**Every wedding guest’s worst nightmare is on repeat in this wild and twisty new horror novel from the Rachel Harrison

Klappentext

Every wedding guest’s worst nightmare is on repeat in this wild and twisty new horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of So Thirsty and Play Nice.

It’s the picture-perfect wedding weekend: The venue is dreamy, the weather is beautiful, love is in the air—and Willa Sullivan is having a bad time. She’s excited to celebrate her best friends’ finally having the big wedding they’ve always wanted, but this is the first time she’s seen her ex-fiancé in months, and he brought a date. Everything feels off, like she stumbled into an alternate universe. But things start to look up when Willa meets Danny, the groom’s charming and single childhood best friend. When they sneak off together, their rendezvous is interrupted by a masked killer terrorizing the reception. Willa and Danny fight to save the ones they love and survive the night, but the killer is unrelenting. A final girl Willa is not.

Or is she? She wakes up and it’s the morning of the wedding. She just had the most intense nightmare of her life. Only as the day unfolds, there are some uncanny coincidences that make her question whether it was really a dream, déjà vu, or something more sinister. After a horrifying turn of events, Willa comes to understand that she’s stuck in a loop of carnage and terror that she must learn how to escape or else suffer a fate worse than death—being an eternal wedding guest.

Leseprobe
1

Who knew that time could move so slowly?

It's been three minutes, and I swear I thought an hour had gone by. Just me, standing in the middle of this studio apartment. My studio apartment. I live here now.

It's home but it isn't, because I'm alone. Alone with the echoes of this empty space. Alone with stacked boxes waiting impatiently to be unpacked, mocking me from dusty corners. Alone with an obnoxious question many have asked before me and will continue to ask well after I'm gone, until the earth gets sucked back into the big, dark, hungry maw of the universe. The question, of course, being: Is home a place or other people? Is it a feeling? Is it happiness? Is it love?

This is the kind of thing we used to talk about over dinner, back at the beginning. Ravi loves a philosophical question. Loves deliberating over some cosmic problem, confronting it head-on. Loves a puzzle. Loves pressing on a bruise to study the feeling. Loves interrogating life's complexities, sliding everything under a microscope to see the wriggly bits.

Not me.

It's a waste not to wonder, he'd say.

I hear him now. His voice in my head like he's there. I mean, I guess he is. He's part of me. We met young, my bones fortifying in his presence, for so many years my heart beating to the rhythm of us. And now, a void. I think about the life I almost had. I think about people who survive shark attacks. Phantom limbs. I think about loneliness, the dorsal fin circling me as I tread water. Maybe I'm hopelessly self-involved. Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I'm depressed. Maybe I'm dramatic. It's a breakup. It's not the same thing, losing a leg and losing a fiancé. I'm just grasping. I'm just bored. I'm so bored. There's so much time. It's here. It's there, like the boxes, waiting. Existing. Inescapable.

Four minutes? It's been only four minutes? Fuck me.

I grab my phone off the kitchen counter and call Cassie. It rings and rings and I worry she won't answer, and then what will I do? But she picks up.

"Hey, Willa." I can hear it in her voice. She's sick of me. "What's up, doc?"

"Hi, hello. I'm at the new place. All moved in."

"How is it?"

"Um," I say, looking around. It's a decent size for a studio. There's an alcove for a bed. The appliances are new, the kitchen and bathroom recently redone. There's a dishwasher. Washer/dryer in unit. Closet space. It's thirty-five hundred dollars a month, including off-street parking. Not bad for Jersey City. It's fine. And I should say so, but my stubborn throat constricts in protest, won't let the word out.

Fine? Is this how I want to describe my life? Where I live? My future? Fine?

Cassie sighs. "Do you need me to remind you that this was your decision?"

"That's a gross oversimplification, but okay."

"It is and it isn't," she says. "You're making your own choices. I get that there are factors outside of your control, but you-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You win. Please tell me again how I'm in a hell of my own making."

"Willa, honey, you are in a hell of your own making. Is it hot?"

"It's so fucking hot, Cass."

"How hot?"

"Scalding."

"Mm," she says. "That sucks."

Cassie is all about tough love. It's her specialty. If I wanted kid gloves, I would have called Steph.

Honestly, I did want kid gloves, but Steph is busy with wedding preparations. And Evan wouldn't have answered. And no one else gets me like they do.

"It's going to suck for a while, Willa. Until it doesn't."

I stumble over to the wall, put my back against it. Slide down to the floor. "What if it sucks forever?"

"Then it sucks forever." There's rustling in the background. She's multitasking. Cleaning, probably. "But it's not gonna. Everything is temporary. Good and bad."

"Good? What is this gah-uhd of which you speak? Never heard of it. Unfamiliar."

"Willa."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Look. You're doing it," she says. "It's happening. You're in it. You're in the suck. Only way out is through."

"Or," I say, hugging my knees tight to my chest, "or I can turn around and go back. Retreat, retreat."

"It's too late for that. And what story worth telling starts with a retreat?"

"Oof. You're right."

"I love you. You're gonna get through it. And I get to see you so soon! We're all gonna be together."

"Keyword 'all.' Including my ex."

She sighs again. She is a world-class sigher. So full of emotion. Of pure exasperation. "You had the opportunity to veto."

"I wasn't going to have him disinvited to the wedding. That puts Steph and Jace in a weird spot. I don't know. I feel like I'm already the villain."

"Villain? Really? Villain. That's a little-"

"Dramatic? Have we met? Have we been friends for fifteen years?"

"Fifteen? Don't round up on me. How dare you."

"I'm sorry."

"We've been friends for thirteen years. Thirteen. Next month, actually. Aww."

"Lucky me. Lucky you."

"Lucky us," she says. "I really do love you, Willa Ann Sullivan. And I know you'll get through this. Go watch something extremely messed up. Go watch a murder show. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Nothing gives you perspective like a true crime doc. And if that's too real, a nice classic slasher bloodbath. Or a creature feature will do the trick. Giant monsters. Haunted real estate. Aliens. You know that's what I do when I'm hanging off a cliff."

"I have always envied your grip strength."

"Take my advice."

"I did! I've told you. All I watch lately is horror."

"You're still in the kiddie pool. You need to come over to the deep end."

"Let me get my floaties on. Jeez."

"I'm sending you another list of recs. Trust me. You'll find them all surprisingly soothing. A reminder it could always be worse."

"Worse? I don't think so."

"Okay, that's it!" she says, faking outrage. "I'm hanging up!"

"Noooo!"

"I'm kidding. I love you. Have I mentioned that?"

"No. Never. Not once."

"I actually do have to run. Luke just got home with the kid. He says hi. Luke, not Theo. Theo doesn't . . . Is that-what is that? Luke, what is that? Right there, on his head! Willa, I'll call you back in like an hour, if that works?"

"Don't worry a…