The last thing Cameron knew was the cold, hard sting of marble steps against his spine and the fading sound of three voices, his sister's panic cry, his lover's calm dismissal, his father's calculating murmur. 'We should try to save him… I was about to sell him.' The words swirled with the pain, a cruel end to a life that had never been his own. His last, desperate thought before his consciousness faded was a question: Who are my real parents?
Then, nothing.
Then, everything.
A spinning, nauseating headache pulled him back to consciousness, a violent ache behind his eyes that felt more like a memory of impact than a new injury. His body felt… strange. The deep ache was gone, replaced by a little soreness caused by late night study. The sheets were the same, smelling faintly of the lavender detergent the housekeeper used.
I'm dead. This has to be what death feels like, or maybe a dream.
He forced his eyes open, blinking against the soft morning light filtering through familiar, hideous blue curtains. His curtains. From his room in the Reed mansion. A cold terror ran down his spine. 'No' he screamed in his head with fear in his eyes. "Did they rescue me to sell me off like they said?"
He sat up quickly, the movement triggering a wave of dizziness. He looked down at his hands. They were his hands, but… younger. The faint scar from a bicycle accident at seventeen was there, but the smaller calluses from his future part-time job was not. His arms were leaner, less defined
He scrambled out of bed, his legs unsteady, and stumbled to the full-length mirror on the back of his closet door. Staring back at him was face much younger and cleaner. A face less defined and sharpen by stress, hardship and irreversible trauma. Dark hair messy from sleep, eyes wide like saucers with a panic no eighteen-year-old should ever hold. He checked his head and there was no sign of the fall. No fatal injury.
This is not him being saved. This is more than that. He was whole. He was young, but not a child.
He was back.
A hysterical sob caught in his throat, half terror, half joy and impossible hope. He slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle it, his eyes darting to the door. The Reeds couldn't hear. He couldn't attract attention. The habits of a lifetime...of staying small, quiet, invisible...kicked in automatically, even as his mind reeled.
Regression. Reincarnation. A second chance. The concepts, borrowed from the fantasy novels he'd left hidden under his bed, flashed through his mind. He had them. He had time to change everything, but less of it.
The initial shock began to fade, replaced by a chilling, focused clarity. The memory of his death played on a loop...his sister's smirk, Lucas's cold eyes, his father's betrayal, the hidden memory of being "returnable." The pain, the fear, the utter loneliness of it all solidified into a new resolution inside him, hard as diamond.
He would not live this life again. He would not be their victim, their pawn, their commodity.
He turned from the mirror, his breathing steadying. He looked around the room, his gilded prison. The expensive furniture bought for show, not comfort. On the desk, a sleek laptop and acceptance letters to universities, the future that had led him to Lucas, to his death.
He had four years until he would meet Lucas Thorne in college. Four years until the betrayal that would kill him.
He had four years to disappear. To rewrite everything.
A plan began to form. Money. Information. Escape. He would need to be smarter, faster and more resourceful. University was now a battlefield he thought he knew, he would have to change the rules. And he would find them. His real parents. The answer to his dying question.
A soft knock at the door made him jump, his body tensing with fear built in his nerves from years of trauma, beatings and psychological bully.
"Cameron? Are you up? Your father wants to see you before you finalize your university choice today." It was Victoria Reed's voice, perfectly controlled, perfectly cold.
He looked at his face in the mirror one more time. The fear in his eyes was still there, but beneath it, something new was hardening. A resolve forged in a future death.
"I'm up," he called back, his voice surprisingly steady. It was the voice of Cameron Reed, the quiet, obedient young man.
But behind those eyes lived someone else. Someone who had seen the bottom of the stairs and climbed back up.
He had a second chance. And he would use it to burn this life to the ground.