Yes, I died hanging upside down in the crushed SUV. I stopped thinking or feeling . . . or breathing. I couldn’t move. I had no pulse.
I was dead. And Morgan Marks was dead beside me.
Her mouth hung open. Her eyes stared glassily at the broken windshield, seeing nothing. Her head was slanted, tilted at an impossible angle. I knew her neck was broken.
I was dead, so how did I see her?
The Fears know how to cheat death.
Hanging upside down, I willed my hand to move. The fingers were already numb, and the numbness was spreading. I had little time.
I fumbled for my bag. The strap had tangled around my foot.
My hand gripped the strap and tugged the bag up to me. I gripped it tightly with the other hand. Tore it open. And quickly found the needle, the hypodermic needle I carried but hoped never to use.
When you’re a teenager, you don’t ever plan to die.
You don’t stop to think about it. You don’t think you’ll ever need the family cure. I carried it at the bottom of my bag and never thought about it—till now.
Yes, the Fears know how to cheat death.
The hypodermic was filled with the precious fluid, the formula my family had perfected over many years, after testing it on corpse after corpse. Yes, it was a formula for reviving life.
I knew it would bring me back. Not exactly as I had been. But it would snap me back. I could breathe. I could move. I could live.
I removed the cover and raised the needle to my arm.
I glanced at Morgan Marks, so dead and still, openmouthed as if protesting what had happened to her. Her hands hung limply down. Her hair pushed against the roof of the car beneath us.
I hesitated, the needle poised at my arm.
I have a whole dose, Morgan. I could share it with you.
I could bring you back, too.
But I don’t think I will.
You were my best friend, my twin. But you betrayed me in the end.
You planned to ruin my life. You planned to turn me in.
So I’m going to do what’s best for both of us. I’m going to let you rest in peace.
I jabbed the needle deep into my shoulder. I was dead, so I didn’t even feel a pinprick. But I could feel the results instantly, feel myself reviving.
My sight returned. The jagged shards of glass in the windshield. Gray light pouring into the car. Morgan suspended upside down beside me. Both of us hanging upside down.
The pain of the crash coursed through my body. I felt the stab of the needle in my shoulder. My hearing snapped back. I heard sirens in the distance.
I tried to speak. “Yes! Yesssss!” My voice a dry croak at first, then back to full volume.
I felt a wave of deep sadness roll over me. I’m dead. I’m here, but I’m dead. I’ll never be the same again.
The sirens rang louder in my ears.
I pulled the needle from my shoulder and let it fall to the car roof beneath my feet.
I turned to Morgan Marks, poor dead Morgan, and brushed the hair from in front of her eyes. “I won’t forget you,” I whispered. “I promise I won’t forget you. I’ll carry your name with me from now on.”
I squeezed her limp, lifeless arm tenderly. Then I unfastened the seat belt that was holding me in place, dropped to my knees on the car roof, climbed out through the broken windshield—and hurried away.
