The Return (Book One in the 抖阴社区 Featured Return Series)

Chapter One

I close my towel and lean in closer, staring into my own eyes. My outward appearance might not have changed much, but I'm definitely not the same naive girl I was that first time around. I've transformed in ways you can't see, ways that aren't visible to the naked eye.

Coco bangs on the door and I startle. "Hey!" she hollers. "You're not the only one who needs to shower!"

Pushing back from the mirror, I rigorously begin brushing my teeth again. "I'll be out in a minute!" I call, with a mouth full of sudsy toothpaste.

When I finally relinquish the bathroom to a very grateful Coco, I head to my room to find something semi-decent to wear. Thankfully, I've got another day until my birthday, but just to be on the safe side, I pull out my nicest jeans, and a snug black sweater, that I know my boobs look good in.

An hour later, I'm sitting on the couch in the living room putting my shoes on, when my best friends, Caroline and her brother Derrick, come flying into my apartment without even bothering to knock.

"Morning sunshine!" Caroline sings, twirling down onto the couch next to me with dramatic flair. "I brought you a coffee."

She hands me a warm take-out cup, and I smile with gratitude. Out of all the souls that follow me from lifetime to lifetime, my best friend's is always the easiest to identify. Of course, she doesn't look exactly like she did back then; none of them ever do, but I always know it's her. Caroline is still petite with those same piercing green eyes she had back then. She also hasn't lost that strong-willed personality—the one that was so wrong when I first met her in the 1700s, and had to be restrained. Now it only grows more vibrant as the world catches up to her.

"You ready?" she asks, giving me a quick once over. "Derrick's freaking out that we're gonna be late. Apparently, he has to catch Nina before student council." She sticks her finger down her throat and makes a gagging noise.

Caroline and I both despise Nina Donaldson, but for very different

reasons. I think Caroline somehow feels threatened by Nina who is as equally beautiful and rich as she is. They've been pitted against each other since childhood—competing in the same country club horse shows, vying for the same roles in school plays, and sometimes even lusting after the same boys. Caroline may have pretty solid reasons for hating Nina, but mine run much deeper than hers, and span decades.

You see, Nina Donaldson and I have a long, complicated history, one that goes way back to my first lifetime in the late 1700s when she was known as Nora Potter. Nina may not remember our shared past, but like Caroline and the others, she's someone I encounter in every lifetime, and each go around makes me wonder if I really am stuck in my own personal hell.

"Hey! Don't you two start giving me shit about Nina," Derrick warns as he picks up a pillow from the chair beside him and tosses it at Charlotte's honey-blonde head. He just misses, and I laugh, causing Derrick to fix those same green eyes he shares with his sister in on me. The corner of his mouth quirks, and he saunters around to the other side of the couch. "My, my, Miss Blackwell, haven't you been noticeably more chipper lately?"

Plopping down on the other side of me, he slings an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into him. This is what I like most about Derrick. He's a constant. Despite having a different name now, he's still the same person, and I find that awfully comforting. In every lifetime he looks and acts almost exactly the same. Still tall and lanky with a mop of messy chestnut hair, just like when I first knew him.

"Your good mood wouldn't have anything to do with an upcoming birthday, would it?" He squeezes my shoulder and looks down at me. "Now let me give you a bit of advice about turning seventeen—"

Caroline reaches across me and clamps her hands over her brother's mouth. "Run, Ellie!" She giggles as he tries to pry her off him. "He's about to drop more of his oh-so sage eighteen-year-old wisdom down on you!"

Somehow, I manage to squeeze myself out from underneath the two of them without spilling my coffee, and I spring up from the couch. Laughing, I gaze over at the two of them. It absolutely floors me that there was ever a time I thought I could survive all this without them. The truth is, my best friends, are the only family I've ever been able to count on, and I couldn't have made it through six other lifetimes without them by my side.

"Okay!" I trot over to the front door and pull it open. "Time to go you two. We don't want to keep Nina Donaldson waiting."

I drop down into a grand curtsy that comes naturally to me after many years of practice, and Derrick's face goes slack. His eyes grow wide, and he stares at me like he's seen a ghost.

Caroline let's out an uneasy laugh and nudges him in the arm. "You okay?" she asks, but Derrick doesn't answer; he just stares blankly over at me, lost in his own world.

I wonder what he's seeing, or rather, remembering...

Catching Caroline's eye, she quickly nods at me, and then grabs hold of Derrick, shaking him out of the trance he's in.

"Okay, freak show!" She snaps her fingers in front of his face. "Are you high or something?"

"Wow," Derrick mumbles, rubbing his hands over his face. "That was the creepiest déjà vu!"

"Maybe I should drive." Caroline extends her hand, patiently waiting for the car keys, but we both know it'll take more than a spell of déjà vu for Derrick to hand them over. There are only two certainties when it comes to Derrick Allston: he loves his sister, and he loves his car, but not necessarily in that order.

"Keep dreaming," he says, fully recovered now.

With a frustrated growl, Caroline stomps her foot. "That's so unfair! I mean, seriously! I should have my own car by now!"

Their parents bought Derrick his car for his sixteenth birthday, and Caroline was furious when she didn't get the same token of affection when she turned sixteen. She often uses this as an example when trying to prove that her mother favors Derrick over her, although it's an argument she doesn't need to make with me. After more than two hundred years around her family, I know their dynamics like it was my own. I know exactly how much her mother adores her firstborn child. It's always been that way.

"Nice." Derrick shakes his head in open disbelief. "Way to be sensitive about that kind of shit in front of Ellie."

"Hey!" I put my hands up in front of me and shake my head. "You don't have to be sensitive for my sake. I'm fully aware that there is no way in hell Coco is going to surprise me with a car." I laugh at the very idea, but Caroline's mood changes.

She gives me a sympathetic smile and pulls Derrick up from the couch with her. "I promise you that your birthday is going to be awesome." She flings her arm around my shoulder, and I notice her smile is suspiciously smug. "That's a guarantee."

Dread and excitement burrow inside me as we all walk out the front door together. This happens every time. I always beg her not to make a big deal out of my birthday, and in every lifetime she flat out ignores me.

Of course, nothing compares to the first time we celebrated my seventeenth birthday together, because back then I had no idea what to expect...