And I realize I have no idea what I would say.
Hi, it's Bailey. I know we talked yesterday except yesterday hasn't happened yet. Also I'm trapped in a book and a mafia king wants to marry me. How's your Tuesday?
I set the phone down on the bed beside me.
I stare at the silk canopy above me.
And I try very, very hard not to scream.
HERE'S THE THING ABOUTphotographs.
A photograph can lie. Not obviously, not in ways most people would notice, but in small, subtle ways that change everything. A shadow removed. A color corrected. A person edited out and the background filled in so seamlessly you'd never know they were there.
The finished image looks right. It looks real. But if you know what to look for, you can tell. There's something off about the lighting. Something wrong with the way the edges blend. The picture is lying to you, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.
That's what this feels like.
My life is here. My apartment, my job, my phone full of messages from people I know. Everything is in place. Everything looks right.
But something has been edited.
Time has been moved. Events have been shifted. And I'm standing in the middle of it, like someone Photoshopped me into a picture I was never supposed to be in.
The book.
It has to be the book.
Hewhay's gave me a book that had my name in it. My face. My mannerisms, described in ink that looked centuries old. And I read it, fell asleep in that too-comfortable armchair, and woke up here.
In a world where my life exists but the timeline has shifted.
In a world where four mafia kings rule from the shadows.
In a world where I'm apparently going to marry one of them in three days, whether I like it or not.
I laugh.
It's not a good laugh. It's the kind of laugh that comes right before crying, or screaming, or possibly both. The kind of laugh that tastes like burnt sugar at the back of your throat—something that should be sweet but went wrong somewhere.
I press my hands over my face and try to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out.
I am not going to have a panic attack in a silk-draped room in a fictional mafia king's mansion. I amnot.
"It's not going to work," I inform the ceiling with as much dignity as I can muster. "I refuse to panic. I'm going to stay calm and rational and—"
"The door wasn't locked."
I scream.
Not a dignified scream. Not even a movie-heroine scream. Just a strangled yelp of pure shock that has me jerking upright so fast I lose my balance, and then I'm—
Oh no.
I'm falling off the bed.
My hand shoots out to grab the bedpost, but the silk sheets have tangled around my legs, and for one horrible, endless moment I'm justhanging there—half on the mattress, half off, one leg trapped in expensive fabric, arm wrapped around carved mahogany like it's a life raft.
