1 Chapter 1

Jude dreamed deep and weird like he often did after getting shitface drunk. His life motto was to work hard, play harder. And he did, indeed, play very hard. After all, his lab's latest publication was getting blown up in the medical field. They pulled so many long all-nighters in the final stretch to get it in on time, only visiting the home to change clothes and shower before returning, and not even that sometimes. Jude fondly thought of his precious graduate students leaning over their laptops like wilted sunflowers. They were tired, cranky, and slightly smelly, but oh so determined to publish. It had exploded afterward, just the way Jude predicted it would. The following months had been occupied by articles and interviews and presentations and even more papers. Life was perfect; Jude's end goal had always been to be at the center of science, getting caught on the whirlwind that was progress.

Jude couldn't remember why he got so drunk. A party? He loved parties. It was probably that. His memory trickled in. Yes, a party celebrating..... him! Because it was his birthday!!! How exciting. Of course, he got drunk, he was turning 25. There was a big surprise party, thrown by his friends. A cool sexy party thrown by his cool sexy friends for his cool sexy friends.

In his dream, Jude was on a hill surrounded by swarming children dragging trophies. Charming, bright-eyed children played in circles, tumbling down and tugging on his clothes before wandering away. Jude looked down at a green-eyed girl who grabbed his hoodie strings. When she smiled, her two front teeth were missing. The ground below Jude liquified into quicksand and fell, waving to the children who gathered around the hole left behind. Jude didn't think much of it. His dreams were all Lovecraftian in nature, full of all the terrible and weird movies and books he consumed on a daily basis. He fell into a person, inside a person, became a person standing by a hospital bed, next to a doctor doing compressions on a patient. He looked at the patient lying in the bed. The face was difficult to make out underneath blood and wounds, but Jude could recognize the curving locks of brown hair plastered onto the forehead with sweat. It was him! Jude! Jude Harper, in the flesh, looking like he was about to leave it. The monitor displaying his heart rate started to flatline. Jude wanted to fly back up the hole to the hill with children but he couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He needed to get out of the room, now. The flatline was going on for too long. It wasn't picking up. It needed to pick up. Why wasn't it picking up? As Jude watched a nurse in the room form words in slow motion...Time...of...death... he woke up screaming. The lights in the room were too bright and he couldn't see anything. He breathed heavily; he couldn't get the oxygen into his lungs fast enough. He tried to focus on getting his breathing under control while his eyes adjusted. Looking around, he glanced at a clearly freaked-out nurse. A nurse. A hospital room. He was in a hospital room. Was his dream real? No. He was alive, obviously. He looked down at his arms. They were a lot paler and skinnier than he remembered them being. Jude swallowed nervously. What if he had been in the hospital for a long time? What if he had been in a coma? He looked over the hospital bed at a woman sitting in a chair, looking displeased.

"Finally awake?" she said, not making an effort to hide hostility from her voice. Jude spent a couple seconds trying to figure out who this stranger was and why she was mad. She was striking, beautiful with honey-colored hair and delicate pheromones around her marked her clearly as an omega. Words came to his mind. Mom. Jude froze. No. No, that was wrong. He didn't have a mom. Stepmom. No. That was even worse. He didn't have any parents. So why did he know her? Rebecca Lennox. Jude wanted to pull his brains out. Why were there words flashing through his head, with memories that weren't his and thoughts that weren't his?

"Do you how embarrassed I was? Jude? Getting a call from the hospital saying that you almost died from committing suicide? We kept you out of the public eye but what if someone gets ahold of this? It'll be a stain on your father's reputation." The woman continued, not noticing that Jude had stilled. "We didn't let you leave for college so you could make a fool out of our family. What if you ruin your brother's future? How could you do something so selfish?" she sighed dramatically. Jude wanted to laugh. A father? A brother? He didn't know any of these people. His family had been dead for years.

"Don't give me that look." Rebecca glared, finally noticing the wide-eyed stare Jude was giving her. "I don't want to be here either. I couldn't send someone to pick you up. They needed a legal guardian since you're a minor. Jesus. Your father is in Italy right now so that just left me to drop everything and come over. The paperwork was such a head-" Rebecca kept talking but Jude had already zoned out. He felt lightheaded like he was a balloon rather than a person. Reality had disconnected the moment he woke up. Jude gathered his legs, his skinny, pale legs to one side of the bed, and stood up slowly. Rebecca stopped talking and looked up at him, confused.

"Hey what are you-"

Jude walked into the bathroom in his room. Flicking the lights on, he stared at himself in the mirror. There was a boy in the mirror, but it wasn't him.