Chapter 1
Ella
I’m graduating from writing about murder to committing it.
“Whereis it?” My screech fills the apartment and probably alerts half my neighbors. I am so close, inches close, sogoddamnclose to losing my temper. Hours I’ve looked for my lucky pen, and I still haven’t fucking found it, hence the temptation to kill someone—anyone—to make myself feel better.
If you’d actually looked everywhere, you would’ve found it by now.
I tap my temple to knock the thought out of my head. Otherwise, I’ll have an argument with my writer's brain, which at times feels fully independent of my actual brain.
My mom had called it a gift. Having a part of your head that creates stories and characters and dialogue and plot twists is something, I assume, most people don’t have. It helps me write books, but it comes with inevitable downfalls.
Like giving me attitude.
Luckily, I’ve developed a technique. Like a slap on thewrist, I tap my temple—once if it’s annoying, twice if it's really bugging me—and the thought disappears.
Temporarily, anyway.
You know I’m right.
I furiously tap my temple again. Sometimes the technique works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Today, it’s failing spectacularly.
Didn’t you have it on the balcony when you were editing the latest piece-of-shit chapter you wrote?
“Oh right, I did,” I whisper.
I yank open the balcony doors and sigh with relief when I spot my beautiful lucky red pen lying in all its glory on the small, round table beside a molding, half-empty cup of tea.Okay, writer’s brain. You win for today.
Told you. I’m always right.
It’s probably strange to put so much hope into a pen, but it technically isn’t a specific pen; it’s the brand and the color. I used the same pen to edit my first book, and it was a huge success, so in my superstitiousness I mass-bought them to recreate that luck. It works every time, and I won’t risk using another kind.
Unfortunately, my latest delivery of said pens has been delayed. I have a final copy to edit before I go out later, and I refuse to allow another pen to touch the beautiful story I’ve written. No, sir.
Get to work then, Ella. You’re stalling.
“Right.” I head onto the balcony—and trip. On nothing. I trip on freakingnothing. I squeak in fear of going over the railing, graphic images of my body meeting the sidewalk at astonishing speed assaulting my mind, and thrust my arms out to protect my face. Instead, my outstretched hands knock the table, and then everything moves in slow motion:my falling, a second high-pitched squeal, the pen rolling, rolling …
The penfalling.
I yelp, darting for it, no longer caring that I could kiss the street below, but it’s too late.
My pen disappears from view.
“No!”
No!
I grip the railing and look over like it’s my firstborn, eyes wide and scanning the street, expecting screams of horror from the people below.
“How could you do this, Ella? It was just a child!”
Eyes darting across the busy city sidewalk, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see my innocent pen lying on the balcony of the apartment below, its only company a dead plant.
And then I immediately recoil, because the last thing I want to do in this world is knock on Barnaby Fisher’s front door.
There are several reasons why.
