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Prologue

Outside Jackson, Mississippi

HIS HEAD HURT

It always hurt these days and had for a long tietting worse or whether he’d just been hurting for so long that it was starting to become unbearable

As always on nights like these, nights when he was in pain and felt like he didn’t fit in his own skin, he thought about Harper About Pine Grove and everything he’d left behind It had been the right thing to do, he was sure of that Staying in Pine Grove, ive up so much of her life to protect hi run Not just physically—although God knew there was a risk of that—but everything Her whole life, spentsure he was safe? No, David couldn’t let her do that So the easiest thing to do, seeether Then, if someone came after him, Harper wouldn’t have to deal with it

It had seeood idea at the time

Even Ryan and Bee, the two people who cared about Harper just as ht it was for the best They helped hihtwell, he hadn’t really been sure Getting away had been the ured he would work out exactly what to do next once he was gone

That was before the headaches—and the visions—got worse

Before he started having the sense that he was headed soot behind the wheel of his car and drove, but he couldn’t say where he was going Only that he knew to turn here or to take this exit

It should’ve scared him, probably, but instead it just felt like a relief

David sunk farther into the booth, trying to er That was the other thing: with his head pounding all the ti a little bit looser He didn’t have any extra weight to lose, so he was probably looking gaunt, but since he avoided his reflection in the mirror these days, he couldn’t confirm how bad he must look

“You, uh, you need so else?”

The only other person in this fast-food place was a cashier, and she’d co up old fries and strarappers She was about his age, seventeen or so, and had straight brown hair that fell to her collarbones She didn’t look like Harper that ht dead in the orange polyester uniforreen, and seeing them made David’s chest ache in addition to his head So he h he was pretty sure it rimace

“I’ood,” he said, and for the first tiotten He didn’t knohether that was from how little he’d spoken to anyone over the past weeks, or whether it was fro in his sleep Either way, he sounded raspy and unfairl backed up just a little bit, he knew it must sound awful to her, too

Or lasses

It was bright inside the restaurant, sure, but not bright enough for the dark lenses covering David’s eyes He wore them there all the time now By the tiolden light, and in his experience, that tended to freak people out The sunglasses didn’t coht, of course, but theyso reflected off the lenses People preferred to believe the least creepy explanation for a thing

David had figured that out, too