Evelyn's POV
The scream tore out of my throat before I could stop it.
Isabelle—my dead sister, my buried sister, my five-years-in-the-ground sister—sat up in bed, sheets pooling around her waist. She wore the same bored expression she'd always had when I interrupted her. Like I was a fly buzzing around her perfect life.
"You're dead." The words felt stupid leaving my mouth. "You're dead. I went to your funeral. I cried over your coffin. You're dead."
"Clearly not." Isabelle's voice was flat. Empty. Like someone reading words off a card without understanding them.
My legs went weak. I grabbed the doorframe to stay upright. This wasn't real. Couldn't be real. Dead people stayed dead. That was the one rule everyone knew. You died, you got buried, you stayed buried.
But Isabelle was right there.
Same long dark hair. Same perfect face. Same tiny scar above her left eyebrow from when we'd raced our bikes down the hill behind the house and crashed into Mrs. Patterson's rose bushes. I was eight. She was six. We'd both gotten stitches and promised never to tell Mom.
That scar proved this wasn't some look-alike. This was her.
"Evelyn." Marcus finally moved, yanking the sheet higher like modesty mattered now. "This isn't what it looks like."
A laugh bubbled up from my chest—sharp, painful, almost hysterical. "You're in bed with my dead sister during our engagement party. What exactly does it look like?"
"Don't be dramatic." He swung his legs off the bed, reaching for his pants. His face wasn't guilty. It was annoyed. Like I'd interrupted something important instead of catching him cheating with a literal ghost.
"Dramatic?" My voice went shrill. "Marcus, she's been DEAD for five years!"
"She got better." He said it so casually. Like Isabelle had the flu, not a fatal car accident that left her mangled and burned beyond recognition.
Wait.
"They identified her body through dental records," I whispered. "I saw the death certificate. We buried her at Greenwood Cemetery. Plot 447, under the oak tree she loved."
"You buried a mistake." Isabelle stood up, pulling on a robe. Her movements were weird. Too smooth. Too controlled. Like a robot pretending to be human. "Surprise. I'm not dead."
But her eyes were wrong. Completely wrong. Empty and flat, like a shark's eyes. Like she was looking through me instead of at me.
My brain couldn't process this. Couldn't make it make sense.
"Where have you been?" The question came out broken. "Five years, Isabelle. Five years. Mom cried herself sick. Dad aged twenty years overnight. I—" My voice cracked. "I missed you so much I thought I'd die too."
Nothing. No emotion crossed her face. No tears. No apology. No explanation.
Just that empty stare.
"You need to leave, Evelyn." Marcus buttoned his shirt, his jaw tight. "You're not supposed to be here."
"Not supposed to—?" I couldn't breathe. "This is MY engagement party! YOU'RE my fiancé!"
"Was." Isabelle moved closer, and I stumbled backward. Up close, something about her was fundamentally off. Her skin was too perfect. Her breathing too measured. Like watching a mannequin that learned to move. "He was your fiancé. Now he's mine again. Just like before."
Before. Before she died. When Marcus had been hers first—her high school sweetheart, her prom date, her first love.
Then she'd died, and eighteen months later, Marcus had asked me out. I'd thought—God, I'd been so stupid—I'd thought he'd seen me. Finally seen me as more than just Isabelle's boring little sister.
But he'd just been waiting.
Waiting for her to come back.
"How?" I looked between them, my heart shattering into smaller and smaller pieces. "How is she alive? Where has she been? Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"It's complicated." Marcus grabbed his jacket. "Your father will explain everything."
"My father knows?" The floor tilted under my feet. "Dad knows Isabelle is alive?"
"Of course he knows." Isabelle tilted her head, studying me like I was a bug under glass. "He's the one who saved me."
Saved her. While I'd spent five years drowning in grief. Five years wearing her clothes because it made Mom smile. Five years becoming her replacement because my parents couldn't handle losing their perfect daughter.
And she'd been alive the whole time.
"I need to talk to them." I turned toward the door. "Mom and Dad need to explain—"
"They won't." Marcus blocked my path. "They'll tell you what they want you to know. Nothing more."
"Get out of my way."
"No." His hand shot out, gripping my arm hard enough to bruise. "You're going to shut up and accept this."
"Let go of me!"
"Listen to me, you stupid—"
I grabbed the nearest thing—a crystal vase filled with roses—and swung it at his head.
Marcus ducked. The vase sailed past him and exploded against the wall. Water and glass and flowers everywhere. The crash was deafening.
"Are you INSANE?" Marcus lunged for me.
I ran.
Threw open the door and stumbled into the hallway, my heels slipping on marble. Behind me, Marcus shouted something. Isabelle said nothing. Just watched with those dead, empty eyes.
I ran toward the stairs, toward the party, toward anyone who might help me.
And crashed straight into my mother.