Prologue
The fall wasn’t supposed to end like this… shattered, bleeding, betrayed.
The streets swarmed with party kids spilling out of neon-lit clubs, each doorway blasting a different rhythm into the night. Drifting from one club to the next, each place louder and wilder than the last. The money wasted on fake IDs could’ve been a lifeline for someone else. For us, it was pocket change.
I used to think nights like this were glittery and a fun time out. Neon signs flashing like promises, bass-heavy music vibrating through my whole body, laughter bubbling like champagne foam as it spilled over the edge of every glass.
Nights when my friends called me “the good girl,” but still begged me to come out because it wasn’t fun unless I was there. The plan was simple: a couple drinks, no keys, no mistakes. At least, that’s what I told myself.
That was me. Peyton Kingsley. Good grades. Good manners. Good family. The kind of girl people trusted to hold their secrets because she’d never be reckless enough to spill them. The one who cleaned up the trouble her friends caused, protected by the kind of trust only parents could give.
But on this night, the perfect girl finally broke.
I wasn’t the rescuer, only the architect of my own downfall… written into her story instead of mine.
“Come on, P.,” Vicky had said, tugging me by the wrist into the street where her father’s sleek black car idled, glossy as a panther in the dark. “Don’t be boring tonight.”
For a split second I saw it, a crash, metal twisting, lights shattering. What was that? What did I just see? It had to be the drinks messing with me.
I should’ve grabbed her keys, called a cab, even one of our drivers.
Her eyes glimmered under the streetlights, lined in smoky gold, her smile sharp and daring. I’d known her since we were kids, since pinky promises and matching friendship bracelets. Vicky always knew how to make trouble look like magic, how to turn a “no” into a “yes” before you even realized you’d agreed.
I should have said no. I should’ve fought back. I should’ve chosen myself, for once. Instead, I let her win.
But I let her pull me into the car anyway. The city bled past in streaks of neon. Music pounded, rattling through the leather seats. Vicky leaned out the window, hair whipping behind her like a banner, shrieking with laughter.
I tugged at her arm, trying to ge her to calm down, praying no one noticed the spectacle she was making. All I wanted was to get home in one piece. But that feeling, the one that coils low in your gut when something’s about to go wrong, wouldn’t let me go.
And then.
Everything shattered.
Tires screamed. Glass exploded. My seatbelt caught, burning into my collarbone as the world jerked sideways. The air filled with the acrid bite of smoke, the metallic tang of blood. Someone’s scream cut off too quickly, leaving only the hiss of the ruined engine and the frantic pound of my heart.
When I came to, my hands were bleeding, glittering with glass. My ears rang. The cuts bled freely, my arm and leg throbbing so violently I thought I might black out.
The backseat was wrong. One of our friends.
Jess.
Was slumped sideways, her head at an angle that made my stomach pitch. Blood ran down her temple. She wasn’t moving.
Panic clawed up my throat.
And then Vicky’s face filled my vision, wild and streaked with mascara. She grabbed me so hard her nails pierced skin. “P, you have to say it was you… you just have to.”
My mouth opened, but no sound came.
“If they find out I was driving—” Her voice cracked into a sob. “My parents will send me away. You know they will. You know what they’re like. You know what they will do to me.”
I stared at her, chest heaving. Even without words, my face said what I couldn’t
“Your parents will protect you,” she pressed, shaking me as if sheer force could make me agree. “Your parents will cover it up like they always do. But me? They’ll bury me. Please, P. You’re my best friend.”
Best friend.
Two words that chained me to her. I thought they meant something real.
I looked at Jess’s still body in the backseat. We shouted her name, begged for any sign, but there was nothing. Just silence. When I looked back at Vicky, the two of us sat side by side in the dirt, helpless. We couldn’t save Jess. All we could do was wait for the sirens, for the reckoning already on its way.
I thought of Vicky’s parents, cold as marble statues, threatening to ship her off every time she stepped out of line. I thought of my parents, who never looked at me the way they looked at my older sister, but who always cleaned up the messes I didn’t even make.
I wanted to believe her. To trust that I’d come out untouched. Maybe it was easier to think this way, to let her words drown out my doubts. She always painted her parents as ruthless… harsher than anyone could imagine.
The flashing red and blue lights bled across the windshield as the sirens grew louder. I could taste copper in the air. My hands shook. My heart screamed, “DON’T.”
But when the officers asked, I lifted my chin and said, “I was driving.”
The lie rolled from my lips like broken glass, each shard slicing deeper than the last.
Her crime.
My punishment.
Our secret.
Each word made me sick, a poison I couldn’t spit out. None of this was mine to bear, yet I was the one crumbling beneath it
Vicky’s breath hitched in relief beside me. She didn’t correct me. She didn’t confess. She let me damn myself. It was as if she’d shed the weight of it entirely, untouched by guilt.
And that’s how Peyton Kingsley, the good girl, the golden heiress… died.
What was left was a girl branded reckless, selfish, a danger to everyone around her. A girl with blood on her hands and probation papers stamped with her family’s name.
I put my faith, my trust, my loyalty in the wrong hands, and it ruined me.
I didn’t know it yet, but that fall had only just begun. Because sometimes when the world shatters, you don’t hit the ground right away. You keep falling. Down, down, into places darker than you thought possible.
And at the bottom, waiting for me, were the iron gates of…
Everfall Academy.
