Prologue

"Blaise," my mom said as she opened my bedroom door.

I gasped and nearly fell off my chair, causing the alarm on my heart monitor to go off.

She sighed and reached for the mouse to pause the True Crime Documentary. "You know I hate it when you watch these shows."

Wiping the dried drool from the corner of my lips, I tried to remember when I fell back to sleep. I spun my computer chair around to see her, even though I knew the look that would be on her face. "That's why I stopped talking about them with you."

"Please don't do this with me. Not today."

"Do what?" I asked standing up.

"Look. I know you don't like it here. You miss your friends. You miss the views. But this district has better medical services."

"Yeah, but with those medical services comes more work for you and dad." I bit my lip and finished the sentence in my head. And more time for me to sit here alone, with my thoughts.

"Do not worry about your father and me. We will do whatever it takes to make you better."

"What if I'll never be better? What if I'm like this forever? I'm almost nineteen Mom. At some point, they're going to make me go out there and get a job. Everyone in the districts has a job, isn't that right?"

"Blaise, please."

I bit my tongue, but it was too late. "I'm sick of being different. I'm sick of…I don't know… Being weight on everyone's shoulders."

My mom reached out and cupped my face in her hands. "You are not weighing on anyone's shoulders. And you do have a job, you are your father's assistant."

I squeezed my eyes as tight as I could. I didn't want to cry. I knew the facts, I knew what I was even if they would never admit it.

She pressed her lips against my forehead. "Look at me."

Come on, Blaise, pull yourself together. I told myself as I took a deep breath, caging in my emotions again before I opened my eyes.

"As you said you are almost nineteen now, and I don't have to lie to you. This is hard, but in life everyone has obstacles. If your dad and I didn't have you, and you didn't have your heart, there would be something else. You are not a burden. Your father and I wouldn't want it any other way."

"But," I started to interrupt.

"No. No buts. We need to stay positive. I need all the positive vibes I can get this week. We need to be grateful that we have today, that your dad got that promotion that moved us here, and that WE have the opportunity to venture up this mountain of life together, as a family."

The tension in my shoulders began to fade, she was right.

"Now, I have to leave, Tasha will be here any minute. She wanted me to ride in with her today so we can go over the presentation one more time."

"You're going to crush this," I said, wrapping my arms around her.

"You know it." She winked. "Now, go shower, get something to eat, and please don't do anything crazy while I'm gone. It might be a late night for both of us."

I smiled back at her. "When have I ever done anything crazy?"

"Bye, Blaise," she said, closing the door behind her.

My stomach sank, as I opened the pillbox for Monday, and dumped the pile of medication onto my hand.

Plopping myself down in my computer chair I looked at the screen. True Crime was my favorite, I always took notes and tried to figure out who the killer was before they told me: I was pretty good at it too.

I spun the chair around and looked at my wall, as I swallowed the handful of pills. It was covered in articles I had printed out where my dad had saved the day. He was a detective, dealing a lot with those taken into the BADLANDS: If he got a call, you know it's serious. For the first half of my life, I wanted to be him. I wanted to be there to save the day. I wanted to be the one they called when shit hit the fan.

I was on that path too, against my mother's wishes of course, but every chance I got I followed in my father's footsteps…until one day when I was twelve and my heart decided it didn't want to work right anymore.

My stomach growled, reminding me that I skimped on dinner yesterday, the tension in the air between my parents was a bit high: My dad had a mission coming up and my mother was worried—we all were.

The last words I said to my mother repeated in my head "When have I ever done anything crazy?"

"Just shake it off," I said walking down the stairs. "It's just been one of those mornings, I'll feel better after I eat."

I opened the fridge and looked inside, there was nothing in there I wanted. Apple or Banana it is, I told myself spinning around to the small island/table: These base houses were small.

Hmmm, mom must really be stressed, I thought, as I sank my teeth into a green apple and picked up her keys that she had left on the counter. She's a neat freak, but when she is hyper-focused on work she loses track of everything else.

I paused as I reached to hang her keys by the door, those words repeating again.

Clenching the keys in my fist I said, "Today. Today is the day that I do something crazy."