Where Angels Fall

© 2023 Delaney Foster No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without express written permission from the author. This book is licensed for the purchaser’s enjoyment only and may not be re-sold. The story in this book and all the characters are the intellectual property of the author. No one, except the owner of said property may reproduce, copy or publish, in any medium, any individual part of this story or its characters without express written permission from the author of this work. Translation: It is ILLEGAL to distribute this book or its contents or resale this copy in ANY form. Stealing books is not cool. Plagiarism is not cool. All pirates will be hunted down and burned at the figurative stake. Edits: Dawn Alexander with Evident Ink, Nicole McCurdy with Emerald Edits, Zainab M with Heart Full of Reads Cover design: Daqri Bernardo with Covers by Combs Cover image: Daniel Jaems CONTENTS links blurb Prologue Part I Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Part two (Then) Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Acknowledgments Also by Delaney Foster LINKS Spotify playlist Pinterest board (inspo) Reader group BLURB fate /fāt/ what is meant to be, will be. a cord that cannot be broken. Makenna Taylor and Reid Landry are high school sweethearts. He was her first. Her only. They had life all planned out, right down to the white picket fence and 2.5 kids. Then Reid joined the Marines, and from that day forward, life as Makenna knew it would never be the same. She thought she was just another girl with a part time job waiting tables while she worked her way through college. She thought she was living the fairytale on her way to her very own happily ever after. She thought Cal Suppato was just another man. She was wrong. Soon, she would learn that every family has secrets. Every stranger has a dark side. And love isn’t a simple four-letter word. The curtain is pulled back, and Makenna’s world begins to unravel, thread by thread, to reveal something darker—something she’d only heard about in the whispers of her grandmother’s living room. A world many know about but simply refuse to see. *This is not an MFM story. It is not a love triangle, and there is NO CHEATING. This is the story of three people’s lives intertwined in the threads of fate and the timeless question that always remains unanswered: What if? PROLOGUE APRIL 2021 Makenna Dust motes dance in beams of afternoon sunlight, defying gravity, suspended in time and space. They drift and soar, then finally spiral hopelessly down onto the wood surface of bookshelves and a large wooden desk. Then, they disappear. Fade into the darkness as the sunbeams shift with the swaying of the trees outside the window. I feel like a dust mote. Once immersed in the light, swirling in bliss. Now barely visible, waiting for the shadows that will eventually sweep over me. The clock on the wall behind me ticks in crisp, steady beats. Otherwise, silence engulfs the room. “Makenna?” She says my name in her soft, feminine voice. I pull my stare away from the abandoned walnut desk to the woman sitting across from me. Dr. Angela Holland. She’s studying me. Kind eyes scrutinize my every move behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a tight knot at the base of her neck. Her red dress matches her manicured nails. She is perfectly molded together, PART I 1 MAY 2017 FOUR YEARS EARLIER… Everything I know about being alone, I learned from my mother. I know loneliness plants seeds of weakness that sprout into vines of desperation. My father left ten years ago, and my mother has spent nearly every night since bouncing from bar to bar, looking for his replacement. I know how to cook my own dinner and do my own laundry because not learning how to do those things means eating microwave mac ‘n cheese and frozen pizza and wearing dirty clothes. I know what it feels like to ace an exam in AP English Lit, then walk into an empty house and have no one to share the excitement with. I know what it’s like to sit in the dark, with only the light of a few candles, when a storm knocks out the electricity. I know what it’s like to lose people you love—even when they’re standing right in front of you. Other seventeen-year-old girls are applying for college, getting manicures, and picking out prom dresses.