From Judy I. Lin, the best-selling author of the Book of Tea Duology (A Magic Steeped in Poison and A Venom Dark and Sweet) comes a brand new YA horror: The Dark Becomes Her.

16-year-old Ruby Chen has always played the part of the dutiful eldest daughter. But when a ghost from the spirit world attacks Ruby in the middle of Vancouver’s Chinatown neighborhood, her life is plunged into a darkness that no amount of duty can free her from.

In order to survive—and save her sister from demonic possession—Ruby must not only face the horror taking over her community, but must also confront the horror within herself.

Get your first taste of the terror that awaits in this exclusive chapter excerpt. (Hmm, maybe taste is a poor choice of word . . . )

I pull the hood of my jacket up over my head and step off the metal stairs into the alley to brave the rain, reminded of the argument I had with Tina last week while walking in this direction.

“I know how much you love dance,” I told her then. “But think about it, a few more years, and you can move somewhere else. At university, you can be free. You can join any club you want! They want what’s best for you.”

Tina looked up at me, her eyes slightly red-rimmed.

“You know what?” she said softly. “You sound just like Ma.”

It’s the way she said it that felt like a knife straight to the heart. We’re two sisters, born two years apart, our bond made even stronger when Denny was born eight years ago. He was premature and sick all the time, and we had to be helpful, to stay out of the way, to be good girls.

“Sometimes we have to do things that we don’t want to do,” I said, even though I knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

The question she asked me struck me like lightning, searing its way into my skull, and has remained there since. “Do you think you would be able to give up piano if they told you that you had to? That you had to wait two more years before you could play again?”

I didn’t want to answer that question then, and I don’t want to remember it now. It’s a reminder that I was lucky, really lucky, that one of the activities they forced us to do ended up being something I loved. That if I chose anything else, I could have easily been forced to drop it. To let it go.

I thrive on approval. On doing things the “correct” way. Tina has never needed that.

“I know it’s selfish.” She turned away from me in the alley. I remember the hurt and frustration in her expression, the way she couldn’t even meet my eyes. “But sometimes I wish you could feel what it’s like to be me. I’m sick of always being compared to you. Sometimes I wish you weren’t my sister.”

My vision blurs at the memory, and I pull off my glasses to drag my sleeve over my eyes. I tell myself it’s just the rain.

“Hehehehe.” The giggle is awkward, high-pitched.

I jam my glasses back on my face, looking around. Someone is watching me, laughing at my misery. But there’s no one there.

On my right, there’s a chain-link fence that separates this alley from the one that runs along the building on the other side of this block. Through it, I can see a man dressed in yellow. He leans against the wall, smoking. But he’s too far away to be the source of the giggle.

I quicken my pace to walk past the dumpster, where I’m certain someone is going to jump out at me, but there’s no one there when I hurry past.

“Hehehe.” The giggles continue. This time sounding like it’s from above.

I should keep walking. I should just run for the road and not look back, but I can’t. I look up, even as every part of me screams not to.

There’s a figure crouched on the curved light pole above my head. Dark, stringy hair that falls down to the hands and feet wrapped around the metal. A dirty moss-green dress, dotted with small red flowers. She tips her head to one side as she leans over, peering down through the curtain of hair that falls over her face.

Not again.

She falls backward, black hair streaming toward the ground. She spins around the light pole, almost graceful, and lands on the ground before me.

She’s not real.

Slowly, she stretches to her full height. Her proportions are all wrong. The limbs too long. The skin a greenish gray, the color of a corpse. The true horror though is her face. The deep, cavernous eyes that are all pupil, too shiny and fake. A long, drooping chin that stretches downward. A mouth pulled into a too-wide smile. Like a half-formed imitation of what a person should look like, done in clay.

All my life, I’ve seen things in the shadows. They cling to the walls of buildings, around the trunks of trees. I remember pointing them out to my parents in the park, on the street, long ago. My mother’s lips tightened in embarrassment as she dragged me away by the wrist.

“Stop lying,” she hissed into my ear, again and again. “Stop making things up. There’s nothing there.”

They took me to the optometrist and gave me glasses. I was told I was nearsighted and had bad astigmatism, just like my father. I still saw them, vaguely human-shaped figures that squirmed and shifted in the dark, but I learned to keep it to myself.

They’ve never bothered me. Never so much as raised a finger in my direction. For the most part, they’ve become just another part of the city.

Until now. For the first time, this… ghoul takes a step in my direction, staring directly at me like she can see me. Like she is here for me. Water drips from her eyelashes. Her tongue trails out of the corner of her mouth, like a fat, pink slug. It dangles much longer than a tongue should extend, swinging as she takes another step toward me. She’s dragging her left foot, the toes pointed weirdly, as if someone popped her foot out and put it back on the wrong way.

Do something, Ruby! my mind screams at me. Anything!

I force myself to move, to veer slightly closer to the wall, holding my breath as I walk past it. To pretend like I see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. The street does not seem so far away. There are still cars passing in the distance. An image of perfect normalcy. I somehow convince myself the nightmare is contained only in this alley, and if I break free of it… it will prove it’s all in my imagination. That I made it all up.

I make it past her. I don’t look when I go by. With every step, I walk faster. The water from the puddles splashes up around my feet, sloshing between my toes. Until I’m near a run.

I jerk to a stop. My right foot catches on something, but the rest of my body keeps going. I fly forward, the wet pavement rising up to meet my face, and my hands reach out to catch myself. I bounce off the ground and land awkwardly on my side, pain shooting up my elbow.

I scramble to my hands and knees, but something is still caught around my leg. I look down, and there’s a pink rope wound around my ankle, extending all the way back… down the length of the alley, and into the mouth of the ghoul with the melting face.

It’s not a rope. It’s a tongue.

Need to see what happens next? Be sure to puck Rick Riordan Presents: The Dark Becomes Her, on sale now!