Karma for the Betrayers

I did three years for a man I didn't mean to kill.

I'm a taekwondo black belt. My best friend got cornered by a drunk outside a bar, and when I pulled her loose it turned into a brawl. One of them went down wrong and didn't get up.

He died. They charged me with manslaughter.

On the stand, the friend I'd protected wouldn't say my name.

I came home to find she'd married my boyfriend. Their daughter was already two.

They had a plan for me, too. A quiet little arrangement to hand me off to her older cousin, a man who'd do anything if the price was right.

Then I opened my eyes, and it was the morning of her birthday. Three years before any of it had happened.

This time, I wasn't going to save anyone.

Chapter 1

One second I was bleeding out in a wrecked car. The next, I was sitting in my own bedroom, whole.

I pressed a hand to my ribs, to the side the crash had crushed. Nothing there now. No blood. No wreck. Just my pulse, slamming.

The clock on my phone said three years ago. The morning of Delaney's twenty-second birthday.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I'd done my hair, my makeup, all of it, for the birthday dinner of the best friend I'd had since we were kids.

Two texts waited on my phone.

One was Delaney. A dropped pin, then a voice note. I tapped it and her voice poured out, sweet enough to coat your teeth.

"Babe, I booked us the cute place, don't you dare go to the wrong one."

The other was Brett. My boyfriend.

Brett: [Sloane, you almost ready? I'm pulling up outside.]

I rolled my eyes where no one could see it.

Back then, I'd thought the two of them barely knew each other. Someone had told me the way to a man's heart ran through his best friend, so I'd chipped in extra and bought Delaney a necklace I couldn't really justify, in Brett's name. So my boyfriend and my best friend could get along.

Three years in a cell, and I came out to a two-year-old who, if you counted backward, had been conceived right about now.

I swallowed the urge to call them both what they were, and texted Delaney instead.

Me: [Babe, twisted my ankle, I'm so sorry. Heading to urgent care. I'll make your birthday up to you, I promise.]

My family had money. Hers didn't. For years she'd skimmed what she could off me, so to my face she was all sugar.

A flood of worried voice notes came in. I didn't open them. I wasn't sure I could hear that syrup-sweet voice without gagging.

Then I texted Brett.

Me: [Not feeling great. Go without me.]

I didn't wait for his answer. I muted him.

Two gift boxes sat on the bed. The necklace, the one meant to go in Brett's name, and a bag I'd bought her under mine. Neither was anything I'd have picked for myself.

So I took both back.

Out on the sidewalk, the returns done, I opened Instagram without thinking.

Delaney had already posted.

White dress. An armful of flowers. Gifts stacked around her like she was something out of a fairy tale.

And right beside her, Brett.

Standing close. His body tipped toward her, just slightly. That lean you don't catch unless you're looking for it. Anyone scrolling past would have taken them for the couple.

I looked at that lean for a long time. Three years of the truth, sitting in one photo.

Last time, I'd have screamed. I'd have shown up and burned the whole party down.

This time I did something quieter. I opened a note on my phone and started a list. Every dress she'd borrowed and never given back. The bags. The skincare I always bought in twos. The years of dinners I'd covered.

I'd spent my whole life being her cushion and her wallet. I was done.

Here was the thing, though, the part that put a cold edge under all of it. I only had last time's script. And this time, I wasn't going to be in the scene.

Which meant I had no idea how it ended now.

Chapter 2

If you want to understand how Delaney could do what she did to me, you have to go back to middle school.

That's where I met her.

Her family was ordinary. Back when the rest of us were all scraped knees and bad haircuts, she was already delicate and pale, with a soft little voice that pulled boys in like a current.

And where boys wanted her, girls wanted her gone. One day after class a few of them backed her into an alley. The reason was simple. A boy one of them liked had eyes for Delaney instead.

I'd been a sickly kid, so my parents put me in taekwondo to toughen me up. Turned out I had a gift for it. By middle school there wasn't much competition left.

So when I saw them shoving her around, I waded in and scattered them in about ten seconds.

One of them shouted over her shoulder as she ran. "Sloane Ashford. This isn't over."

I put my hands on my hips. "Then come back and try it. Sebastian Vale's in the upper school, he lives with my family, and he will end you."

I turned and pulled Delaney up off the ground, crying prettily, the kind of crying that doesn't ruin a face.

After that, the two of us, opposites in every way, became best friends.

She asked me once why Sebastian and I had different last names.

I was sucking yogurt through a straw, looking up at his photo at the top of the honor roll, and I didn't know how to put it. Sebastian lived with us because both his parents were gone.

When I didn't answer, she gave me a playful little smile. "Rich-people business, I won't pry." She paused, then pointed at his picture. "You don't mind if I go after him, do you?"

I hadn't understood it then. It took living the whole thing twice to see it. From right about that moment, Delaney started taking what was mine.

A top I'd just bought, she'd borrow.

A book I was reading, she'd take.

A friend I made, she'd befriend.

Sebastian, she wanted too.

I was young. I couldn't tell a friend from a stray.

When I found out she meant to chase him, I actually went and told him.

He heard me out, then lifted his eyes. "Sloane. Where's your ID?"

I blinked, but I dug it out of my bag anyway. "Right here."

He scoffed, soft and short. "Then do me a favor and check how old you are. At your age, anything you'd call dating for the next three years is just too young."

Sebastian was three years older. I was in middle school; he was a senior. He'd lived in our house since he was ten, and at first I'd loved having him around.

Having a guy that good-looking under your roof was the kind of thing a girl bragged about.

But the older I got, the more he struck me as a block of wood.

Calm. Clear-eyed. Cold the way a lake goes cold in autumn. Barely past being a teenager and already still water all the way down, nothing moving on the surface.

Even my dad said it. That boy's going to be someone one day.

And yet the calmest person I knew, in the life before, after they locked me up, went red around the eyes more times than I could count.

Maybe I'd just been a fool for too long, always bending whichever way Delaney wanted.

Back to that night.

I'd covered the bar tab, same as always.

We came out of the karaoke place late. The others peeled off into their cars one by one. Delaney was waiting at the curb when a drunk lurched up and caught her by the arm. He wouldn't let go, shoving her back and forth. The spot was tucked away, nothing a guard would see. A couple of his buddies stood close, laughing low and ugly.

My friend was in the middle of it. I was out of the car before I'd decided to be.

I got a hand on Delaney and pulled her loose, and the drunk swung at me.

I'd trained for half my life. I put him on the ground.

The others rushed in to help him. Three, four of them. More than I could clean up easy. And Brett. Brett stayed in the car like he couldn't see a thing.

In the scramble, trying to get us clear, I didn't measure the force. One of them went down hard, his head hit the ground, and he stopped moving.

Someone passing by called it in. They took all of us to the station.

Later we learned the man had died. The blow to his head was too much.

My family hired the best lawyer money could buy. But there were no cameras there, no witnesses except us and the drunks.

It was self-defense. It should have been simple.

Then, in that courtroom, the friend I'd given years of my heart to looked at a room full of strangers, and not once at me, and said it.

"By then the man had already let go of me. Sloane just misread it. She thought I was in trouble."

Chapter 3

We threw money at it. Best lawyers in the city. I got three years anyway.

My parents aged a decade in a week. And Sebastian, the one who never lost his cool, looked at me with eyes I'd never once seen wet.

"Sloane." His voice wasn't steady. "Don't be scared. I'm not going anywhere."

Later, inside, Delaney came to visit. She cried the pretty way, like the one who'd been wronged in all of this was her.

"I'm so sorry, Sloanie. I was just so scared..."

The same face she made every other time she'd done something wrong.

"You'll forgive me, won't you?"

Forgive her.

Three years. That's how long it took me to stop wanting to take her apart.

And when I got out, the news was waiting for me: my best friend Delaney had married my boyfriend Brett. They had a kid going on two.

Did it make me angry?

Yes.

Did it eat at me?

Every day.

So this time, I wasn't going to throw myself in front of anything. Last life, I ran in to save her, and it cost me everything, and she paid me back on a witness stand. Not again. I'd step out of the part I'd always played, and let them stand in the mess they made.

I went home and waited, quiet, for it to come.

At one-thirty in the morning, Brett called.

I had a guess what it was about. I picked up.

His voice came through ragged, noise behind him. "Sloane... you need to come down to the station. Something happened to Delaney."

Last time, I'd been the one they hauled in. So whatever was happening now, it was already off the script I remembered. I had no idea what I'd find.

By the time I got there, the station was chaos. Crying, shouting, an officer barking over all of it, sirens out front.

Any other night that noise would have grated on me. Tonight it sounded close to music. It meant the night had gone a different way than the one carved into me. I was out of the old story. Whatever this was, it wasn't mine to carry.

I crossed the room in my little heels, bag on my arm, and stopped in front of Brett.

He looked wrecked. Split lip. His shirt torn at the collar.

His head was down. He heard my heels, looked up, and the first thing out of his mouth was this.

"Why didn't you go to Delaney's party today?"

I went still. Funny. I'd never noticed before how fast Brett could start grilling me like a cop.

I tilted my head. "Would it have changed anything if I had?"

Last time, the second I saw Delaney getting shoved around, I'd thrown myself out of the car to help her. And my boyfriend, the one sleeping with her, stayed put. His story afterward was that he'd been calling the police from the car. The truth was, a stranger made that call.

Maybe my answer set him off. He shot to his feet, something mean in his eyes.

"You're a black belt. When you two used to go out and some creep started trouble, you're the one who handled it. If you'd been there tonight..."

"If I'd been there tonight, I'd be the one in that hospital bed by now. And you'd have been just fine with that."

Brett froze. The swagger drained right out of him.

He stared at me like he didn't know my face. "You... you know. Don't you?"

Chapter 4

I gave him a small smile. "You tell me."

I was done with Brett. I turned and followed the officer to find Delaney.

She was in worse shape than him. Her clothes were torn and rumpled from the scuffle, and someone had draped a spare jacket over her shoulders. She sat on a cot, knees pulled in, the expensive curls she'd paid a fortune for now a wreck.

Her eyes were red. Pale skin like hers showed every mark.

She kept her head down, crying, doing the look that makes strangers want to save her.

The officer filled me in. After the karaoke bar, a group of drunks had come at them. They'd gotten rough with Delaney, grabbing at her, shoving her around. Brett didn't step in until later. And when he did, he picked up a brick and brought it down on one of their heads. The man was in the ICU now. Touch and go.

When the officer finished, Delaney looked up at me, her voice gone soft and small.

"Sloane..."

I didn't go to her the way I always had. I stayed where I was.

She blinked, confused. The officer read the room, figured we needed a minute, and stepped out.

"Why are you standing so far away?" Delaney asked.

I kept my face even. "I just came to check. There's nothing I can do here. You're both fine, so I'm going home. It's late."

That was me being gentle about it.

I'd come to see it with my own eyes.

Delaney's face changed, disbelief with an edge of blame under it.

"Sloane, what is this? Aren't we friends? I'm sitting here like this, and you're this cold to me? I never thought you were this kind of person."

"And I never thought you were this kind of person." I cut her off, flat. "I treated you like a friend. Did you ever once treat me like one?"

Delaney stopped. "What... what do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said."

I had no interest in dragging it out with either of them.

Like I said. I'd only come to see it for myself.

The first time around, this night was where my nightmare started. After I put that man down, my parents came running. My mother, who'd spent her whole life graceful, who'd never once come undone, heard the word prison and folded straight onto the floor, sobbing. She and my father went gray in a single night.

The police had hold of me. My parents wept in each other's arms outside. And Delaney, the one I'd protected, stood in a corner and wouldn't give my mom and dad even half a kind word.

Brett stood next to Delaney the whole time. He mumbled something at my parents for show, then left with her.

Looking back now, I doubt either of them went home that night. They got a room somewhere.

And me, I was the one they threw under the bus.

Tonight, the second time around, I looked at my phone. In the group chat with me and Sebastian and my parents, my mom and dad had posted photos from their dinner out before bed, faces lit up, happy.

This time, the happiness that was mine, I was going to hold onto with both hands.

On my way out of the station, Delaney's parents and Brett's were just rushing in. I passed them in the doorway.

They all turned to look at me, like they wanted to say something. An officer waved them along, and they went.

I stopped outside and looked back at the station, all that scrambling behind the glass.

Last time, I was the one who paid for it.

This time, they would.

Chapter 5

By the next morning, the whole school knew.

The story had gone everywhere overnight. Brett had put a man in the hospital with a brick, and he'd done it while he was out with Delaney.

When I got to class, a cluster of girls nearby were bent over a phone, talking low.

I leaned in. "What are you all looking at?"

They traded glances. Nobody wanted to be the one to say it.

I took a guess. "It's about Delaney, isn't it?"

Their faces shifted. They nodded.

One of them, a girl I got along with, brought her phone over and sat next to me.

"Sloane, I know you two are close. You might get upset if you see this, which is why we weren't going to show you."

"See what?"

She held up the phone.

It was from the night before. Delaney and Brett outside the karaoke bar, standing too close, his arm around her like she belonged to him. Then a second clip, shakier, shot from a window somewhere above. Brett with a chunk of brick in his fist, bringing it down on a man already on the ground.

My jaw tightened, a fraction. Not from surprise. I'd known exactly what those two were for a lifetime. The only new thing was watching the rest of campus catch up.

She paused it the second she caught my face.

"Nobody knows who posted it. It was everywhere by last night. Yesterday was Delaney's birthday. You were probably there, right?"

Everyone knew Delaney and I were close.

Delaney was the art school's it-girl, the kind of pretty that runs a whole campus. Trust-fund boys lined up for her, and she went through them fast. She was proud, too, and she'd made enemies without trying. Now that the clip was out, everyone who'd ever wanted to watch her fall started shoving.

And the part that really lit it up: the guy with his arm around her was my boyfriend.

I looked down. "I wasn't there. I don't really know what happened."

I would never forgive her. That part hadn't changed, not across one lifetime or two.

After a beat I added, for the girls, "You don't have to tiptoe around me about Delaney anymore. She and I are done."

Best friends splitting in a single night. That was a story worth a long while of talking.

Neither Brett nor Delaney came to school.

I sent Brett a breakup text and blocked them both. I knew them. They'd circle back to work me eventually.

I'd been an easy mark for years. I'd handed them so much.

After my afternoon classes, I went home.

Last life, I did three years, and my parents cried themselves dry. The family business cratered. Sebastian was the one who held all of it up.

I'd texted ahead to say I'd be home for dinner. I still got nervous at the door.

I gave myself the whole pep talk before I pressed the bell.

Our place was a high-floor unit over the river. The door opened on the housekeeper bustling with dinner, my dad on the couch with the news. My mom opened the door, and her whole face softened.

"There's our Sloanie, home."

I'd thought all that prep meant I'd hold it together.

But the warmth of it, my mother standing there gentle, light in her eyes, was too much. The tears came down fat and fast before I could stop them.

She panicked the second she saw me cry.

"Oh, honey, what is it? Did something happen at school?"

To them, I'd been gone two days. To me, it had been three years since I last knew what home felt like.

Chapter 6

At dinner, my parents kept loading food into my bowl.

Somewhere in the talk, they brought up Sebastian.

"Oh, Sebastian's coming home soon, too."

My chopsticks stopped.

After college he'd gone overseas to study, then started a company out there with some classmates. My dad said it was doing real numbers.

Last life, this was about when he'd come back. But I got into trouble, and he dropped everything to fly home, and still only made it in time to watch a courtroom send me away.

This time nothing had happened to me. So he'd come back on schedule, probably inside the next two weeks.

The truth was, things between Sebastian and me had gotten complicated.

Sophomore year, Brett came after me, and I said yes. Sebastian caught us out together once, on the street.

He pulled me off to the side, his face like stone. "You're not seeing him."

I bristled. "You said eighteen was the cutoff. I'm almost twenty now. Since when is who I date your call?"

"I'm your brother."

"You're not my brother." I threw it right back. "Not really."

That fight was when I started avoiding him. He was three years older, and he already had his acceptance letter to a school abroad. He kept long hours, gone before I woke, back after I slept. Even when we crossed paths by accident, I'd turn on my heel, still sulking.

Right up until he actually left, I was still angry with him over Brett.

By the time I saw him again, I was on my way to a cell.

Last life, he ran himself ragged for me. The guy was almost obsessively neat, and he went unshaven, hollow-eyed, those good-looking eyes of his shot through with red.

Not my brother. There was never a clean word for what he was.

So after dinner I went up to my room and got out my phone. Our messages stopped two years back, the week he left.

I sat there trying to figure out how to say sorry, something soft to break the ice. My thumb slipped and hit call.

The phone jumped out of my hand and hit the floor. I scrambled for it, and by the time I had it back, the line was already live.

A clean, cool voice came through.

"Hello?"

I locked up. Couldn't make a sound.

"Sloane," he said.

Hearing that voice, my nose stung, and when I finally spoke it came out wrong.

"I'm here."

He must have caught the break in it. The cold went out of his voice, the way still water gives when something finally moves under it.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

I sniffed and looked at the photo on my desk, the two of us as kids. The boy in it looked back at the camera. At me.

I'd had a courtroom, three years, a door I'd slammed behind me on my way out of his life. I never once said this to him. Now there was a whole ocean in the way, and my throat had closed around it, and I said it anyway.

Chapter 7