Even though in this life—mycurrentlife—I hadn’t suffered the horrors from myfirstlife, that knowledge did nothing to dull the sharpness of my memories. . . memories of a man who had carved his ownership into my flesh for decades. I breathed and lived, both lives together within me, both taking root inside. The universe—in what had to be some cosmic clerical error—had messed up somewhere, given me memories of both lives, and expected me to sort it out.
So, I did what anybody would have done, aside from screaming endlessly at the enormity of Death’s fuck up—I found a way to cope. For me, that meant seeking out controlled pain. Anything to remind me that I washerein the present and not hanging upside down as my blood dripped down to the floor, staring at a shadowy ghost that seemed to wait patiently.
Adam stepped closer, black marker clicking as he uncapped it. His hands were steady, professional, as he pressed the tip to my skin in careful, precise movements. Four dots perfectly placed as I willed myself not to flinch at his touch. The byproduct of trauma. Who knew?
“That look good to you?” He tilted his head towards the mirror.
I turned to study my reflection. My typical sunkissed complexion was pallid, which made sense. I’d barely slept since I’d been reborn, and I looked like every goth’s wet dream with how deep the dark circles were etched under my eyes despite the layer of makeup I used in an attempt to conceal it. My hands were cold as I examined where Adam had marked—perky breasts, smooth skin, and not a scar in sight. My long, dark brown but nearly black hair spilled down to my hips, highlighted by red streaks I’d recently thrown in myself.
This was the body of a girl who’d never been sold, never been broken, never learned that survival meant enduring things that would make monsters look away. My body housed another life’s memories—like a cosmic Airbnb neither of us had signed up for.
“Perfect,” I said.
The needles went through fast. Deep, burning pain bloomed into a familiar heat that set an ache between my legs as it anchored me tonowinstead ofthen. Adam slid the barbells through one at a time while I sat perfectly still, counting heartbeats the way I used to count lashes. This was nothing. This was chosen. This was mine.
“All done!” He peeled off his black gloves with a snap. “Gotta say, you’re the first one I’ve had sit that still without making a sound.”
I gave him a well-practiced smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “I have a high pain tolerance.”
If only he knew. Twenty-four years ofthatman’s particular brand of education had taught me that pain was just another language. Some people spoke it fluently.
The heat of late August slapped me when I stepped out of the parlor. Atlanta roiled with its usual chaos: buses belching exhaust, horns creating their own furious symphony, the humid air thick enough to chew. My new piercings throbbed in time with my pulse, each beat a small victory. Proof that this body was mine to mark, mine to control, mine to own.
I took the blue line back to campus and watched the city blur past as two souls' worth of memories competed for attention in my skull. In most science fiction or fantasy games, there’s always this delicate little art to explaining an origin story. The big reveal:you have been reincarnated with two souls’ memories in you now.Cue the dramatic music. Maybe an ancient prophecy delivered by a wizened crone or aged wizard nodding sagely while mumbling something cryptic about “Balance” or “Destiny.”
But in this new reality I found myself in? There was no balance. No neat diagram of Soul A on the left and Soul B on the right, happily cohabitating together. No polite handshake or tidy agreement on who gets the body from nine to five. The truth was murkier. Messier. Like oil and water swirling inside my chest, refusing to either blend or separate.
It was the most surreal experience to think of myself as both anIand ahersimultaneously. Part of me thought of the Violet who had already died as “Older hertrapped inmybody,” while another part of me thought of the Violet from this life as “Younger hertormented bymytraumatic memories.” Both sets of memories were real. Both were mine. The cognitive dissonance should have driven me insane.
Instead, it just pissed me off.
The moment I awoke with both of my lives slamming together inside of me, I wondered if one of us was meant to devour the other. Perhaps that was the point? I would dissolve into her—or her into me—eventually. One of us would fade into the other until nothing remained but whispers. And every time that thought clawed at me, the thought of one of us disappearing into the other? It made my skin crawl.
Could it be done? Probably. In theory, anything could be done if you were cruel enough. But I never volunteered to be some god’s social experiment, so I was determined to coexist with myself.
As time passed, the anger simmered into something unrecognizable. Fury at the cards I had been dealt. If I ever found out which divine sadist had scripted the nightmare of my new existence, I swore to every pantheon from Olympus to Asgard, I would shove a dildo so far up their omnipotent ass that even Dracula would rise from his coffin to applaud my craftsmanship.
My mother used to say, “Anger is often the mask of grief.” And she knew best, but I was tired of feeling helpless. It was my turn to take control.
The door creaked, revealing an empty dorm room, bed still ruffled from another sleepless night. Books lined the right side of the wall, color-coded and organized with such meticulous attention to detail that it set me on edge. My roommate’s bed was the color eau de nil—a pale green that I only knew the name of because of my Aunt Dawn—and damn near pristine.
The antithesis was my side of the room, where books lay haphazardly on shelves, a cluttered desk, and a full laundry hamper at the foot of my bed bearing both clean and dirty clothes.
I face-planted into my own thistle-colored sheets and immediately hissed as my new piercings made contact with the mattress. The burn reminded me why I’d gotten them. Proof that I could still feel things that weren’t phantom pains from a life that technically never happened.
I rolled onto my back, staring at the water stain on the ceiling that looked like a moribund butterfly if you squinted. My body ached with exhaustion that two weeks of insomnia had compounded into my skull with something close to delirium. Thanks to that, my appetite had suffered, being unbearably inconsistent thanks to the relentlessnightmares. But sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant reliving moments my twenty-year-old body had never experienced, yet remembered with perfect clarity. My skin prickled with the ghost of restraint, and my jaw still clenched from holding myself together in public.
No. Better to stay awake. Better to plan.
I pulled out my phone, thumb hovering over my contact list as I stared at a picture of my family. It was an antiquated photo of us on one of our annual camping trips that my older brother Liam took. My mom—where I got my looks from—stood between two men. One was my raven-haired father, and the other was his counterpart, his angelic-looking best friend Charlie.UncleCharlie to me. In the photo, I looked put out, having been placed between Uncle Charlie’s adopted son—the ever-obtuse Rowan—and my diva queen of a little sister, Amber. She was so young in that picture. I couldn’t help but smile at seeing her face.
The photo was both a reminder of everything I had lost and all the things I had gained. I loved them all, which was why the thought of someone being ripped away from their own, as I had been, propelled me forward. Pushed me into action. Drove me to track down the monster that had been responsible for the avalanche of suffering from my first life.
The first thing I needed was money. Not the couple thousand in my checking account for textbooks, dining out, and overpriced coffee, but therealsum locked away in my trust fund. The kind of‘fuck you money’that could buy information, silence, or muscle—all of which I assumed I would need.
But accessing that money meant going home, meant asking for my parents' signatures, and meant explaining why I suddenly needed six figures in liquid assets. I wrinkled my nose as I contemplated who to call.Mom or Daddy?
Mom would ask too many questions. She would dig into thewhywith her soft voice that never missed the tremor in mine. Daddy would cut straight to the point, but that also meant he’d press for details I wasn’t ready to spill.
