Chapter 1

The moment the first session of the SATs ended, everyone in our class headed to a nearby diner for lunch.

Amber, the most popular girl in our grade, walked in holding a greasy brown paper bag she bought from some cheap roadside food truck.

"Hey guys! I got these smoked turkey legs for everyone!" she announced with a sweet, angelic smile.

Having grown up in a family that ran a famous three-generation Texas-style BBQ Smokehouse, my eyes instantly locked onto the meat.

One look, and I knew.

These weren't turkey legs. They were expired, heavily chemically-treated pork and duck meat, loaded with food coloring and toxic artificial smoke flavors to mask the rot.

Without hesitation, I slapped the tray out of her hand, stopping everyone from taking a bite.

But Amber couldn't handle the public embarrassment. She felt I was targeting her. She burst into tears, ran out of the diner, and was immediately crushed to death by a speeding semi-truck.

My boyfriend, Tyler, grabbed me by the neck, his eyes bloodshot with rage.

"This is on you! If you hadn't humiliated her, Amber would still be alive!"

"She's dead! Now you pay!"

Even the classmates I had just saved turned on me.

"They were just some turkey legs! Did you have to be so malicious?"

"Look what you did! You literally killed her!"

In the end, Tyler and the others locked me in a room and force-fed me ninety-nine of those rotten, toxic turkey legs until I choked and died from severe food poisoning and ruptured stomach.

Meanwhile, because I had stopped them from eating the rotten meat, they remained perfectly healthy, aced their exams the next day, and all got into Ivy League universities.

When I opened my eyes again, the smell of woodsmoke and cheap grease filled my nose.

I was back on the day of the lunch.