Chapter 1 - Callum

Shadows drag me down with their teeth and claws. They live inside me, drowning me in their darkness nearly every night when I’m least able to fight them.

This time, something saves me from them.

As though by some invisible hook, my consciousness is wrenched back to the land of the living, out of that deep abyss where I suffocate over and over again, those shadows wrapped around my throat. Where I’ve died a thousand slow deaths.

Of course, wakefulness comes with its own nightmares too.

My eyes blink against the amber glow of the streetlamp that stands right outside my window. It’s nothing more than a worthless sentinel. I’ve considered hanging blackout curtains now that the monsters don’t come for me after the sun goes down, but I refuse to cling to a false sense of security.

I learned a long time ago that the monsters still come whether you can see them or not.

The alarm clock on the nightstand sneers at me with its glaring red numbers until they’re etched into the inside of my eyelids, visible even when I blink. It’s just after one o’clock in the morning.

My birthday.

I’m sixteen today. I thought—I hoped —that with each year that went by, I’d feel safer. That being older would come with a stronger shield, every year an added layer of protection.

I was wrong.

I don’t feel any different.

Another noise—because there was one before, the one that woke me out of a dead sleep—pierces through the pressing darkness and the nocturnal quiet from somewhere downstairs. The crunching of glass, as if beneath a heavy boot.

I imagine my stepdad down there, stumbling around drunk, a broken beer bottle smashed on the dirty kitchen floor.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve woken up to that.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d be forced to clean up the mess if I went downstairs to check.

So I don’t move, instead tucking the thin, threadbare comforter tighter around me. I bury my head into the pillow and shut my eyes, preferring the nightmares that come for me in sleep to the ones that haunt me while awake.

But I don’t get the chance to fall back into their clutches.

“Hey. Wh—”

My stepdad’s gruff voice drifts upstairs, followed by a grunt and a thud.

A booming comes next, filling my ears, furious and incessant. It’s my heart, running rampant in my chest and shooting up into my throat. My mouth goes dry. My hands tremble where I grip the sheets. My mind races as it attempts to fill in missing pieces of what it’s hearing but not seeing.

There’s another crunch of glass and then…nothing.

Silence.

Deathly stillness.

I want to pull the blanket over my head and shut out the world. I want to pretend I didn’t hear anything. I want to forget all the unnerving images my brain has conjured to explain the noises.

I definitely don’t want to go downstairs.

But everything is so quiet, and, in the end, curiosity gets the best of me.

The old mattress groans as I move gingerly, stifling a pained groan of my own against the persistent ache in my shoulder. And another from the deep bruise that’s stamped into my left side.

As I make my way down the stairs, avoiding the creaking step halfway down, dread settles in my gut like a lead weight. It’s not because of the danger I sense. It’s the one that I don’t . The threat that I should be feeling? It’s not there.

And that makes me more uneasy than anything else.

That deceptive reassurance I constantly fear.

My lungs are tight, refusing to draw breath. But I still smell it—a sickly sweet, coppery scent that lingers in the thick air.

It freezes me in my tracks on the bottom step.

The lights in the kitchen are off, but the orange glow of the streetlight outside the house shines through the window on the opposite wall. It catches on something wet that pools on the floor, a glittering puddle. Stars shimmering in a black hole. There’s more black beside it. A figure, a silhouetted, still form lying crumpled on the dirty tiles. This one doesn’t reflect the light. It’s just pure black. A void.

Gravity and curiosity pull me in as I take the last step down, then another step forward.

After one more, I come to a stop with my bare feet inches from the dark, glistening pool of blood. It grows, spreading slowly, reaching for my toes. The body from which it still seeps from lies mangled and motionless. Lifeless.

The entire right side of his head is caved in, a gaping hole where he was obviously struck. I can see brain and bone. Flaps of skin and sinew hang off in bloody ribbons, the remnants of his right eye barely clinging from the attached muscle and nerves. The other eye is open, its chestnut brown iris swimming in red.

There’s no way he was hit only once. There’s no way I didn’t block out more noises of his struggle.

All the damage makes it difficult to identify the body.

But not impossible.

My stepdad is dead.

The truly terrifying part?

I don’t recognize whatever this feeling is that’s swelling inside me. What I do know is it’s probably not what I should be feeling. There’s no fear, no grief or anguish. There’s no adrenaline pumping through my veins. No flight or fight response.

There’s only… calm .

Like I’ve been living my life in a raging sea in the middle of a storm, violent waves crashing over me, drowning, drowning, drowning.

Now the waters are still.

And I’m floating.

Before the growing puddle of blood can reach the tip of my toes, I take a few hurried steps back. One step, two, three. Then I spin around and rush for the stairs. My feet thunder on the steps as I take them two at a time, no longer feeling the dire need to remain quiet.

In my room, I rummage through my school bag in the dark, searching by touch alone, not bothering to turn on the lights. Once I find what I’m looking for, I run back downstairs.

Again, I stop on the bottom step, clutching the sketchbook against my chest as I stare down at the lifeless, broken, bloody body. Slowly, I lower myself until my ass is resting on one of the steps.

I don’t know how long I sit there and just…stare.

The thoughts in my own head scare me more than the fact that I’m sharing a space with the corpse of the only father figure I’ve ever known. That I’m breathing the same air that’s touched death.

It’s not until I finally pull my gaze away that I notice the state of the back door on the other side of the kitchen. The glass pane is shattered, most likely the source of what woke me. I was so preoccupied with the blood and the body that I hadn’t seen the glass shards littering the floor.

Resting my sketchbook on my lap, I open it and flip to a blank page. My charcoal pencil scratches against the paper as I immediately start to draw.

There’s not much light. Only the glow of the streetlamp provides any illumination as I work.

It doesn’t matter though. My eyes have long since adjusted to the darkness. Way before tonight.

My pencil moves furiously across the page as I draw, peering up every now and then to make sure I’m getting the scene right. My hair falls into my eyes, and I flip it away. Black smudges form along the side of my palm.

I don’t consider myself an artist, but I’ve become decent at sketching over the years. It’s not about skill. It’s about the way my mind hones in on what I’m doing, focusing only on the image, the lines and the details, the feel of charcoal on paper.

It’s an escape.

That’s what it’s always been. A way to shut off my mind and shut out all the outside forces that have twisted it into the haunted, tormented wasteland it exists as now.

Right now, it’s a diversion from what I can’t understand.

Why I think the scene in front of me, the one I’m recreating on this page, is… beautiful .

Why I want to capture it so I can keep it forever.

Why is it so fucking beautiful?

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a dead body. I witnessed my mother’s last breath, in the hospital in the middle of the night, when I was eight years old. With the weight of my stepdad’s hand on my shoulder. Even after everything that came after, her death remains etched in my brain as the worst in my life.

But this moment?

Somehow, I’ve managed to capture all the feelings I’m trying hard to ignore the meaning of on this single page. More than a perfect picture of what I see, it’s a perfect picture of what can’t be seen. What I’ll never admit out loud.

I tear the paper out of the book, the sound ripping through the tranquil silence of death.

As I fold the page several times until it’s a tiny square, I let my gaze linger a little longer on the beautiful, bloody scene before me.

I need to hide this sketch. I need to call the cops.

And I will.

Just a little longer.

A little longer to appreciate the best birthday gift I’ve ever received.

Three days is more than enough time for the news of my stepdad’s murder to spread through town. Which means I don’t have to guess what the whispers that follow me through the long hallways of the high school are saying.

Now I know what it feels like to be a pariah.

I’ve never been one before. Being on the varsity hockey team as a sophomore has its perks. I have a lot of friends. Or, at least, I thought I did. I’ve heard from a couple of them in the past few days, but none of them have approached me since I walked through the front doors.

They’re probably contributing to the whispers.

I have no interest in checking for myself.

I’m only here to grab my shit from my locker and whatever documents I’ll need to transfer to the new school in Connecticut. Pennsylvania has been my home all my life, but I feel nothing about having to leave.

Or maybe I just don’t know how I feel about it yet.

Lewis Gibson wasn’t a good man. Even outside of the little slice of hell we shared together. He had gambling debts. Enemies. I’m not surprised someone decided to off him.

I reach my locker with murmurs clinging to me like the static of white noise. I drown them out because I don’t give a fuck what they’re saying. I’m out of here anyway.

“Hey, man.”

Max leans against the locker beside mine as I put in my combination. I give him a nod of acknowledgment.

“I heard you’re leaving.”

Again, I nod.

Ever since that night, I haven’t felt things that would be considered psychologically normal under ordinary circumstances. Under my circumstances, maybe the relief and joy I feel wouldn’t make a psychiatrist blanch.

But this overwhelming sense of peace?

That might do it.

It’s so much more than what that man’s death means for me now. I can’t say for sure I was even thinking about that when I walked down those stairs and first laid eyes on the sight that would forever change my life.

In place of a constant state of chaos and fear, a blanket of calm has been wrapped around my shoulders, replacing the weight of everything else.

It wasn’t just his death that did it.

It was the sight of it. The scent of it. The feel of it in the air.

Mourning him was never even on my radar.

The only thing I’ve mourned is that I’ll never be able to see that sight again outside of memories. I’ll never be able to relive that moment. I should’ve found it nothing but morbid, but it was that and so much more.

Hauntingly beautiful.

Because of that, I’m more fucked up than ever. And that’s saying something. I haven’t spoken much since that night because I’m terrified of the truth slipping out.

Fortunately, my silence can easily be misconstrued as grief.

“I guess you don’t have much of a choice, huh?” Max scratches the back of his neck nervously. It makes me wonder if he didn’t lose a bet to be the one to come talk to me. “I’m sorry about your old man.”

“He wasn’t my old man.”

“Right.”

I don’t know why I said that. It doesn’t matter what everyone thinks. Especially because he’s not… anything anymore.

He’s nothing .

The smile that threatens to lift the corners of my mouth is a bitch to force back, but I manage.

“I’m still sorry,” Max says. “It’s gotta suck to move to a new school in the middle of the year.”

I almost laugh. If I was normal, that would be the least of my problems. But since I’m not, that’s probably the part that actually does suck the most. However, moving in with my aunt and uncle and their three kids is going to be even worse.

I never knew my mom’s side of the family well because, from what I’ve gathered, there was some bad blood there. But what I do know is they have enough going on with raising three kids of their own, all of them younger than me.

I don’t want to be a burden.

But Max was right. I don’t have much of a choice since I’m not eighteen yet. I’m surprised they even offered to take me in. I should consider myself lucky.

Another body joins Max as I start taking books out of my locker and stuffing them in my bag. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Max sling his arm over his girlfriend’s shoulders while wishing they would just go the fuck away and let me pretend to be grieving in peace.

“We’re going to miss you around here, Cal,” Paige says.

“Yeah. I’ll miss you guys too.”

Except, I don’t think I actually will. And I doubt they’ll honestly miss me either.

We’re all a bunch of liars.

Especially Paige. She was chasing me for months before she settled for Max after finally figuring out I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been interested. In anyone. Particularly in some girl who only wants to date a popular guy, too into her own image. She spent far too much time pursuing upperclassmen before going down the line of us sophomores.

“We gotta get to class.” Max clears his throat as he starts backing away, pulling Paige with him. “Keep in touch, yeah?”

I finally force my gaze in their direction and give them the kind of somber smile they would expect. “Sure.”

I won’t.

They won’t either.

We’ll all forget each other existed in a few years.

As Max and Paige walk off, I continue digging out the remnants of my locker. A calculator, some loose pages with forgotten sketches, and a few charcoal pencils sharpened down to stubs. While I’m busy clearing out every corner, I feel eyes on me.

I’ve felt them since I first entered the school. So many eyes. Their sweeping gazes and lingering stares prickling my skin.

But there are new ones now. These eyes burn through the back of my skull.

I try to ignore it.

Until I can’t.

Peering over my shoulder, I’m not the least bit surprised to see who’s responsible for the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Stone Wakefield stands over by his locker, surrounded by a group of his friends. They’re similar to my own—obnoxious jocks who really couldn’t give a shit about the people in their little circle. He’s ignoring them as they talk and laugh with each other, his focus instead on me.

His unwanted attention causes my shoulder to throb.

Stone is a senior and the first-line center on the varsity hockey team. He’s two years older than me. And bigger. About two weeks ago, we were playing a scrimmage match at practice, and he checked me into the boards. Harder than was fucking necessary.

Before that, I was pretty ambivalent toward him. We’re two years apart, so it’s not like we spent much time together outside of hockey.

But since that day, I’ve fucking hated him.

And here’s the thing. If it was only the violence, I could’ve easily gotten over it. Even if my shoulder still aches weeks later.

However, that’s not the only thing that happened.

I rarely showered in the locker room, but after that painful practice that day, I was dying for some hot water to beat over my sore muscles. I decided to linger, using the excuse of sharpening my blades and re-taping my stick so I could wait and have the showers to myself.

I thought I was alone.

When I came out with only a towel wrapped around my waist, I realized I wasn’t.

I’ve never let anyone see the marks my stepdad had left on me.

But Stone saw them.

He saw a piece of me that I’ve done really fucking well at hiding for a long time.

It was like I was being flayed alive. That is, until I didn’t feel alive at all. I was a frog, dead, lifeless limbs pinned down as his eyes sliced me open with the cold blade of a scalpel, peeling back every layer of skin so he could dissect me. Study my ruined insides.

I hated it, and I hated him for it.

But what I might’ve hated more was the look of utter disgust and contempt that grew in his eyes the longer they raked over my shivering, bruised body. All I could do was stand there, frozen. I could feel each cool bead of water that dripped from my hair, chilling me to the bone as they rolled down every one of my exposed nightmares.

He didn’t even try to look away. He took his fill.

Every bruise.

Every scar.

It’s as though he was witnessing every time I was weak. Living every memory of mine where any semblance of strength failed me.

He was seeing me when I hated to be seen.

Then he turned around and left without a word.

And now, standing several yards away from me down the hallway, it’s like he’s doing it all over again. He clearly doesn’t give a damn about being caught staring at me. Again . Like he has absolutely nothing to hide. His gray-green eyes never falter. Despite being fully clothed, I may as well be even more naked than I was that day.

I may as well lay all my secrets bare at his fucking feet.

Well…fuck that and fuck him.

I’m the one to turn away this time. I slam my locker shut and zip my bag before heading down the hall, passing Stone and his friends without sparing a glance.

One person seeing me is one too many.

But I’ll never have to see that one person again.

That one person will never see me again.

No one ever will.