"Emily!"

  The tears were there before I opened my eyes, and I sat bolt upright in bed.

  I was in bed?

  I shook my head, disoriented. I had been driving…hadn't I? Was it a dream? Had I been asleep? Was I awake now?

  Was I still dreaming?

  A light flicked on in the hallway, and my dad threw my bedroom door open.

  "Lauren, it's the middle of the night! What are you screaming about?" he barked.

  I blinked up at him. My obvious distress seemed to temper his rage. He clenched and unclenched his fists, visibly trying to calm himself.

  "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

  "Was I screaming? Are you sure?" I asked, screwing my eyes shut. "Sorry, Dad. I think I must've been dreaming."

  "Well, it must've been some dream, then," he said, shaking his head. I recognised that his anger came more from fear than annoyance. "You scared me half to death."

  "Right…" I nodded, feeling like there was something I was supposed to remember. The dream was fading fast. The harder I tried to hold onto it, the more it slipped away.

  "Is Emily home?"

  "She better be," he said, his expression shifting from concern back to irritation. "It's after five! If she's still at that party, I swear—"

  "Calm down," I cut him off, throwing myself back onto my pillow. "We agreed: no lectures before nine. It'll only end in tears."

  "Well, it looks like that ship's already sailed," he muttered, gesturing to the tears drying on my cheeks.

  "I didn't say it would end in my tears," I shrugged. "I'm not above making a grown man cry, you know."

  "Jesus wept," he groaned, turning to leave.

  "Then I suppose He must have had teenage daughters too," I replied, mockingly, beating him to the easy punchline.

  He shook his head in exasperation, but didn't answer before closing my door.

  I rolled onto my back, sighing as I struggled to remember the dream. I could only recall a single detail: the tree.

  I thought maybe I had been walking toward it.

  Or running.

  I wasn't sure why it had scared me so much, but even now, my heart was pounding.

  I flipped my pillow and closed my eyes, trying to drift off again—when my door burst open once more.

  My dad stood there, gring down at me.

  "Come in?" I grumbled, sleepily. "Do you have an appointment?"

  "Where is she?" he demanded.

  I cracked an eye open, and sat up, slowly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Don't py dumb, Lauren." His voice was sharp. "I know you two think I zip up the back, but she doesn't do anything without you knowing about it. Where. Is. She?"

  "She's not in bed?"

  My stomach flipped.

  The tree fshed in my mind's eye.

  I blinked it away, but a flutter of panic rose in my chest.

  "You know damn well she's not," he snapped.

  I rose to my feet and shoved past him, ignoring his indignant protests as I reached for the phone on my dresser. Missed call—an hour ago. She had been at Lisa Carmichael's house.

  Had she been too drunk to drive home?

  She wouldn't…no. I shook my head, banishing the thought before I could finish it. Emily was sensible. She wouldn't risk driving if she wasn't sober.

  Maybe she decided to crash at Lisa's.

  "Well?" My dad prompted, red-faced and furious.

  "Shut up." I said, breezily, calling my voicemail.

  "I beg your—"

  "Shhhh." I held up a hand, frowning as the message began pying.

  "Hey, it's Emily. I'm just leaving Lisa's house—everyone was asking about you. You know, it wouldn't kill you to get out of your room once in a while—"

  I didn't hear the rest. I didn't have to.

  The dream came rushing back, and my phone slipped from my hand as my mouth opened in a silent scream.

  "What…and where do you think you're going?" my dad demanded as I sprinted for the stairs.

  I didn't answer.

  I didn't understand how I had seen what I'd seen, but if the voicemail was real, then that meant the rest of it might be, too.

  That meant she might have actually crashed - she could be hurt or…

  Or—

  I froze halfway down the stairs.

  "Lauren?" My dad appeared on the top nding behind me—and then he stopped.

  He saw it too.

  The hallway was bathed in blue. Not natural light. Not moonlight. Something colder. Artificial. Fshing, rhythmic.

  For a moment, I had almost let myself believe I was still dreaming. But my dad's silence shattered that hope.

  A shadow passed across the frosted gss of the front door.

  A soft sound—shoes crunching on gravel outside.

  My stomach dropped through the floor.

  A knock.

  Three slow, deliberate raps that echoed through the house like gunfire.

  And I knew.

  Of course I knew.

  I colpsed where I stood, my knees buckling as I slid down a few more steps. I nded on the bottom nding, legs folded awkwardly beneath me, eyes wide but unseeing.

  I watched, detached, as my father stepped over me.

  He didn't rush. Didn't hesitate. He moved to the door like a man being pulled by something heavier than gravity.

  He knew.

  Of course he knew.

  He hadn't seen what I had seen, but he knew enough.

  Emily's bed was empty.

  And a police car was outside our house at five in the morning.

  I didn't hear what the policeman said. I didn't even look up when my mother joined them. I didn't feel anything as they sobbed and wailed and broke apart.

  I was gone.

  After an immeasurable amount of time, I stood, and my stumbling feet dragged me back to bed.

  I closed my eyes, alone in the darkness.

  And then:

  Then, I cried.

  I cried until I was empty.

  Until I had no more tears left.

  And then I cried some more.

  I cried until it ached. Until the ache numbed. Until it ached again.

  I cried until the sun rose.

  Then set.

  Until sleep took me, and I dreamed about her.

  The same dream.

  I wondered if I'd ever have another.

  Only, it wasn't a dream, was it?

  It wasn't possible, of course.

  But that felt like a meaningless detail.

  I had dreamed that my sister had died.

  And then she was dead.

  The voicemail—I'd heard it before I ever picked up my phone.

  And that meant that the dream had been real.

  And if the dream had been real...

  The implications of that were much too great for my ruined mind to process.

  The only thing I could be certain of was that something had killed my sister.

  Some unseen force had sent her crashing to her death.

  Why?

  Of the two of us, Emily was always the softer one. The gentler one.

  We were identical twins, but only on the outside. Emily was the nicer one. The better one.

  Why would anyone want to hurt her?

  And how?

  I didn't know, but I promised her then:

  I would find out.

  I listened to her voicemail again.

  And again.

  Until grief and exhaustion finally dragged me under.

  "If Dad asks, I was home by one o'clock…you're my alibi, okay? Love you, Loz."