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CHAPTER 1

VANE

I’m lucky to be alive.

At least, that’s what everybody keeps telling me.

The reporter from the local newspaper even had the nerve to call it a miracle. I was “Vane Weston: The Miracle Child.” Like the police finding me unconscious in a pile of rubble was part of some grand universal plan.

“Family Survives Tornado”—now, that would’ve been a miracle. But trust me, there’s nothing “miraculous” about being orphaned at seven years old.

It’s not that I’m not grateful to be alive. I am. I get that I shouldn’t have survived. But that’s the worst part about being “The Miracle Child.”

The question.

The same inescapable question, plaguing me for the last ten years of my life.

How?

How could I get sucked in by a category-five tornado—nature’s equivalent of a giant blender—get carried over four miles before the massive funnel spit me back out, and only have a few cuts and bruises to show for it? How was that possible, when my parents’ bodies were found almost unrecognizable?

The police don’t know.

Scientists don’t know.

So they all turn to me for the answer.

But I have no freaking idea.

I can’t remember it. That day. My past. Anything.

Well, I can’t remember anything useful.

I remember fear.

I remember wind.

And then . . . a giant, blank space. Like all my memories were knocked out of my head when I hit the ground.

Except one.

One isolated memory—and I’m not even sure if it is a memory, or if it’s some strange hallucination my traumatized brain cooked up.

A face, watching me through the chaos of the storm.

A girl. Dark hair. Darker eyes. A single tear streaks down her cheek. Then a chilly breeze whisks her away.

She’s haunted my dreams ever since.