Feral

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Advance Reader's e-proof

courtesy of
HarperCollins Publishers

This is an advance reader's e-proof made from digital files of the uncorrected proofs. Readers are reminded that changes may be made prior to publication, including to the type, design, layout, or content, that are not reflected in this e-proof, and that this e-pub may not reflect the final edition. Any material to be quoted or excerpted in a review should be checked against the final published edition. Dates, prices, and manufacturing details are subject to change or cancellation without notice.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

—John Milton, Paradise Lost

Cover

Disclaimer

Title

Dedication

Serena

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Serena

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Seven Years Ago

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Serena

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
n the rugged, underbrush-riddled rural town of Peculiar, Missouri, at the beginning of a January sleet storm, and beneath the dimming orange hues of dusk, a body lay half out of the window that led to the high school basement.

The body belonged—or really, the body had
once
belonged—to Serena Sims, a B average junior who loved her best friend, the sound of the rain, writing for the school paper, and her mother's chocolate mayonnaise cake with homemade icing, a family specialty.

She'd been a sweet girl with old-fashioned, simple dreams—to stop biting her nails to the quick (for
good
this time); to be kissed, just once, by a boy who
truly
loved her; to get out of Peculiar; to get a job as a
real
journalist at a national paper. But there was nothing simple about her current state. Or maybe, it was the simplest state of all: a past tense. Dead.

More than an hour after her heart had stopped, she found herself staring at the blue tips of her fingers, the wavy ends of her long brown hair, the dusty top of an old wooden desk, and the fractured tile of the janitors' office. It was all she
could
stare at, with her stomach still smashed against the windowsill, her head and arms dangling down toward the basement floor. Outside the building, a pair of hands clutched her hips to keep her from falling back inside, tumbling to a heap on the office floor for the fourth time.

The hands gripped her tighter, fingers digging deeper into her cold flesh just beneath her school uniform blouse, which was still wet with the frantic sweat that had poured from her in her final moments. She listened to a deep intake of air and a grunt as the hands jerked her farther outside, so that only the section of her body from the armpits up remained inside the high school. The hands lightened as the figure outside paused, trying to work up the strength for another heave, while Serena's legs lay on the bitterly cold, snowy earth, stretching straight out from the ground-level window. With one more violent tug, the hands yanked the last of her body out, banging her nose against the sill so hard that it broke.

Serena tried to yelp, but her mouth, purple and swollen, only flopped, like a door with a busted hinge. No warm, copper-flavored blood trickled from a nostril to her lip, even though her nose had just been snapped, as easily as a drinking straw.

She lay motionless in the freezing rain.

Seventeen and dead: it was the worst kind of vulnerable. She felt utterly exposed, as though she were standing naked in the center of the school auditorium while the faculty and students filed by her, one at a time, taking a good look at all her flaws: the stretch marks on her sides and the cellulite dimples on her backside that had never gone away, even after she'd lost her fifty extra pounds in middle school.

The shock of knowing the day would end this way would have given her a full-on asthma attack—the kind that had made her lungs feel like they were packed with concrete—as she'd sat at the breakfast table that morning with her Cheerios. Or had she eaten oatmeal? It seemed so strange, now, not to have paid attention to the details of her next-to-last meal. But the sadness of her overlooked last breakfast was nothing compared to the fear-laden reality that Serena had no way to protect herself, not anymore. An hour and a half ago, she could still fight. Kick and scream. Now, her fight was gone.

Her killer could do whatever he wanted with her. But Serena hadn't yet stopped feeling. No—she felt
more
, now that she was dead. Everything was intense, to the point of being painful. Her ears, only an inch away from the ground, acted like amplifiers, magnifying the sleet-rain mix as it pummeled the earth with the sound of a whole package of BBs spilling out across a linoleum floor. Her skin was as sensitive as a sunburn, and the frozen droplets were sharp—like the pointed tips of manicure scissors stabbing her over and over.

How would it feel when her killer disposed of her? What if he dismembered her? Surely she would stop experiencing the pain of the world around her—but when? Would she have to endure the whack of an ax? Would she have to listen to the screech of a saw blade whizzing against her bones? Good God—what if he tried to light her on fire? How hot did a fire have to be to cremate a person? Would she have to bear the agony of it, with no ability to even scream?

First, though, her killer needed rest; dragging her up and out a window had exhausted him. He collapsed on the frozen ground beside her, huffing and coughing and struggling to catch his breath the same way Serena's classmates all huffed when the lone gym teacher herded them over to the gravel track on the side of the school and tested them on the mile run. His breath shuddered, and Serena was left to only imagine his exhalations coming out in clouds, as her face was pressed against the ground, her eyes taking in the close-up of a frozen, brown blade of dead grass.

Serena wondered why he was just sitting there, leaving her body in full view of anyone braving the weather. Sure, school had been closed a full two hours early because of the ice, the principal's voice insisting over the intercom that all after-school activities be rescheduled, urging everyone to head straight home, no hanging out in the parking lot, no gossiping in the hallway. (Serena, though, had stayed, determined to keep her own after-school appointment.) By now, the school had a long-empty feel to it, like it did over Christmas or summer break. And the gray, cloudy day was slowly leaning toward night, leaving the two of them partially hidden by a darkening sky. And the sprawling old farmlands that butted up against the ancient school meant that the closest home was more than a mile away. But wasn't he still being awfully brazen, letting her lie there, completely exposed? Most importantly,
where was he planning on taking her?

In the distance, a lonely siren sliced through the evening quiet.

Her killer gasped as he scrambled to his feet. He grabbed her ankles, and jerked her body with each of his own steps, yanking her across the small field between the back of the school and the nearby woods.

He grunted as he pulled her, forcing Serena's jaw open, as wide as its hinges would allow. With the next heave, her teeth ripped at the dead grass like a lawn mower needing its blade sharpened. Her mouth filled with dead bugs and last autumn's Weed and Feed and decayed animal droppings.

Her tongue, she found, also felt just as alive as it ever had, and she wished she could gag against the rancid flavors that exploded through her mouth. With the next backward jerk, the tip of her broken nose pinged against the sharp jagged peak of a rock.
Where is that rigor mortis, anyway?
Serena wondered, unable to cringe against the pain dancing across her face.

As her killer dragged her body, her open cardigan flopped; her shirt inched up, bunching around her breasts, and her skirt flipped up, making her white panties the only thing that separated her backside from the late January air. Her necklace, which had already been tortured and weakened during the struggle she'd had with her killer, caught on the thick, gnarled remnants of an old tree root.

She was overwhelmed by the urge to protect the old cameo she'd worn on a short chain to take attention away from the scar on the base of her throat. God, she hated that scar—the spot where doctors had sliced into her in the midst of her worst asthma attack ever—an attack that had shortly followed a hobo spider bite. The poison from the bite and the lack of air and the fear had made her crazed, wild, unlike herself—and she'd fought the doctors so that they'd had no other choice but to intubate her, force some air down her swollen throat.

Funny to think it, now—a little over three years ago, the ER doctors had all talked about how strong she was. Earlier today, she'd been overtaken as quickly as an utter weakling. How was that possible?

The chain on her necklace snapped; the gold cameo that had once belonged to her grandmother lay glittering in a smear of dying late afternoon sunlight. But her killer just kept tugging at her ankles, oblivious to the little scrap of a clue he'd left behind.

Right then, though, Serena didn't care about clues. She didn't care about revenge. She cared about the rocks and ice that scraped her face, making her feel like the earth was peeling her. She cared about the way her flesh still felt as though it belonged to her. She cared about her killer's plans.

The siren circled closer; her killer tried to increase his pace, succeeding only in losing his grip on her ankles. He growled angrily, then flipped her over, letting her face turn toward the sky. Allowing the needle-sharp rain to hit her eyes, some drops dancing against the whites and bouncing off again. Others stabbed her pupils, her irises, like stickpins on a bulletin board.

He gripped one arm and one leg and tugged again. His foot caught on the edge of her black Peculiar High cardigan, ripping the pocket. He staggered, swearing under his breath. But he quickly steadied himself, tightened his grip, and grunted as he heaved her another step.