The blackness stretched into infinity, then shattered to the sound of roaring thunder.
Rain poured down from the black sky over the outskirts of Washington, D. C.
Seventeen-year-old Eliza Wyatt was soaked to the bone. She pressed her trembling back against a brick wall covered in gang graffiti.
Her younger sister, Jeri Wyatt, stood at the top of the concrete stairs. Jeri held an expensive black umbrella, looking down with a cold, mocking smile.
Jeri kicked a puddle of dirty water with the tip of her designer stiletto. The muddy water splashed directly onto Eliza's pale face.
Jeri sneered. She called Eliza a useless piece of trash who brought nothing but shame to the Wyatt military family. She announced that tonight was the night Eliza would finally disappear.
Three street thugs, covered in cheap tattoos, stepped forward. Spike, the leader, flipped open a switchblade. They moved closer, trapping Eliza in the narrow stairwell.
Eliza cried out. She begged Jeri to remember they were sisters, pleading for her life.
Jeri's eyes turned venomous. She ordered Spike to take good care of the Wyatt family's eldest daughter.
Jeri turned around. Her heels clicked elegantly against the concrete as she walked away, the sound fading into the heavy rain.
Spike laughed, a disgusting, wet sound. He lunged at Eliza, his rough hands grabbing for the collar of her soaked dress.
Survival instinct flared in Eliza's chest. She shoved Spike's chest with both hands and bolted down the stairs.
The other two thugs, Cletus and Dwayne, immediately flanked her, cutting off the sides of the stairwell.
Eliza panicked. Her foot slipped on the moss-covered concrete step. Her ankle twisted with a sharp pop.
She slammed face-first onto the stairs. The rough concrete tore the skin off her knees. Blood mixed with the rain.
Spike caught up. He grabbed a handful of Eliza's long, wet hair and yanked her backward.
Eliza screamed in pain. Her hands clawed blindly at the ground, her fingernails scraping bloody lines into the cement.
She thrashed wildly. She sank her teeth into the back of Spike's hand.
Spike cursed loudly. He threw her off with a violent shove.
The shove sent Eliza reeling. Her vision exploded with white stars as she lost her balance completely.
She fell backward. She tumbled down the steep, unrailed staircase, her body hitting the edges of the steps.
Her head struck a rusted iron pipe protruding from the wall. A sickening thud echoed in the alley.
Her body hit the bottom landing like a broken doll. Blood rapidly pooled around her head, washing away in the rain.
Spike stood at the top of the stairs. He peered down into the darkness, spat into the puddle, and assumed she was dead.
Eliza's pupils dilated. Her heartbeat stopped entirely beneath the roar of the storm.
In that exact fraction of a second, a massive, freezing current of consciousness violently forced its way into the empty shell.
The dead heart contracted with a violent, explosive beat.
Shattered neurons fired wildly. Deep within her consciousness, a fragmented memory of "Project Chimera"—a disbanded black-ops military program—exploded, its residual energy beginning to forcibly reconstruct her dying brain pathways.
The girl on the ground twitched her fingers. A drop of bloody water splashed.
Eliza's eyes snapped open. The cowardly, terrified look was completely gone. In its place was a gaze of absolute, freezing depths.
Lin, the top commander of Project Chimera, had officially awakened inside this broken body.
