+ Read the First Chapter↓

I'm not sure how to say this.

How does one go about calmly stating such a fact? Regardless of the arrangement of words, the timber of my voice, or my inflection and tone, the meaning of that statement is still cutting.

Perhaps simply spitting it out will do. I've discovered no other way.

In three days, I will die.

There, I said it - cast it out for you to know, to understand, to roll over your tongue until you have the exact flavor.

I will die in seventy-two hours. Or, I guess, seventy-one since I discovered the truth and found even a semblance of the ability to process it.

I'm a young woman. Twenty-three years old, with two months left before my twenty-fourth birthday. I have reddish brown hair that was once a sweeping cascade of silk down my back. I have blue eyes, one that tends to be lazy when I get tired. My body is slim, but not skinny. My breasts are a decent size, but nothing spectacular. I'm taller than most women at five foot nine, but shorter than most men. At least, the men I've known.

Prior to an hour ago, I had dreams of a brighter future. I also had doubts - about myself, about Ethan, about the one-sided relationship I've had with him.

One day ago, I gave Ethan my best performance. I screamed for the camera, bent over so that every part of my ass and useful places were on display. I'd begged for help, for mercy, for the man on top of me to find it in his heart to let me go. I fucked like a good girl should, while pretending I didn't want it.

Ethan watched that performance with pride shining behind his grey eyes, the glimmer cut through with rage. As soon as my job was done, he'd jerked me from the stage and tossed me in a shower, practically scrubbing the skin off my body to remove every hint of the man who'd touched me.

After I was clean - not out of care, but of proprietary - Ethan reminded me that the only man who could really scare me was him.

There's a time limit on girls like me and my time, like those who have gone before me, is up. I knew it was coming, but foolishly allowed hope to dull the sharp, jagged edges of my fate.

There's nothing I can say, nothing I can do, and nobody I can fuck to keep that from happening. My name has been written on the clapboard, the top pulled up, held and ready to slam down on my life.

The statement is simplistic. Six, one syllable words that roll easily over the lips. Definitions aren't necessary. It doesn't boggle the brain to understand its meaning. Simple, ordinary, and chilling, I repeat the truth in my head.

In three days, I will die.

Ethan, as always, will be watching.