Page 1 of Shattered Skull

Prologue

WHEN YOU’RE INVISIBLE LIKE ME,people step right over you. They look through your soul, only seeing what’s on the other side of you. They don’t see your heart—your essence—your mind. They don’t care if you’re hurting or broken. They only see the wall behind you, dark and dripping with your shadow.

Aiken Cross saw me when no one else did. His dark eyes found me in the deep end and plucked me from the thickness I was swimming in seconds before I could drown. He didn’t look through me. He looked at me. At my essence. At my mind. And once he found my soul and my heart, he touched it with his fingertips, and I disappeared.

I am no longer invisible.

Thanks to Aiken Cross, I no longer exist.

1 Everly Hart

BREATHE, EVERLY. DON’T PANIC.

Find five things you can see.

My eyes skimmed the hallway, landing on five different objects. The lockers lining the hall. Classroom doors with a variety of posters taped to them. A water fountain with students lined up to get a sip, and the exit sign above the door leading out to the breezeway. It blinked back at me like a warning.

The hallway crowd grew, and I dropped my eyes to my feet, looking at the terrazzo flooring beneath my shoes, and its tiny dots. They began to move, and I had to look away.

The panic attack was still coming.

Find four things you can feel.

My fingers skimmed the wall, my nails scraping along the cream-colored paint. When I reached a doorway and ran out of wall to touch, I grabbed the straps to my backpack and squeezed. Two: my bag. Technically, I was touching the floor, so that was three. And finally, I reached the door leading to the C hallway, and when I pressed my hands against the door to push it open, I reached number four.

Breathing was getting more manageable, but I still wasn’t out of the woods.

Three things you can hear.

The noise was overwhelming. The slamming of locker doors. The chatter of people I didn’t know and their laughter—the bell ringing. The sounds were bearing down on me and sending my senses into overdrive, but I zoned in and focused, finding three.

One: the sound of my backpack shifting against my back as I walked down the hall to my first class. Two: the sound of my thumbnail clicking against the nail of my ring finger. It was a nervous tick. Three: the sound of another door opening when I entered the hall where my class was.

Better.

The dizziness was starting to ebb, and my heart rate was returning to a reasonable speed.

Two things you can smell.

The girl walking beside me must have spritzed on an entire bottle of perfume that morning because it was all I could smell. It was fruity and overwhelming. I lifted my arm and pressed my wrist against my nose and breathed in the fresh scent of my favorite laundry detergent.

I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep, fulfilling breath.

One thing you can taste.

Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed my gum and pulled out a stick. Popping it into my mouth, I tasted the minty flavor when it rolled over my tongue, and I sighed in relief as I stepped up to room two-hundred.

I had made it.

Instead of going inside, I stood there and waited, my eyes glued to the narrow rectangular window looking into the classroom. It was empty, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I hated walking into a room full of people. The way they stared at me. The attention would send me straight into an attack.

The people walking by stared at me like I was nothing. I couldn’t see their eyes on me, but I could feel them penetrating my back. To them, I was no one—the new girl—the loser—the outsider. I hadn’t earned my spot in their school. Since it was my senior year of high school, I wouldn’t have the time to secure a place even if I wanted one.

I didn’t.

They had probably known each other for a long time, growing up together.

Sleepovers.

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