost," he wheezed, clutching his side. "Unless you want me to cut you too."

I stood paralyzed. The rain plastered my hair to my cheeks. I knew what I should do. I should turn around. I should walk away and let the cold and the blood loss do the work the knife couldn't. If he died here, tonight, the city would be safe. My mother would be safe. *I* would be safe.

It was the trolley problem, written in red ink on a Tuesday afternoon.

But then he coughed, a wet, rattling sound, and his head lolled back against the brick. His eyes, usually sharp and black as obsidian, were glazing over. He looked so young. He was just a boy who had been born into a war he didn't start.

I cursed under my breath.

I dropped my backpack into a puddle. I didn't run away. I stepped forward.

Dante flinched, his hand fumbling for something in his pocket—probably a switchblade. But his fingers were too slick with blood. He couldn't grip it.

"Don't touch me," he hissed.

I ignored him. I knelt in the mud, the cold water soaking through my tights instantly. I unzipped the front pocket of my bag. In this life, I didn't carry lip gloss or spare pencils. I carried gauze. I carried antiseptic. I carried the tools of a war survivor.

"Shut up," I said, my voice shaking. Not with fear of the boy, but with terror of the man.

I reached out. He tried to swat my hand away, but he was weak. I pushed his hand aside and pressed a wad of sterile gauze directly onto the wound.

Dante cried out—a strangled, guttural sound—and arched his back.

"Hold still," I commanded. I leaned my weight into it, pressing hard. The blood was warm, hot against my freezing fingers. It seeped through the white cotton instantly, staining my skin.

This was the blood that would drown the city. And I was trying to keep it inside his body.

Dante’s breathing was ragged, shallow gasps that misted in the cold air. He stopped fighting. He turned his head, looking at me.

In the first timeline, no one ever looked at him. We looked through him, or we looked down at him. He was the bastard son. The mistake. The ghost of St. Jude’s.

But now, I was looking right at him. And he was seeing me.

"You..." he rasped. "You're the girl from chem lab."

"Ren," I said. "My name is Ren."

"Why?" he whispered. The aggression was fading, replaced by a confusion that was almost heartbreaking. "Why are you helping?"

I looked at his face. The sharp jawline that wasn't quite defined yet. The lashes that cast shadows on his pale cheeks. I couldn't tell him the truth. *I'm helping you because I need you to owe me. I'm helping you because maybe, if someone is kind to you just once, you won't burn the world down.*

"Because you're bleeding," I said simply. "And I'm not a murderer."

I pulled a roll of bandage tape from my bag. "Lift up. I need to wrap it."

He obeyed. He let me lift his shirt, exposing the bruised, pale skin of his torso. I taped the gauze down tight, my movements practiced and efficient.

When I finished, I sat back on my heels, my hands covered in his blood. The rain was washing it away, pink swirls mixing with the mud.

"You need a doctor," I said. "But that should hold until you get to one."

I went to stand up.

Dante’s hand shot out.

His grip was surprisingly strong. He grabbed my wrist, his fingers circling the bone, tighter than necessary. It wasn't a thank-you. It felt like a shackle.

I froze, looking down at him.

The haze in his eyes was gone. The confusion was gone. In their place was something intense, focused, and terrifyingly familiar. It was the look he wore in the future when he decided he wanted something.

"You stopped," he said softly. It wasn't a question. It was a revelation. "Everyone runs. But you stopped."

"Let go, Dante."

"No," he said. A dark smile touched his lips, staining his teeth red. "You saved me, Ren. You put your hands in the blood."

He pulled me slightly closer, staining the cuff of my white blouse. "You don't get to run now."

A chill went down my spine that had nothing to do with the rain. I realized then, with a sinking dread, that I hadn't prevented the monster. I had just given him a target. I had changed the story, but I hadn't changed the genre.

I looked at the boy who would be king, holding onto me like I was the only solid thing in a spinning world.

I didn't pull away. I couldn't.

"I'm not running," I whispered, sealing my fate.

Dante closed his eyes, his grip tightening, resting his cheek against my bloodied hand. He didn't let go. I knew, as the rain poured down around us, that he never would.