NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE, Crissa-Jean Chappell: Excerpt

NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE

“…a mysterious roller coaster ride full of twists and turns…Chappell’s stunningly vivid, emotionally wrenching YA thriller, focused on a teen girl in peril, raises important questions about social media addiction and the true human impacts of economic disparity.”

—Ginger Pinholster, author of THE SNAKES OF ST. AUGUSTINE

Seventeen-year-old Birdie lives for danger– from rooftopping abandoned hotels to chasing the perfect shot for her Instagram alter ego, Bad Altitude.

Her dying Florida beach town may be crumbling, but her follower count is rising fast.

She’s one viral post away from escaping the Space Coast for good.

Then she meets Micah, a daredevil TikTok star with a taste for high-stakes stunts and even higher risks.

At first, Birdie thinks she’s found a kindred spirit.

But Micah is secretly playing a deadly game online– and after he falls to his death, Birdie is left with more questions than answers.

Determined to uncover the truth, she retraces his final stunts, getting dangerously close to his brother, Jayce.

Can she trust him, or is he hiding something too?

Now someone’s watching Birdie– both online and off– and she’s forced to keep playing.

Because in this game, there’s only one rule: if you quit, you die.

EXCERPT

The bus is empty on the ride home. I take out my phone and scroll through Instagram. My feed is mostly urbex stuff. Forgotten subway tunnels. Rotten old farmhouses. A rocket buried deep in the Everglades. 

I click on Micah’s profile. In his final picture, he’s popping a backflip off the shuttle monument. He’s upside-down, suspended between earth and sky, almost as if he’s weightless. Micah Skinner was the king of dares online. Nothing scared him. And that’s how he started off. Posting all these crazy-ass tricks, grinding off stair railings at McGriff Park. You know. That kind of crap. Of course, he’s not the only one. There’s always somebody better. Somebody with a more dangerous stunt. So he had to move on. 

He aced the cinnamon challenge—gulping an entire spoonful of the stuff in one big swallow. Pretty stupid, right? He didn’t end up in the hospital or whatever, but he puked his guts out. Of course, he posted the whole thing on TikTok. Next he snorted a condom up his nose and yanked it, inch but inch, through his mouth. 

Trust me. That video got a ton of hits. But the one with the most likes? That’s when he stretched out in the middle of US-1, lying perfectly still, while this kid, Cole Glick, popped ollies off a ramp, soaring up and over Micah’s face. 

I mean, yeah. He could’ve got his skull flattened. A hundred million things could go wrong. The crazier the stunt, the more followers he scored online. It seemed like people wanted him to get hurt. Almost like they enjoyed watching him suffer. 

It was never enough. 

Here’s one thing he didn’t have. 

Thousands of followers.

I racked up a ton of followers on Instagram. I’m not talking about my real Insta, the one with close-ups of the Gordita Supreme I ate for lunch. I mean my Finsta—the fake profile I set up for secret photo missions. Selfies, mostly, but you’ll never see my face. Only my eyes, black rimmed above a skull-dotted bandanna, as if I’m about to rob a bank. 

I’d climb the highest lookout spots in Brevard County. Dangle my feet off the water tower. Sway one-handed from the cage-like scaffolding around that fancy new condo on Cocoa Beach. The taller the better. Seconds later, my death-defying selfies were up on my profile, Bad Altitude. 

A couple days before Micah jumped, I posted the most epic pic and scored even more followers. 

Twenty-eight thousand, to be exact. 

If I got enough likes, some rich guy in a suit would pay attention. Maybe he’d give me a sponsorship or whatever. I’d become the face for his brand. It’s all about brands. That’s where you find the real money. Yeah, I’ll wear your overpriced hiking boots. Tag my pics with your stupid slogans. As long as you pay me. 

When I got paid, me and Ya Ya would finally bust out of this dump. Goodbye Space Coast. Bonjour Paris or wherever we want to go. First I’d buy my gran a new car. No more broken-down Chevy. And a big-ass stereo so we could blast Sabbath at maximum volume. You could say I had a lot of plans. 

Well, that’s over now. 

I click through Micah’s friend list. Too many faces to count, but when I type his brother’s name—J-A-Y-C-E—up pops the profile. Just like his brother, he’s posted a lot of skate pics. No

death-defying stunts. And not many action shots. Maybe Jayce would rather skate than take pictures. 

My finger hovers over the screen. 

Then I click MESSAGE: 

sorry about what happened on the beach tonight… 

I bet he’s going to block me or whatever. He probably won’t even read that stupid DM. I dig around inside my combat bag for my ear buds. Time to zone out. As the bus lurches down Garden Street, I plug the cord into my phone, but before I have a chance to open Spotify, a new message glows on my Instagram. 

J-ACE: I want to talk to you. 

For a minute, I stare at the screen. I can’t let Jayce Skinner find out the truth. Still, I can’t help wondering what he knows about his brother’s death. Maybe he’s hiding something. Is that why he wants to talk to me? I’m supposed to be home by now. Still, you know how it goes. Buses are always late, right? Sometimes they don’t even get where they’re headed. Sometimes they make a stop along the way.

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Category: On Writing