Alyssa pressed her ear against the heavy oak door. Silence.
She dragged her heavy legs across the thick carpet and limped into the massive marble bathroom.
She twisted the gold handle of the shower. Scalding hot water blasted out of the showerhead. She stepped under it, letting the heat wash the dried blood and grass from her skin.
She stared at her reflection in the fogged mirror. Pale skin, delicate features, zero muscle mass. She slapped her own cheeks hard, forcing the stinging pain to ground her in this new reality.
As she scrubbed the dirt from her wounds, she rapidly searched her inherited memories. She mapped out the tragic bankruptcy the Gallagher family was destined to face in the original plot.
She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a thick, oversized bathrobe around her small frame. She walked barefoot toward the French windows.
Her eyes, mutated by the apocalypse, pierced through the darkness. She scanned the security cameras and the patrol routes of the guards outside.
Suddenly, her gaze locked onto a massive balcony on the third floor of the neighboring estate, hundreds of yards away.
A faint blue light glowed in the dark. A man sat perfectly still in a wheelchair.
Iver Lancaster leaned away from his high-powered astronomical telescope. He had been looking at the stars, but the lens had caught the movement in the Gallagher guest room.
Iver adjusted the focus ring. The lens zoomed in. He saw Alyssa staring right back at him. Her eyes seemed to glow with a feral, haunting light in the pitch black.
His chest tightened.
The medical-grade biometric sensor strapped to Iver's wrist suddenly let out a piercing, rapid beep.
His special assistant, Reginald Cole, sprinted out of the bedroom. Reginald stared in horror at the tablet in his hand, watching Iver's heart rate plummet and then violently spike.
Iver raised a pale hand, silencing Reginald. His dark eyes remained glued to the mysterious woman behind the glass.
He suffered from a rare, terminal degenerative nerve disease. His heart rate hadn't shown this much violent, chaotic life in years.
Alyssa felt the weight of his stare. She didn't flinch. She narrowed her eyes and shot him a cold, lethal glare that promised violence if he kept looking.
She grabbed the heavy velvet curtains and yanked them shut, completely severing the visual connection between the two estates.
Iver stared at the darkened window. A cold, fascinated smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"Find out exactly what happened at the Gallagher estate tonight," Iver ordered, his voice raspy.
Meanwhile, in the master bedroom of the Gallagher mansion, the air was thick enough to choke on.
Julian paced across the Persian rug in his pajamas. His knuckles were white as he gripped a crystal glass filled with whiskey.
Katie sat on the edge of the mattress. She pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead, unable to erase the image of Alyssa snapping her own bone back into place.
Julian stopped pacing. "I'm calling the top neurosurgeon in New York. We are all getting brain scans tomorrow morning."
Katie looked up, her eyes bloodshot. "And if the scans are clean? If we aren't sick, Julian, then the whole world is sick."
Downstairs, Estelle hugged a stuffed teddy bear to her chest. She rolled over in her bed, staring at the ceiling.
Every time she closed her eyes, she heard Alyssa calling her an angel. The pure hatred she had felt for her fake sister began to crack.
In the home gym, Tristan aggressively bench-pressed heavy iron plates. He grunted with every rep, trying to exhaust his muscles enough to drown out the mechanical voice in his head.
In the guest room, Alyssa threw herself backward onto the massive, soft mattress. A loud sigh of pure pleasure escaped her lips.
Capitalism is amazing, Alyssa thought, sinking into the pillows. This mattress is ten thousand times better than sleeping on concrete. I'm going to eat until I explode tomorrow.
The unguarded, completely random thought broadcasted perfectly into the minds of the entire family.
The crystal glass slipped from Julian's hand. It shattered against the Persian rug, splashing amber liquid everywhere.
In that exact moment, the last of Julian's rationalizations shattered. They had no choice but to confront the terrifying possibility: they were somehow tuned into a supernatural radio station broadcasting from inside Alyssa's head.
