Beauty comes with a body count.

Veronica is smart. She’s funny. She’s career driven. And she struggles every day with her scale, the mirror, and the way people judge her for her weight. They're eating her alive.

Then one night something claws its way out of her. Something hungry. 

Soon, corpses begin to pile up. With each kill, Veronica gets thinner. Her cravings disappear. She revels in the compliments, and her newfound confidence sparks a passionate romance with her hot crush—a man who has always seen her as more than just her body.

But not all of Veronica is shrinking. The piece of her that crawled off in the night is growing—and getting smarter. Turns out murder isn't a healthy way to lose weight, to find a boyfriend and keep him alive, or to love the person in the mirror. Veronica realizes she needs to stop what she let out—before it devours what’s left of her.

Maddison Dawn is a member of the Atlanta Writers Club, and a community-produced playwright with guest blog credits from the US Office of National Drug Control Policy and the National Coalition for the Homeless. When not working on her next book, she explores South America in search of the best bungee jumps and local eats, namely ceviche.