Chapter 1

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THERE WAS A GHOST IN MY ROOM.

I could feel it pulling on me, pulling on me to open up. To open that final barrier guarding them from my world. It scraped it's claws down my walls, crooning at me. I couldn't open it. I couldn't let it through, couldn't help it move forward. I wanted to; I really did. But I could sense that this one . . . wasn't right. It felt so wrong. Letting it through would be catastrophic. God knows I didn't need another catastrophe right now. It was bad enough being a teenager, but a teenager who sees ghosts? A teenager who can communicate and interact with them?

I was crazy.

Schizophrenic, that's what the doctors told me. Told my family.

I've been on medication since I was thirteen, and yet, the ghosts are still here. Still lurking in my mind, pushing and clawing against me—pounding their fists against my shields. It drove me crazy, but I kept them at bay. I didn't let them out—well, not anymore at least. As a child I hadn't realized that it wasn't normal to have them around. I thought everyone saw them, heard their cries and pleas. But no, it was only me.

I didn't think I was crazy, but every doctor told my parents otherwise. My mom watches over me like a hawk. She let me finish off middle school with my friends, but then shipped me off to private school with my brothers. They had been going before I had, but Mum made it official the minute she found out about my "illness" that we'd all attend there. Where Mum and Dad could be involved around the school and could monitor me.

It was all bullshit.

I hated the school, I wanted to go to high school with my friends. Two of my close friends made the switch with me—I think Mum convinced their parents to enroll them, because of the education and because I would be there with them. Or she might have paid them off. I wasn't sure, she never told me what happened when she talked to their parents.

I had a small group of friends, including the two who came with me from middle school. The other two were invited in because of my best friend Tally—Tallulah—she had wanted us to branch out, and that's exactly what she did. She dragged Hollis and I with her. Where we met Willa and Aideen. They were not people I would have picked to be a part of my life, but sometimes you don't get to pick your loved ones.

I certainly didn't.

My friends were crazy and loud, but really—I was the only crazy one.

"Jillian?" my mother called from the hall outside of my room. She knocked when I didn't respond. I couldn't focus, not with her pounding, and the ghost pounding against my mind. His screams ringing through my ears. God today was going to suck.

"Jill," my mother was suddenly behind me in the mirror. I shrieked, throwing a hand over my racing heart. She placed her hands up defensively. "Sorry! I was calling you."

I turned around, fully facing her. My mother looked tired, dark circles drowning her grey eyes. Her dark hair was limp on her shoulders. Not done up—like it usually was—and didn't have it's usual volume. My mother's hair was always curled, sometimes natural, other times due to her curler. But today— what was wrong?

"Sorry, I was—"

"Have you not been taking your meds?" asked Mum.

My brows pinched together. "Pardon?"

My mother pulled out my bottle of medication and opened it, she held the cap in one hand while she showed me the contents of my bottle.

"Your bottle has been this full for weeks, are you not taking them?"

I sighed, exasperatedly. I ran a hand over my face. "I am taking them, the bottle I've been using is in my bathroom."

My mother screwed the cap back on and braced her hands on her hips. My pulse began to thrum, a headache building through me.

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