POV: SIENNA
I couldn't breathe.
My mother's hand on my arm, pulling me away from the ceremony, through the crowd of staring people, their whispers following us like ghosts. I could still feel Chase's hands on my face. Could still taste the kiss, cold and wrong and deliberate.
But worse than that was what I'd seen.
The vision had hit the second his lips touched mine. Not like my usual visions, the gentle ones that came in dreams or quiet moments. This was violent. Immediate. All-consuming.
Blood on white marble. Glass shattered across a floor. Vivian's face, twisted in rage or pain, I couldn't tell which. Chase's reflection in a mirror, but wrong, all wrong, his eyes completely black. Darkness spreading like ink in water. Something ancient and hungry stirring awake.
Then pain. Physical pain, like my skull was splitting open.
I'd stumbled back, and the vision ended as suddenly as it began. But the images remained, burned into my mind like afterimages from staring at the sun.
"Sienna, breathe." My mother's voice cut through the panic. "Just breathe, baby."
We were in a hallway now, away from the ceremony. She pressed a bottle of water into my hands. I couldn't hold it. My hands were shaking too badly.
"What was that about? Why did Chase Sterling kiss you?"
"I don't know." My voice didn't sound like mine. "I don't know, I don't know."
The vision kept replaying. Blood. Glass. Darkness. Something was coming. Something terrible.
"Did you and Chase..." My mother's voice was careful. "Have you been seeing him?"
"What? No." I finally looked at her. "Mom, no. I would never do that to Vivian. He just, he grabbed me and kissed me. I didn't know he was going to do that."
But that wasn't entirely true, was it?
I'd noticed Chase two years ago, before Vivian did. Saw him in the library, studying alone, that intensity that drew people in. I'd thought about approaching him. Had imagined conversations, connections, possibilities.
Then Vivian met him first. Got paired with him for that stupid philosophy project. And I'd watched as my best friend fell for the boy I'd been too shy to talk to.
I'd never told her. Never admitted that I'd liked him first. What would have been the point? She'd claimed him, the way Vivian claimed everything she wanted. And I'd been happy for her. Mostly happy. Except for the small, ugly part of me that wondered what if.
And now he'd kissed me. Used me as a weapon against her. Made me part of whatever war they were fighting.
My phone buzzed. Text after text flooding in. I glanced at the screen.
"Did you know he was going to do that?"
"Are you sleeping with Chase Sterling?"
"Vivian's going to kill you."
I turned my phone off. Couldn't deal with it. Couldn't deal with any of it.
"I need to find Vivian." My mother straightened my cap, smoothed my gown like that would fix anything. "I need to talk to Catherine about this. She'll know what to do."
"Mom, please, I just need—"
"This is going to be everywhere, Sienna. Every social media platform, every gossip site. We need to get ahead of it."
She was already pulling out her phone, already managing the crisis. I watched her walk a few feet away, speaking in low, urgent tones to someone, probably Catherine Rhodes, her best friend and unofficial PR consultant.
I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, and tried not to see the vision again.
But it was there. Waiting. Blood and glass and darkness.
My phone vibrated in my pocket even though I'd turned it off. Impossible. I pulled it out. One text, from a number I didn't recognize.
"You saw it. You know what's coming."
My hands started shaking again. I deleted the text, shoved the phone back in my pocket, and tried to convince myself I'd imagined it.
Footsteps. I looked up.
Vivian was walking toward me, still in her cap and gown, face pale with fury.
"Vivian, I—"
"Don't." She stopped a few feet away, like she couldn't stand to get closer. "Don't you dare."
"I didn't know he was going to do that."
"Didn't you?" Her voice was cold. "You've always had a thing for him, haven't you? I saw the way you looked at him when we first got together."
My stomach dropped. "That's not true."
"Isn't it? You thought I didn't notice. You thought I was too focused on my own life to see how you watched him. How you laughed a little too hard at his jokes. How you found excuses to be around when he visited."
"Vivian, you're my best friend. I would never—"
"Then why did you kiss him back?"
The words hit like a slap. "I didn't."
"I saw you. Everyone saw you. You didn't pull away. You just stood there and let him kiss you in front of everyone."
"I was in shock. I didn't know what was happening."
"Or maybe you'd been waiting for your chance." Vivian's laugh was bitter. "Poor Sienna, always in my shadow. Finally gets her moment with Chase Sterling."
"That's not fair."
"Fair?" Her voice rose. "You want to talk about fair? My graduation is ruined. My speech was destroyed. Everyone thinks my boyfriend and my best friend were sneaking around behind my back. And you're talking about fair?"
"He's not your boyfriend anymore." The words came out before I could stop them. "You rejected him this morning, remember?"
Vivian's face went white. "How do you know about that?"
"Jessica texted half the school. Everyone knows you called him a nobody."
"So this is my fault? I deserve this because I rejected him?"
"That's not what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying, Sienna?" She stepped closer, and I could see tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. "Are you saying you're glad he kissed you? Are you saying you wanted it?"
I thought about the vision. The blood and glass. The darkness in Chase's eyes. Whatever he'd become in the hours since Vivian rejected him, it wasn't the boy either of us had known.
"I'm saying something's wrong with him." I kept my voice low. "His eyes were wrong, Vivian. When he kissed me, I felt—"
"Felt what? Special? Chosen?"
"Cold. I felt cold. Like touching something dead."
She stared at me like I was crazy. "You're being dramatic."
"I'm not. Something happened to him today. Something changed."
"Yeah, I broke his heart. That's what changed." Vivian wrapped her arms around herself. "And he used you to break mine."
"I didn't want this."
"But you got it anyway." She turned to walk away, then stopped. "Stay away from me, Sienna. Stay away from him. I don't want to see either of you right now."
"Vivian, please—"
But she was already gone, disappearing back into the crowd of dispersing graduates.
I stood alone in the hallway, the vision playing on loop in my mind. I should have told her what I saw. Should have warned her that this was bigger than revenge, bigger than heartbreak.
But she wouldn't have believed me anyway.
My mother returned, phone still pressed to her ear. She covered the mouthpiece. "Catherine says we need to leave. Now. Before the press catches up with us."
I followed her out a side exit, into the too-bright sunshine. Behind us, I could hear the ceremony finally ending. Cheers and applause and celebration.
My graduation day. The day my best friend turned on me. The day I had my first real vision of something terrible coming.
The day everything changed.
I touched my lips where Chase had kissed me, and even hours later, they still felt frozen.