Description:
In her stunning New Adult debut, The Wicked We Have Done, Sarah Harian introduced readers to the Compass Room: a twisted experimental jail where the guilty and the innocent suffer alike. But breaking out was only the beginning…
Even though she’s escaped, twenty-two-year-old Evalyn Ibarra is anything but free. She’s desperate to return to a life that no longer exists, but prying reporters continually draw her back into nightmarish memories, using the tabloids to vilify her. Bad press is the last thing she needs during the trial of the year: the case that she and her fellow survivors staked against the Compass Room engineers. A case that could terminate the use of the inhumane system forever…
But in her dreams, she is still locked in that terrifying jail.
When she wakes, someone is trying to communicate with her in secret, through strange and intricate clues. As Evalyn follows their signs, she uncovers a conspiracy that goes so much deeper than her own ordeal. A dangerous intrigue that only she can bring to light. One that will force her to work with the one person she doesn’t want to see.
The person who owns her heart…
EXCERPT
She walks forward slowly, and it isn’t until now that I realize how damn tall she is. Why hadn’t I noticed before? Her eyes bore down on me with such intensity that I want to shrink into the corner, but I hold my ground.
“I’m really, really trying to understand your privilege, your choices. I get your fortune in Casey’s survival. You didn’t have to experience him dying so you don’t know what the grief of losing him—really losing him—feels like. And that’s why I’m trying to understand how, after everything, you could leave him. You want to protect him, so you think hiding—burrowing in this shit hole in the middle of nowhere—is the only way you can fix everything you think you fucked up.” I don’t think she can be any closer to me until she takes another step. “But don’t pretend you’re on my level. Don’t pretend that I can confide in you because you’re suffering the same, because you aren’t.” She turns from me, walking to the bed and falling onto it.
End of conversation, except I can’t let it be. “It isn’t fair that I’m not suffering as much as you.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“But it should.” I have the audacity to fall next to her on my back. We lie side by side for a while. “I don’t want you to grieve alone. I don’t want you to hold that burden. I wasn’t in love with her, but I miss her too.”
I roll my head over to watch her. Her eyes are glazed with tears. They ripple, desperate to tumble across her face, but she doesn’t let them.
“Let me in,” I whisper.
Her chest rises and falls. “The dreams are the worst, but I’m so happy I have them, you know? I can see her again.” She pauses for a long time, but I can’t think up a way to respond. The dreams are sick little moments of hell, and I can’t imagine the darkness she must feel every day to need them for relief.
“You’re an idiot for letting a little law and order get in the way of the two of you. I’d kill to have a forbidden romance right now. Literally. I’d kill.”
I wince. “You know I’d rather have died instead of her.”
“Stop it. That’s the other thing. No more of this ‘oh woe is me’ bullshit. You’re alive, goddamnit. And I think it’s time you finally realized that you’re a different person too.”
I shake my head, even though I know she’s staring at the ceiling.
“He knows the truth, you know. What you did and why you did it.”
“Casey?” I sit up, my insides clenching. Suddenly I need a drink, but I left my damn screwdriver on the kitchen counter. “You’ve spoken to him?”
“Of course . . . after you left him without so much as a good-bye.”
I slowly blink, knowing how obvious the guilt on my face must look.
“Yeah, you better be ashamed.”
“So he’s okay, then? He understands?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as ‘understands.’ He sees the logic, I’m sure. You still tore him up, kid. After all the shit he’s already had to deal with.”
“We’ve all had shit,” I snap.
“Whatever, Evalyn. Whatever you have to say to make yourself feel better.”
I scowl and get up to grab my drink, even though she’s right. Liz was adamant about me leaving Casey, but I can’t help wondering whether the status of our relationship would make a difference in the long run. Sure, he’s become a somewhat loveable character in the eyes of the media, and despite his crime, people have sympathy for him, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he killed his dad and will be retried for that crime whenever the hell they decide to arrest us. It’s possible we both only have minutes of freedom left. We might as well have spent it together. And it’s a slap to Valerie’s face that we aren’t.
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About the author:
Sarah Harian grew up in the foothills of Yosemite and received her B.A. and M.F.A. from Fresno State University. When not writing, she is usually hiking some mountain or another in the Sierras, playing video games with her husband, or rough-housing with her dog.
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