All the Dangerous Things


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 Prologue
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 Chapter Twenty-Nine
 Chapter Thirty
 Chapter Thirty-One
 Chapter Thirty-Two
 Chapter Thirty-Three
 Chapter Thirty-Four
 Chapter Thirty-Five
 Chapter Thirty-Six
 Chapter Thirty-Seven
 Chapter Thirty-Eight
 Chapter Thirty-Nine
 Chapter Forty
 Chapter Forty-One
 Chapter Forty-Two
 Chapter Forty-Three
 Chapter Forty-Four
 Chapter Forty-Five
 Chapter Forty-Six
 Chapter Forty-Seven
 Chapter Forty-Eight
 Chapter Forty-Nine
 Chapter Fifty
 Chapter Fifty-One
 Chapter Fifty-Two
 Chapter Fifty-Three
 Chapter Fifty-Four
 Chapter Fifty-Five
 Chapter Fifty-Six
 Chapter Fifty-Seven
 Chapter Fifty-Eight
 Chapter Fifty-Nine
 Chapter Sixty
 Chapter Sixty-One
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgments
 Also by Stacy Willingham
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Prologue
 Chapter One
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgments
 Contents
 Copyright
 
 
 
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 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
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 For my big sister, Mallory
 
 
 Sleep, those little slices of death. How I loathe them.
 —ANONYMOUS
 
 
 
 PROLOGUE
 
 Today is day three hundred and sixty-four.
 Three hundred and sixty-four days since my last night of sleep. That’s almost nine thousand hours. Five hundred and twenty-four thousand minutes. Thirty-one million seconds.
 Or, if you want to go in the opposite direction, fifty-two weeks. Twelve months.
 One whole year without a single night of rest.
 One year of stumbling through life in a semiconscious dream state. One year of opening my eyes to find myself in another room, another building, without any recollection of when I got there or how I arrived.
 One year of sleeping pills and eye drops and chugging caffeine by the quart-full. Of jittery fingers and drooping eyelids. Of becoming intimately familiar with the night.
 One whole year since my Mason was taken from me, and still, I’m no closer to the truth.
 
 
 
 CHAPTER ONE
 NOW
 
 “Isabelle, you’re on in five.”
 My pupils are drilling into a spot in the carpet. A spot with no significance, really, other than the fact that my eyes seem to like it here. My surroundings grow fuzzy as the spot—my spot—gets sharper, clearer. Like tunnel vision.
 “Isabelle.”
 I wish I could always have tunnel vision: the ability to selectively focus on one single thing at a time. Turn everything else into static. White noise.
 “Isabelle.”
 Snap snap.
 There’s a hand in front of my face now, waving. Fingers clicking. It makes me blink.
 “Earth to Isabelle.”
 “Sorry,” I say, shaking my head, as if the motion could somehow clear the fog like windshield wipers swiping at rain. I blink a few more times before trying to find the spot again, but it’s gone now. I know it’s gone. It’s melted back into the carpet, into oblivion, the way I wish I could. “Sorry, yeah. On in five.”
 I lift my arm and take a sip of my Styrofoam cup of coffee—strong, black, squeaky when my chapped lips stick to the rim. I used to savor the taste of that daily morning cup. I lived for the smell of it wafting