Chapter 1

The air in the Augmentation Center always smelled like antiseptic and fear.

Today was my eighteenth birthday, lottery day. My second eighteenth birthday, actually.

My mother, Susan, hovered, her smile too tight.

"Sarah, dear, you go first. It's only fair, you're the birthday girl."

Her voice was syrupy, but her eyes were like chips of ice.

She wanted me to get the Support Role Optimization LPA, the SRO. Docile, manageable Sarah. Just like the first time.

But this time, Jessica, my older sister, stepped forward.

She practically shoved me aside.

"No, Mom. I'll go first."

Jessica's eyes gleamed with a desperate, hungry light I remembered all too well from our shared past life.

She remembered Sarah Miller, SRO-wife to the tech heir Ethan Hamilton, living in apparent ease.

She didn't remember the part where that "ease" was a gilded cage, or how her own actions got us both killed.

Susan' s face spasmed. This wasn't her plan.

"Jessica, don't be ridiculous. It's Sarah's turn."

"I insist," Jessica said, her voice high and sharp. She was already halfway to the assessment chair.

The technicians, used to nervous teenagers, not family squabbles, just gestured her forward.

I watched, a strange calm settling over me. This was new. This was a chance.

In our first life, I went first. I got the SRO-LPA.

My life became a carefully curated performance of pleasant compliance. I married Ethan Hamilton because his family wanted a non-threatening partner for their heir. I was a pretty, quiet piece of furniture.

Jessica, in that life, got the High-Potential Innovator LPA. She was brilliant, a celebrated app developer. But our family, Susan and Mark and even Jessica herself, bled her dry. She was their golden goose, constantly plucked.

Then a "friend," jealous of her success, exposed her HPI-LPA to the Advanced Human Potential Oversight Board. The AHPOB wasn't just an oversight board; it had a black site, a research arm that did unspeakable things to "gifted" individuals.

Jessica died there.

And in her last, spiteful moments, she told them about me. My SRO-LPA, my connection to the Hamiltons. They came for me. I died running.

Now, Jessica sat in the chair, practically vibrating with anticipation.

The machine whirred. A calm, synthesized voice announced, "Subject Jessica Miller. Optimal Life Path Augmentation: Support Role Optimization."

A small, sterile injector hissed against her neck.

Jessica beamed. She actually beamed.

"Perfect," she breathed, already picturing herself as Mrs. Ethan Hamilton, effortless and adored.

Susan looked like she' d swallowed a wasp. Her carefully laid plans were in tatters.

"Well, Sarah," Susan snapped, her voice dripping venom. "Your sister has made her choice. Let's get this over with."

I walked to the chair. The cold metal felt familiar.

I didn't need to fake nervousness this time. The stakes were impossibly high.

The machine hummed. I closed my eyes.

"Subject Sarah Miller. Optimal Life Path Augmentation: High-Potential Innovator."

The injector pressed against my skin.

Susan gasped. Jessica, still preening, froze.

Her head whipped around, her eyes wide with disbelief, then a dawning, furious understanding.

The HPI-LPA. The one she' d had, the one she' d squandered, the one that got her killed.

The one I was supposed to be protected from, in my mother's twisted view.

A small, genuine smile touched my lips.

This time, things would be different.