"Prologue – Scars"

"I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut. My weakness is that I care too much, and my scars remind me that the past is real. I tear my heart open just to feel…" – Papa Roach

I'm not like ordinary girls.

Most people can take lives through weapons like a gun or a knife and even with their bare hands.

I can kill you with a single kiss.

I can drain the life from you in a matter of seconds—in the blink of an eye—and you'll enjoy every second of it. My kiss is like candy, my teeth like razors. All I need is one prick on your bottom lip and I've got you right where I want you.

My mother is like me.

She can sense when there are people like me and she's taught me how to use my gift. She says my sister isn't like us, that she's human like my father. She says I'm special like her because her gift didn't skip me like it did for my sister, but I need to learn to control myself so I don't accidently kill someone…again.

When I was thirteen, I had my first crush on Stevie Nixon, this sophomore football player in high school. He was really sweet to me and he liked to show me off to his friends at school. He used to take me out on dates all the time and flatter me; it was one of the best things I'd ever experienced in my life.

Then one day he invited me to one of his football games.

I cheered from the stands like the rest of the crowd and it was probably the second best moment of my life. When the coach substituted him, Stevie pulled me from the crowd and took me under the bleachers for my first kiss. It was raining, but I didn't care; it was romantic at the time.

He kissed me under the bleachers that night and it was my first kiss. His hands moved over my small body and his lips attacked mine as it grew into more than just a soft first kiss. And when he bit my lip, I thought I should do the same. I didn't know what I could do back then, so I didn't know I was killing him. I felt his soul seep through my lips, filling my body with life. My skin started to tingle and I clung to him; I didn't want the feeling to go away.

My mom says that some guys scream when they die, because our kisses can hurt them if we want. Stevie didn't scream in the slightest; he loved my kiss until his last drop of life was gone. I think he felt a certain kind euphoria when I took his life. I think he felt what I did.

I didn't know what I was doing back then, though. When he collapsed in my arms and knocked me to the ground, I screamed at the top of my little lungs. Everyone came running to us and Stevie was rushed to the hospital.

They said it was a heart attack.

Since then, I've been extremely careful of who I date and who I get close to so I never hurt anyone again. I've dated a bunch of guys since then, but I've never loved any of them. If I did that, I would get too close to them and I would have the potential of killing them.

My mother says my kiss is a gift, a gift from God that makes me an angel.

Excuse me for believing that being the Angel of Death is a curse…