Chapter 1

I always thought I was an ordinary high school student—until a third eye opened at the back of my head.

This eye has no blind spots. It sees through people, and it caught my scumbag father cheat with my vicious tutor in the act.

They didn't just want to kill my dying mother—they wanted to stage an "accident" and sacrifice me, all to cash in a expensive insurance payout and buy a house for their bastard son.

Cute. They really thought I was a pushover?

So I flipped the script and started the hunt.

But when I finally stood over their corpses, thinking I could reunite with my mom at last, I uncovered a truth that froze my blood.

I'm not a human at all.

"Clara Croft, are you hiding? Daddy's coming to find you!"

Walter Croft's gentle voice drifted in from outside the bedroom door.

I clamped a hand over my mouth, crammed into the huge closet in the master bedroom, not daring to breathe. Today was my fourteenth birthday. Dad had taken half a day off specially, saying he wanted to play my favorite game—hide and seek.

Just as I waited, giddy, for him to pull the closet door open, a tearing, stabbing pain shot through the back of my skull.

Then a strange new field of vision unfolded in my mind.

I could see straight through the closet's thick wooden door—clear as day, I saw everything outside.

At the back of my head, a third eye had opened.

Walter wasn't looking for me at all. He yanked his tie loose, desperate, and pulled my young, pretty private math tutor, Evelyn Hayes, into his arms. The two of them tumbled straight onto the big bed where my mom slept.

"You devil, your daughter's still home!" Evelyn scolded coyly, giving him a push—but her eyes were pure seduction.

"What's there to worry about? That girl's clueless. She's probably crammed in some corner right now, holding her breath." Walter sneered, his hand already sliding under Evelyn's skirt.

My whole body went cold. My stomach churned.

My mom was lying in the ICU, hovering between life and death, and my so-called wonderful father—the one who normally preached morality and never even raised his voice at me—was rolling around in her bed with another woman.

I bit down hard on my lip, forcing back the urge to burst out and claw those two hypocritical faces apart. The third eye recorded it all like an HD camera, no blind spots.

When they were finished, Evelyn lay against Walter's chest, tracing little circles with her finger. "When is your wife actually going to die? Didn't the doctor say it'd be any day now? This baby in my belly can't wait. You really want your son born as a bastard?"

A flash of cruelty crossed Walter's eyes. "Soon. I've already paid off the people at the hospital. Cutting her meds is a matter of days. As for that little dead weight, Clara…"

He paused, and his tone turned so cold it sent ice through me.

"I took out a high-value accidental death policy on her, I'm the beneficiary. Next week I'll take her for a drive on the mountain roads. The brakes just have to 'fail' a little. We lose the burden, and the payout's enough to buy our son a big downtown apartment in cash."

Evelyn's eyes lit up. She smacked a kiss on him. "Babe, you're so smart! Then we'll send the mother and daughter off together. At least they'll have company on the way down."

I crouched in the dark closet, shaking like a leaf.

Not from fear.

From excitement.

A bloodthirsty kind of excitement.

You want to kill me? Fine. Let's see who dies first.