Emersyn Sharpe doesn’t belong in our world. In fact, the very last place she should be is with us. But someone is hurting her. We’ve all seen it. We tried to ignore the warning signs. We tried to trust the people around her. We tried to believe in her world. Too late. When she nearly died in front of us, we had to act. We took her. She doesn’t belong in our world, but I’ll be damned if someone lays a finger on her under my watch. I’ll kill them first.

Born into Hollywood royalty, I’ve been making the hot sheet and generating internet buzz since before I could even walk. Doesn’t matter that my parents divorced prior to my second birthday, I can’t escape the shadows—or scandals—of my movie star mother and my rock star father.

Savy St. James is a sad lonely girl with too many secrets to count. She hides away in her oversized frumpy clothes and thick glasses wishing she was brave enough to be seen without her mask. One small favor backfires and forces her into a fake date deal by the school’s hot shot quarterback. Him and his three best friends treat her like a pet to play with and are careless with her until she’s had enough and breaks the deal.

“Give me a second chance, babe . . . and I’ll blow your mind.” Monroe doesn’t know why she answers the text that’s obviously meant for someone else. Or why she keeps answering. Maybe it’s because she’s all alone in a big city and in desperate need of a lifeline. Or maybe it’s because each exchange leaves her intrigued and more than a little turned on. Still, Monroe never would’ve snarked back if she’d known she was talking to the “Golden Boy” of the Dallas Knights.

I thought I’d hit rock bottom when I turned 16. The day I broke my first love's heart, ending things before I could ruin his career as a rock star. But damn, was I wrong. Things got progressively worse from that moment on, until now. Eight years later, when I find myself homeless, jobless, covered in blood, and running from a ghost of my past.

After surviving foster care and a high school that breeds gang members and drug dealers, I've finally found my path to freedom: emancipation and a full ride scholarship at the ultra-exclusive Hannaford Prep. All I have to do is survive. After attracting the wrong sort of attention from the richest boy in the country, pissing off the hottest guy in school, and being humiliated in front of my favorite rock idol, I am now the target of the most popular, and cruelest, group in the freshman class.

I was the girl no one looked at twice. Until they saw me. My whole life, no one has had my back. My parents are dead, my adoptive mother is a drug addict, and the mean girls on campus mock me for my scars. So when I end up desperate for money and out of options, I agree to sell the one thing I have left: my innocence. On the night I’m meant to give my body to a brutal Russian mobster, three men storm into the room like dark shadows and kill him before he can claim me. When they drag me from the blood-soaked bed, I’m certain they’re going to kill me too.

I'm the girl you'll never see coming. Blink and you're dead—another target checked off my list. Until one night, my carefully ordered existence falls apart. A bloodbath and a car crash later, I find myself in the grasp of four gorgeous, intimidating men. My captors claim they're holding me for my protection. I can't quite believe that.

Moving to a new town to start college, where I can try to be normal. Or at least pretend I am. I’m willing to fake it, because I’m tired of trying to get better. Tired of spilling my guts to doctors and therapists to understand why I’ve heard voices since I was a child.

At any given time, there could be as many as 50 serial killers active. I’m looking for one. He’s been killing successfully for more than three decades. I suspect even longer. A year ago, the unsub’s methods changed. Instead of one or two bodies a year, five have been dropped. Either the unsub has a partner or he’s about to become a spree killer. It’s only a matter of time before someone puts the coin into the right slot and the kill song begins. Finding the unsub is my obsession. It was my father’s. He died without solving the mystery. I won’t.