Beth Ann

Backstory

Beth Ann has spent four years perfecting the image of the effortless cheerleader—perfect ponytail, perfect smile, perfect grades. But perfection is exhausting, and beneath the uniform lies a girl suffocating under parental expectations and the constant pressure to be likable. She accepted the Blackwood dare partly for the adrenaline, partly to prove she's more than a trophy. Her mother was institutionalized for six months when Beth Ann was twelve; the experience left deep scars she's never discussed. As the asylum's doors seal, Beth Ann realizes with creeping horror that she recognizes the building's name from old family documents her grandmother kept hidden.