Chapter Text
September 30th, 1994
“-Shadow Bay, small-town America. But among locals, a history of horror has earned it another nickname: ‘Killer Capital USA.’ And last night, tragedy struck again. I'm here with Sheriff Nick Goode. Sheriff, what can you tell us?”
“-Uh, there were seven victims, ages, 16 uh, to 42. The perpetrator's also deceased. Their identity is to be disclosed.”
“-Shadow Bay sits just beside Sunnyvale, one of the safest and wealthiest communities in the country...What is it about Shadow Bay? How do we end this cycle of violence?”
_
October 1st, 1994
Dear Dani, I hate you
Dear Dani, I wish we never met.
Dear Dani,
Go fuck yourself.
Love, Gabs
_
Gabby didn’t really believe in curses. She believed in bad luck, bad systems, and bad people. Believing in an evil witch felt like giving this shitty excuse for a town an excuse for being highly involved with all three. It was all very childish, she supposed. Pinning the blame on a figure of the past to explain the poor nature of a town that had such potential for more than– this.
But if she were ever to meet the one responsible for the way this town was, she would absolutely wreak her havoc, creating a curse of her own purely just to spite them.
Because still, she never walked past the old woods they called haunted at night. Just in case.
She set the pen down as she slammed her blaring morning alarm off, shoving the note into the shoebox. In it lay a cassette tape, loose along with a couple of photo strips, a random straw that was sure to have some sentimental value, a guitar pick, and a bunch of other junk she didn’t need anymore. She placed the box in her bag, zipped the bag up, and promptly left her room.
Gabby learned the nature of this town long before she could ever have words for it. It was in the boarded-up storefronts along Main Street, or the dark water of the rocky beach. In the clouds that never really parted to reveal the blue, or in the way the streetlights flickered at the brink of dusk, simply tired of trying anymore. Or it was in the stories people told with lowered voices–about accidents, murders, about disappearances, about how if you stayed too long in this town, something would eventually come for you.
Despite all Gabby could defend it with, Shadow Bay was cursed.
The house was quiet except for the hum of the old TV in the living room. She made her way down the stairs to find a figure sitting cross-legged on the couch, surrounded by cans of soda, junk food wrappers, and genuinely smelling like Takis.
“You’re gonna fry the modem,” Gabby said, wrinkling her nose and dumping her shoulder bag by the door as she scanned the counter for something to eat. “Hurry up, Gabe. We need to get to school.”
Her twin brother didn’t even look up as his gaze remained glued to the TV. “I’m busy.”
“You’re busy watching TV.”
“This is different. Look,” he said, pointing to the screen. “More murders. At the mall. It’s all over the news - some guy they’re calling the Skull Mask Killer.” He turned to face her, his doe eyes serious and weary. “They haven’t released his name yet.”
Gabby moved closer to the screen, arms folded. Sure enough, the town sheriff was speaking to a news reporter in front of the Shadow Bay mall, with yellow tape over a crime scene. An unsettling chill crawled up her spine at the sight of the headline.
Tragedy strikes again in Shadow Bay.
“Toni Kim was one of them,” Gabe said, the words coming quietly. “She’s the only one of the victims whose names have been revealed.”
Gabby blinked. She knew Toni. Toni Kim, the girl who always borrowed pencils from her and never gave them back. Who yelled at Luke and Hanna once for talking over the desks to each other, with her trapped in between. Toni Kim, the girl who sat two rows ahead in AP Physics and always had her pastel highlighters laid out on her desk in rainbow order.
Toni Kim, the girl who was now, to simply put it, dead.
A pit dropped low in her stomach. In truth, she should’ve been more horrified. She should’ve stared in shock at the TV for another senseless tragedy having wormed its way back into the very seams of Shadow Bay's soil.
But the words of Dani echoed in her head - ‘Welcome to Shadow Bay. Where your classmates are always dropping like flies.’ It had been insensitive, sure, but that didn’t really stop it from being any less true. The last murders that happened were to a pair of students around the start of sophomore year, a girl named Margot Bishop and her brother, Marcus. Gabby had known her more, the girl being one of Jai's acquaintances.
Dani had been with her then. There to hold her hand through the fear of it.
She whisked the memory away.
For a second, Gabby tried to picture Toni anywhere but a grainy photo on a news broadcast. Tried to imagine her walking the halls again, early to class, silently fighting Gabby for the top grade just like any other day.
She couldn’t.
“Shit,” she muttered quietly. The feeling came fast and sharp, a tightness low in her chest. She let it sit there for just a breath. Then she shoved it down.
Because people died in Shadow Bay - that was the statement of the century, shrouded as a rule everyone didn’t have to speak aloud to know. You couldn’t stop every time it happened, or you’d never move again.
“The fucking curse,” she heard Gabe speak under his breath.
Gabby sighed as she stood behind the couch he was lounging on. “Gabe, we’ve been over this. Shadow Bay has crime. That doesn’t mean-”
“That doesn’t mean curse,” he finished, finally glancing at her. “I know. But it does mean something. You don’t think it’s weird how it’s always us?”
Gabby rolled her eyes, shrugging her bag on as she searched for her keys. Of course she thought it was weird. She just refused to let that thought fester longer than it already had all her life.
More murders, more accidents. Tragedies stacked one on top of another until no one could remember where the list began or where it could ever end. For the people who lived here, it could never be simply folklore or any form of exaggeration. It could only mean the life they were condemned to. And with it would always come death.
“You’re in a mood today,” Gabe stated, eyeing her cautiously.
“No, I’m not.”
A beat passed as his gaze bore deeper into her own. “A certain someone on your mind again?”
Gabby glared at him, her fingers tightening around her keys long enough to hurt. “Just get in the car.”
–
The slam of the driver’s door on the minivan echoed flatly across the humid air of the parking lot.
Gabby trailed her brother to the entrance of Shadow Bay High, as the building rose ahead of her, stale and uninviting, brick stained dark from years of neglect.
Inside, the hallways were the usual chaos. Lockers slammed open and shut, voices bounced off the walls, and laughter came too loud and too sharp, even with the weight of the previous night tugging a tarp over those who were really affected. A banner stretched over the main corridor announced the upcoming football game against Sunnyvale, the letters uneven and drooping, feeling more like a threat than an invitation.
And there were too many damn couples making out. Everywhere. As if a girl hadn’t just fucking died.
“See ya, Gabs,” she felt a hand ruffle her hair as she swatted Gabe away, the boy already drifting toward his group of friends on the other side of the hall.
She merely waved him off as she slipped her Walkman’s headphones on and began her journey to her locker. Through the mellow music, she could faintly hear them - whispers about curses drifting through the halls. (“-One of the victims was so badly mangled they couldn’t even identify him./-Guess Sarah Fier got him good.”) Some talk of blaming mental breakdowns. Dani had said those kinds of things to Gabby once, she recalled, snarky and drunk on the adrenaline of passing streetlights at dusk.
Fuck. Gabby needed those people to stop their PDA now, before another massacre happened. She made her way down the hallway to her locker, but slowed her steps as she approached it.
Her locker. The one right next to Toni’s.
Flowers decorated the floor in front of it, some hanging from the peepholes, notes of condolences and pictures of the smiling girl plastered all over, even as far as crossing over to her locker space. Gabby looked at the pictures closer, despite herself. Brown bangs hung just above her eyes, bright and bubbly as the memory of the girl seemed to sear right through her.
She could see the letters RIP engraved messily on the blue metal, silver peeking through the paint.
Gabby turned away to her own locker, ignoring the sick feeling in her stomach, and twisted the dial with more force than necessary, hands already tight with tension, even though the day had barely started.
She just tried to focus on routine. On the order of her books, notebooks, and the familiar scrape of metal as she shut the locker, but her thoughts refused to settle.
The bathroom could’ve been enough to shut out the warring in her mind if it weren’t for the state of it. To her disgust, red spray paint streaked across the stall doors - drunken letters spelling out the witch’s curse. The same damned rhyme that peppered the hallways ever since elementary.
Before the witch's final breath, she found a way to cheat her death.
By cutting off her cursed hand, she kept her grip upon our land.
Gabby recognized the hollow scraping her insides all too well - the feeling that the world could flip from sacred to awful in a heartbeat as she stared at the blood-red lettering.
The slam of a stall jolted her out of her discontent as she glanced in the mirror, spotting a familiar head of ginger hair. Her shoulders sagged immediately. “Jeez.”
“You see?” Hanna smirked with eyelids lowered, pointing at the graffiti behind them. “It's the witch.” She smiled, moving to Gabby’s side, whispering, “Sarah Fier's back.”
Gabby simply frowned at her antics. “Oh, not you too.”
"She reaches from beyond the grave,” Hanna read the rest of the words aloud in a raspy voice, “to make good men her wicked slaves!"
"She'll take your blood!" Another voice surged through the space, stealing her breath as the boy came crashing out of the stall door.
She shoved him, “Jai!”
"-She'll take your head. She'll follow you until you're dead!"
“Wow,” She stared at the two of them smirking. “You guys are dicks. It's sick.”
“We know,” Jai started, “It’s just… The dude was wearing a Halloween skull mask. That’s kind of iconic if you ask me.”
“People died. Toni died.” Gabby said solemnly, staring down her friends.
That wiped the grin off their faces, just a little.
She looked to Jai specifically, knowing his past with Margot, and didn't need to speak at all to rouse the condemnation within him.
“It's all just the same fucking cycle, I swear.” She took a step back, words spilling out now that she’d started, “The guy was probably just some sad sack who hated his life, like the rest of us, except he decided, ‘Hey, why don't I get out of here for good? And, hey, why don't I take Toni and a couple other mall rats with me?’” A hot feeling grew in her gut as her hands curled into fists at her sides. “There's no angry dead witch who made him go postal. The only thing that made him go crazy was this town.”
The sound of her voice echoed in the bathroom, bouncing off the walls and back into her ears. And somehow, it came to her attention that she sounded eerily like the words she had spoken prior.
The two only stared at her, wide-eyed and jaws slack. Hanna approached her slowly, reaching a hand out to grasp her shoulder. “...Are you okay?”
Gabby blew out a breath. “Yeah,” she said. “I'm fine.”
“Seems like maybe,” Jai lightly nudged her, “you got a little witch in you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dude, why are you even in here? This is the girls' bathroom.”
“The girls’ bathroom no one uses ‘cause the plumbing is shit.”
Hanna leaned against the dysfunctional hand dryer, eyes softening. “You know we don't believe this witch shit, right? It's just, like, fucked-up Santa Claus or something. Whatever Connor made up last meeting.”
Her brows furrowed at the mention of their friend as the question bubbled up from her throat. “Where are Luke and Connor anyway?”
“Last I heard, Luke was sick,” Hanna sighed, looking at the blotchy mirror, smoothing out her auburn hair. “Couldn’t even get out of bed yesterday afternoon.”
“Connor’s probably just ditching again,” Jai shrugged, knowing their friend, to which Gabby agreed with a nod.
She wanted to complain about the boys’ unsurprising irresponsibility, but found it pointless. Connor was always a wild card when it came to attendance, either attending class once a day or once a week. She wouldn’t have known if the boy had fled to the nearest train station off to Seattle for a week and back (which he had already done).
She knew it wasn’t Luke’s fault that he was sick, but Gabby had a slight suspicion that it was due to the fish she’d served him during her shift at the diner pro bono.
At the thought of work, a grimace found its way to her face for the reminder of the extra shifts she’d need to pay for college. And who she’d envisioned enrolling with her. Before she let that memory of plans she’d made fully develop, Gabby brushed the train of thought off, reaching into her bag and pulling out a box, handing it over to Hanna.
Hanna looked down at the object in her hands, scanning the endless stickers plastered over it. “What's this?”
“I need you to give this to Dani tonight.”
“Yeah, nuh-uh.” Hanna pushed it back into her arms. “Absolutely not.”
Gabby fumbled it, caught it against her stomach, then held it out again anyway. She tilted her head, lips pursed into something halfway between a pout and a plea. “Come on, Hanna.”
“No way, Gabs.” Hanna crossed her arms, leaning her shoulders back. “I am not getting mixed up in your ex drama,” she added, shaking her head. “Do it yourself.”
Gabby let the box drop back into her bag with more force than necessary. “I’m not going to the game. I…” The admission felt heavy in her throat as she decided on letting it loose. She chewed on her lip, contemplating. It was going to surface either way. “I quit soccer.”
Hanna’s head immediately snapped up. “Since when?”
Gabby shrugged, turning toward the door and busying herself with her bag strap. “Since who gives a shit?”
Hanna’s eyes narrowed, a hint of worry lacing her tone. “Wasn’t soccer the only extracurricular you had left?”
Jai, who had been half-listening, leaned back against the painted stall doors. “You still have your uniform, right?”
Gabby shot him a look.
“You just wear that shit one last time,” he said.
She stopped short, finally facing them again, frustration written all over her face. “That’s not how soccer teams work. I can’t just slide back in like I didn’t basically abandon my teammates.”
“Hello, do you remember which school we go to?” Hanna said, an exasperated look on her face.
“Yeah,” Jai added, “They're desperate, and I'm pretty sure Nikki rolled her ankle. They need a sub. You’re bound to return either way.”
Gabby sighed defeatedly as she turned to leave the entrapping space, “You're both morons.”
“Says you,” Hanna chided, pushing her way out of the bathroom.
“Which one of us is on track for valedictorian, again?” Gabby teased, nudging Hanna.
“Well, which one of us is president of every club this shithole has to offer?” Hanna shot back.
They spilled out of the bathroom and into the hallway, immediately swallowed by the crush of students funneling toward first period. The noise hit all at once – lockers slamming, squeaking shoes against linoleum, voices layered over one another until it all blurred into a single, constant roar.
Somewhere down the hall, laughter broke out, sharp and ugly, a sound akin to one from a horror movie that the boys would watch every weekend, where Gabby and Hanna would occasionally drop in.
Gabby adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, trying to shake the lingering tightness in her chest. “Well, I’m the one getting out of here first,” she said, more to herself than to them, though promptly and daring. She tried to muster up a genuine smile, but gave up and barely managed a smirk. “Off to claim my place among the stars.”
A loud hoot cut through the hallway. “Woo!”
Heads turned as a random boy burst into view from the far end of the corridor, dragging something behind him. The plastic feet scraped loudly against the floor, leaving faint streaks as it bounced and lurched.
It took Gabby a second to register what it was.
An inflatable mannequin.
Blood–or red paint meant to look like it–was smeared across its chest and neck, dripping in uneven lines that soaked into the creases of the plastic. A cheap skull mask was stretched over its face, the grin warped and wide in its whiteness.
“The witch lives!” the boy shouted, yanking the mannequin upright. “Long live Sarah Fier!”
For just a moment, the hallway froze.
Then erupted into a ruckus.
“Yeah!” Jai yelled, his voice melding into the sound around them.
Laughter spilled out, loud and unrestrained. Someone whistled. Someone else started clapping, slow at first, then faster. The boy dragged the mannequin forward again, letting it bang against lockers as he went. Its head lolled uselessly from side to side, the skull mask slipping, then snapping back into place.
Gabby felt her stomach twist.
“That’s honestly just sick,” Hanna muttered beside her, arms crossed tight over her chest.
The mannequin disappeared down the hallway, swallowed by the crowd, but the energy it left behind lingered feverishly. Students kept laughing, kept shouting, kept moving as if nothing had happened at all.
Gabby stayed where she was as she watched the last smear of red vanish around the corner. Listened to the echo of the boy’s laughter fade into the rest of the school’s noise.
And then her eyes caught onto the flowers laid down on Toni’s locker.
“It’s just Shadow Bay.”
–
The overhead lights hummed faintly, too bright against the gloom gathering outside.
Gabby stood with the rest of the team near the baseline, arms crossed, weight shifted onto one hip. The air smelled like varnish and sweat, and the squeaking of sneakers was enough to make her wince at their echoes. The crowd of students packed into the bleachers buzzed with impatience, whispers skipping from row to row like sparks.
A microphone screeched, causing everyone to wince.
Principal Shaffner cleared her throat, tapping the mic once too many times before speaking.
“Afternoon students. Before tonight's game, out of respect for last night's tragic events, Sunnyvale will host a candlelight vigil for the victims.” Shaffner swallowed, a grim look painting her face as if acknowledging the act herself. Gabby stared at the far wall, jaw tight.
The vigil could never be about mourning, only optics of the graceful town so often hid behind flying banners and picket-fence lawns. About Sunnyvale, making sure everyone saw how gracious they were with their clean hands and clean consciences. Just another ploy to keep up their image of sympathetic neighbours.
All of it; merely an act.
“All players, cheer, and band attendance is mandatory,” the principal added.
A wave of groans rolled through the gym.
“Oh, come on!” someone shouted from the bleachers.
Gabby caught Hanna’s eye from across the gym, lifting her hand to create a finger gun aimed at the side of her head.
(Pew.)
After the assembly ended and the crowd started to disperse, the noise swelling again as students poured toward the exits, Gabby was about to walk over to her friends when she heard a voice call her name.
“Lewis!”
She swivelled around to face the soccer coach, hands tightening on the strap of her bag. “Yes, Coach?” she said out of habit, already tired.
“You’re coming tonight whether you like it or not,” he said, not unkindly, but with the firmness of someone who’d already decided. “Rodriguez rolled her ankle. No time for your quitting now.”
Gabby exhaled through her nose, nodding grimly. From behind him, she spotted both Hanna and Jai flashing her a smug ‘told you’ look.
“No space on the players’ bus, though,” the coach added, jerking a thumb toward the doors, “so guess you’ll have to ride with the band kids.”
“That’s fine,” Gabby replied automatically. It was, actually. She’d planned on sitting with Hanna anyway. “See you, Coach.”
–
When the time came, the buses idled along the curb, engines rumbling low. One for the players, where Gabe had already taken his seat, and one for the band. Gabby hesitated, then veered toward the latter. She stepped onto the bus already dreading her life choices and then stopped short.
Jai sat sprawled across a vinyl seat halfway down, knees stretched out, Hanna wedged beside him in a full band uniform with her flute bag clutched to her chest. He looked entirely too comfortable for someone who had no business being there.
She raised a brow at him. “Why are you even here?”
Jai was part of the robotics club, and as far as Gabby knew, his music skills were those of a first grader forced to take piano lessons by his parents. “Moral support.”
Hanna scooted over to make room for her. “Don’t look at me,” she said. “He just showed up.”
Jai shrugged. “If you tell me to get off, you're saying you hate me and want me to die.”
She just rolled her eyes. She was too tired to argue.
Gabby dropped into the seat across from them, pressing her forehead briefly against the cool window as the bus doors hissed shut. Outside, the gym doors slammed one by one, students funneling toward their respective rides, laughter and shouts bleeding into the late afternoon.
And as the bus began its journey, as music played softly through her headphones, she watched the rot melting away from the houses, the graffiti dissipating, the blocks spreading out, morphing into manors with green grass and chandeliers lit through the bay windows.
Sunnyvale felt like a whole other country.
The streets were clean, lawns were manicured. White picket fence dreams under a shining setting sun. Gabby hated how easy it was to see the difference, how clear the line was between a town that thrived and one that endured.
The stands were packed by the time the buses arrived. Shadow Bay’s side was a sea of worn jackets and restless energy. Across the field, Sunnyvale gleamed–clean colors, confident smiles, cheerleaders who looked like they’d stepped out of a magazine. (One in particular, without having even seen her yet, she was sure of.)
Still, all in attendance held cups with flickering candles with hushed voices, the lights dim against the setting sun.
Gabby stood beside her brother, the boy's eyes scanning dimly over the crowd to the other team, as if sizing them up. Hanna and Jai flanked her left, doing the same.
Gabby watched the other side for a wholly different reason than her companions.
“This isn't how I wanted to be here tonight,” The sheriff spoke, the echo of his voice projecting over the crowd. “I wanted to be here as a fan. Our Sunnyvale Devils and your Shadow Bay Witches are throwing down some good old soccer. Instead, I find myself here as a husband, a father, and a neighbor. And, yes, the mayor of Sunnyvale. And on behalf of all of the people in my town, I say all of Sunnyvale mourns with you. Our hearts are broken with grief-”
She spotted her almost immediately now that the crowd had grown mostly still.
She was with a group of Sunnyvale kids, quietly laughing at something one of them said. The sound carried, light and unburdened.
The light of a nearby candle illuminated her face, eyes glinting with a menacing sparkle, and lip gloss shining under the too-bright lights.
Gabby barely heard the droning words of the mayor over the pulse in her temples when she saw her melt into the arms of a boy.
As the boy leaned down to kiss her neck.
As Dani smiled, but Gabby lost sight of it once the cheerleader turned her back to her, wrapping her arms around his sturdy-looking frame.
And Gabby watched as the boy’s hands snaked down her waist, lower, lower-
She was about to be sick.
“My family's been in Sunnyvale for generations, and now my brother is mayor and I, your sheriff. We've prospered here. And yet, I've seen you, our neighbors in Shadow Bay, suffer tragedy after tragedy. It's easy in times like this to drown in questions of why… Why this happened. But I know too well there are no answers that will provide relief. There's no peace found in the past.”
“Yeah, really looks like they give a damn,” Gabe scoffed beside her, looking at the football team and the cheerleaders. Hanna nodded on her other side, lowly seething. “The only Sunnyvalers who came were the ones who had to.”
“Yeah, figures,” Gabby muttered as she watched Dani kiss him once more, then began to weave her way out of the crowd to a nearby exit. Wordlessly, she shrugged her soccer bag off her shoulder and handed it to her confused brother. “Hey, I'll be right back.”
The three of them shared a look after they followed her gaze to where the cheerleader was going. Gabe looked at her with knowing, concerned eyes, to which she only dipped her chin, then Jai half-heartedly saluted her as Gabby slipped away, pushing quietly past band kids and her teammates alike.
The stadium lights hummed overhead, harsh and white, casting long shadows across the concrete as Gabby slipped into the narrow alcove beside the concessions.
The breeze tugged a few of her curls astray from their place within her ponytail as she sat down against a wall, box still in hand. She lifted the lid, picking up the cassette, running her thumb along the marked tape.
She could almost imagine this setting on any other night. A cone of ice cream she definitely would’ve regretted later, but it would’ve been alright, because French-tipped hands would’ve handed her a water bottle and meds. Just like today, a sunset just before a game that the Shadow Bay Witches would’ve surely lost, but tried anyway, and with the consoling laughter of another, never torn away from her.
The wet that rimmed her waterline hadn't even processed in her mind before she heard timid footsteps approach.
“Gabby.”
Her breath caught at the sight of the figure stopped beneath a flickering light, its buzz sharp in the quiet. She stood immediately, wiping her tears before the girl could see.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” Dani said, voice thick. “I thought you quit soccer.”
“Yeah, I did.” She wasn't particularly in the mood for any elaboration. Gabby nudged the box toward her with her foot, sending it scraping loudly against the concrete. “Here.”
“What…” Dani took one look at the box. She bent, fingers hovering over the endless stickers, each one holding a pointless sentimentalism behind it. The wind blew at her raven strands (they were shorter now, Gabby noticed), revealing her face, tightened. “Is… this my stuff?”
“Ding ding ding.” Gabby brushed past her, shoulder grazing Dani’s arm as she made for the other end of the alcove, back toward the vigil.
“Can we talk for a second?”
“No.” She kept walking.
“You broke up with me, remember?” Dani's voice rang louder than Gabby wanted, the accusatory tone bouncing off the concrete and surrounding her senses. “So stop acting like I'm the bad guy.”
Gabby froze. Turned slowly. “Yeah, Dani, well, I'm not the one who moved to Sunnyvale. You made the choice. I just made it official.”
“You know my parents got divorced. I didn't have a choice.”
“Oh, come on,” Gabby scoffed, stepping closer, shoes scraping faintly against the concrete. A quiet fury flickered in her gut, somehow bubbling its way up her throat. “You just couldn't wait to start your new fake life with your loaded abuela.”
“I am half an hour away,” Dani said, jaw tight, fists clenching at her sides.
“It might as well be the goddamn moon, and you know it.”
“I don't know anything.”
“Yeah. Well, I do.” Gabby crossed her arms, nostrils flaring as she stared daggers at the girl across from her. “I know you were always too afraid to tell anyone about us. I know that." She took a step closer. "And I know that douchebag out there was squeezing your ass.”
“You broke up with me-”
“-What's his name?”
“You broke up with me!”
“What's his name, Dani?” Gabby pressed. “The guy touching you.”
“-Stop. Just stop.”
“-Touching. You!”
“Mack!” Dani finally screamed, the sound carrying across the empty stretch of concrete. “His name is Mack!”
The hum of the lights filled the air. Gabby scoffed, feet already turning away toward the distant crowd.
Still, Dani called after her. “You don't get it!” She shouted, frustration rippling through her voice as she ran to keep up.
A menacing tug pulled Gabby’s lips upward, despite herself, as she faced Dani again. “No, no. I do. There's not much of a future in Shadow Bay, Killer Capital USA, with a boring nobody like me. Best case is what? Dead on the mall floor after a double shift? Or maybe, maybe if you're really lucky, you're the one carrying the knife.” She began walking once more.
“You're doing it again,” Dani called out, even as Gabby carried on, expanding the space between them.
“Doing what?”
“‘Welcome to the suck!’” Dani gestured with both hands, wild and desperate, “‘Shit is doomed!’”
Gabby stopped in her tracks, her shadow from the far stadium lights stretching long across the concrete. “Shit is doomed,” she echoed.
“But it doesn't have to be. Fuck,” Dani rubbed her temples, growing tired of the conversation, “I thought I was the dramatic one. It's like you want to lose.”
Gabby dragged in a breath, then another, forcing the heat down despite the chill of the night air. “At least I know who I am.”
Dani stared at Gabby full on, caramel eyes flashing with a dangerous glint of fury. “If you know who you are, then you'd know that you're better than that town, Gabby. Stop being mad at me for wanting a different future!”
She knew she was being unfair. A part of her knew that Dani was right, that she was better than Shadow Bay. But she knew better than to give her the satisfaction of knowing that.
“It's not your future if you're pretending to be someone else.”
A scream pierced through the tarmac as Gabby swung her neck toward the sound. Shouting, yelling, and punches echoed faintly throughout the space. Gabby huffed, because of course a fight had broken out not even twenty minutes after arriving.
Still, the roar of the crowd was dulled here, reduced to a distant, restless thrum like the game existed in another world entirely.
She finally turned her heel this time, not sparing a single glance back. She faced the field to go rescue Hanna or Jai or Gabe from the chaos. For all she knew, one of them had been the cause.
Over her shoulder, she called, voice tight and dry: “Go on. Go shake some pom-poms and twirl around with your Cheerios.”
Gabby wiped at her nose, already feeling her allergies act up. “I have a game to lose.”
–
“Pieces of shit!”
Gabby internally groaned from the back seat of the bus, hearing the girl’s proclamations from the front. Her head was already hurting from her fight with Dani. The last thing she needed was Hanna’s hooting and hollering for an anger long simmering over their rival town, which, of course, they had lost to.
The blooming purple bruise on Hanna’s pale, freckled cheek was evidence of the riot. She had an ice pack held on her cheek as she continued anyway, “They think they can do what they want!”
The roaring ‘No!’ of her teammates echoed back at her, disturbing Gabby’s peace even more.
When she'd come back from her little quarrel with Dani, she had found a plain mess of bodies colliding and spouting about.
Among the sea of chaos, she had spotted her best friend on the field's grassy floor, clutching her face (having clearly taken an elbow to it), yelling at some blonde cheerleader who looked as if her cheek had unfortunately met the cold, hard metal of a flute.
Jai had been on a jock's back, hailing a free piggyback ride, trying to keep him from unleashing his rage on Gabe, who was already fending off another guy with pivots and rudimentary swings.
The riot, as it turned out, had all started with her three very dear, very stupid companions when an upright Sunnyvale prick decided to dishonor their town's honorless name.
But it was never really senseless. Mack only meant to dishonor the victims’ names.
Nameless as some of them were.
The bus smelled like sweat and chemicals and humid, almost ancid air as Gabby sat slumped further against the window. The coaches hadn't even bothered sorting the students into their distinct buses, so now both player and band kids alike populated the bus. The very small and cheap, cheap bus.
As the bus pulled away from Sunnyvale’s perfect streets, Gabby stared out the window as the houses grew uglier, closer together. Her chest still burned. She hated that Dani had that effect on her. Hated that Sunnyvale had taken her away. Hated that it all felt so unfair.
“They ruin our vigil, then go waltzing back to their mansions, like we're some reject pile that they can step on!”
“No!” Gabby heard Jai’s voice over all of the others.
“Well, we are not the reject pile!” Hanna declared, emphasizing each word with vigor.
“No!”
“This shit ends tonight!”
“Yeah!”
What exactly did Hanna think she was planning to accomplish with this righteous, reckless fury?
As if answering her question, she heard Jai call out, prompting the entire bus, “What are we gonna do?”
“We're gonna go kill those preppy assholes!” Hanna said defiantly.
The chorus of ‘yeah’s’ flooded the bus, the sound shaking the very seat Gabby lay on. Or it was the potholes on Shadow Bay’s streets.
Gabby rolled her eyes. She could almost classify Hanna as as dramatic as Dani in this moment, but then the thought of Dani just sent her into a spiral all over again. She needed to go to bed.
“Han-na! Han-na! Han-na!”
Gabby shut her eyes, focusing on shutting out the noise. Even when Jai decided to start a fucking chant.
“When I say Shadow, you say Bay! Shadow!”
“-Bay!”
“Shadow!”
“-Bay!”
She forced her eyes tighter, trying to hold onto the tiny flame of peace she’d been trying to keep ignited.
But then something else intruded on her headspace. A loud, blaring sound, unmuffled as it came into focus. A light shone onto the back of the person in front of her. She swirled to see the headlights shot through the glass, searing into her eyes, almost blinding.
Then she saw it.
A car was tailing the bus, riding too close, a figure popping right out of the roof. Gabby recognized the face in the driver’s seat instantly. Mack.
What the fuck.
The Sunnyvale boys didn’t know how to let things go. The car honked again. Once. Twice.
“Goddamn Sunnyvalers,” she cursed, just as a glass bottle came crashing in her face on the other side of the window.
She immediately turned to yell at her friends at the front. “Guys! Come here!” The heads of Jai, Hanna and Gabe swirled around, expressions confused. “Come here!” She urged, sending them scampering down the bus aisle.
Hanna leaned in, eyes squinting through the glass as another bottle flew. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Gabe's face was one of scorn. “What does he even want?”
“Hey,” Jai said timidly, “isn't that, uh…”
Through the windshield of the car, Gabby’s eyes fell upon the girl in the passenger seat. Her face was pale. Her eyes wide.
Dani.
Everything else fell away.
A sickening feeling made itself known within her. Before she could even explain it, all she felt was a sharpening, venomous sting in her core.
Mack swerved closer, the action sending the four of them reeling back.
“Shit,” Gabe muttered. “He’s gonna get us killed.”
The honking got louder. Gabby looked to the other end of the vehicle. The bus driver ignored it, eyes fixed forward on the road ahead.
Something inside Gabby snapped.
Her eyes landed on the cooler of melted ice water stacked right by the emergency exit, heavy and full. Without speaking, she grabbed it. It was heavier than she expected, sloshing ominously as she dragged it toward the middle.
The weight of the cooler strained Gabby’s arms. Her muscles screamed in protest as she lifted it, breath hitching. For a fraction of a second, doubt flickered.
“Open the door.” She wasn’t sure if she totally meant to say it.
This was a stupid plan. A dangerous one.
Hanna’s eyes widened. “What?”
But in all honesty, Gabby didn't really care at the moment. “Trust me.”
Hesitantly, Hanna shoved open the emergency door window, setting the wind screaming past her ears. The road blurred beneath them, dark and endless. “This is definitely a good idea, right? Gabby?”
She locked eyes with Dani for a split second. On the girl’s face read confusion, fear, and something else Gabby couldn’t name.
Her pulse hammered in her ears. She wasn’t really thinking about consequence in this moment. She was trapped thinking about how fucked up it all was–About Dani choosing Sunnyvale and the life they so desperately scorned. How mocking it had been when Dani had left her to go live in that very, too-perfect town. About Shadow Bay would always be on the losing end.
Just. Fucking– Unfair.
“It’s just a little water," she said. "On three, OK?”
“Gabs,” Jai said apprehensively. “You sure?”
She didn’t answer. “Two…”
“Gabby!” Gabe yelled.
“What?” She didn’t notice at first. Just felt the sudden warmth above her lip, the dizziness in her temple.
And then the world tilted.
Hanna gasped. “Your nose!”
It felt like her skull was splitting open.
Once her other hand lifted to her face, Gabby staggered - nose gushing, world blurring. Before she knew it, her fingers had lost their grip, and the cooler slipped from her hands.
It tumbled back through the passing air.
Time seemed to stretch, the world narrowing to the space between the bus and the road below.
The cooler flew, spinning end over end, streetlights glinting off its slick surface.
And came crashing right into the windshield.
Metal crumpled with a deafening crash as glass exploded outward. The sound tore through the night, sharp and final as the car took a final swerve straight into the waiting woods that swallowed the winding road.
Gabby’s breath caught as the bus jolted forward, her hands still outstretched where the cooler had been. Somewhere behind, Mack's car would be sitting crushed, steam rising from the mangled hood.
And Gabby realized too late that whatever she’d meant to do, whatever point she’d wanted to prove–
She had crossed a line.
“Stop!” She screamed. “Stop the bus!”
The driver slammed the brakes. All passengers were thrown forward, bodies colliding, curses and cries filling the air. Gabby struggled to keep her balance as the vehicle lurched forward, the engine roaring beneath her feet. When the bus finally came to a final halt, the road was silent except for the hiss of steam.
Gabby all but stumbled into the empty road, cool night air rushing into her constricting lungs. Her heart pounded so hard it felt like it might crack her ribs, so hard she thought it might tear her apart.
Only one thing rippled across her mind in the moment.
“Dani,” Gabby whispered before she ran.
♧
Dani had always known that town was never good enough.
Shadow Bay had a reputation that clung to it like damp rot, some secret agenda of a force untold that the townspeople acknowledged only when a surface turned red, as if saying its name too loudly might unleash more of the bad that was just waiting to happen.
Either option was presented to her once her parents chose to sign the papers:
Stay in the hell that was littered with people cut out to be stars, like that Romero, or maybe Malya. (Stevens was a lost cause in her opinion, and she could tolerate McCoy, but never believed he really shone.) Like Gabriel Lewis, and that whirlwind of a twin sister he had.
Or, dance with the devils in paradise.
Dani needed an out. She needed fresh air.
So she left, but it hurt anyway.
Because the one girl whose exhales she could bottle up and get drunk on every night, the girl who uncast her crucibles and turned them into violets, the girl whom she loved like breathing?
Gabby Lewis had turned the other way. Scorned her for leaving as if she loved it there, and nothing, not even Dani's guilt-ridden hands, could tilt her chin to look back at Dani the way she used to. The distance, though few, was wide enough to drive their futures alike apart.
The droning blare of the car horn cut through the fuzziness shrouding her eardrums. That, accompanied by the high-pitched ringing, was a purely disgusting thing, dulling her senses even more as she heard some muffled voices in the back of her mind.
Her head was killing her. She could barely blink away the warped edges of her vision as her hands somehow managed to reach the door handle.
“Shit,” Mack muttered in the driver's seat, voice finally coming into focus, “are you alive?”
“Yeah, I'm alive," Peter spoke in the backseat, "Yeah.”
It all felt like a blur to her.
Dani only gripped the handle, muscles straining, and pushed.
Her knees met the cold, damp forest floor.
She crawled and kept crawling, no particular destination in sight or mind, every movement sending a sharp pain through her body. Her head was killing her.
It came to her awareness, the burning feeling singed in her nostrils, her brain, as if part of it had melted and dripped down, down her philtrum, over her bloodied lips, and onto her hand, splayed on the dirt. She coughed, the sound coming strangled as blood spattered.
Her head was killing her.
"Dani," Mack called from far behind. "Dani! What... what are you doing?"
A faint sound reached her ears - a sound she couldn't tell whether was whispering, swishing, or screaming.
"Dani!"
That call sounded different, she thought. Achingly familiar.
She wiped at her nose, feeling the thick liquid in between her fingers, and widened her eyes slightly at the stark colour against the rest of her pale palm. Her hand then fell away onto the ground.
The blood touched the moss-covered dirt.
And all at once, red-hued flashes played before her, scorching her vision - a woman screaming, a cave draped in shadows and flame, and a hooded figure clutching a cursed book. The images collided, unrelenting. A bloodied, severed hand, the hanging noose, a body, spinning rapidly through her mind's eye.
A whisper of something old, something condemned, brushed against her. Crawled through the pores of her skin, raising her hairs on end. Something ancient.
Something that could've belonged to Shadow Bay's darkest whispered tales she could once only ever joke about in passing.
Dani’s knees shook. Her breath was stolen away from her throat as if the world had closed in around her. A chill reached into her bones with icy fingers as she saw–just for a moment–a blazing, dark figure at the crash site. One bound to an endless vengeance and rage.
The woman. Screaming–
"Dani!" Someone grabbed her forearm.
Dani stumbled back, eyes wide on the person who now knelt before her.
“Are you OK? Oh!” Gabby asked, frantic.
Gone was the screaming woman and the red coloured flashes as the features of her the girl stole her attention.
Gabby?
When had she gotten here? Where was here? Dani's words failed her as she took her in, the girl's distraught eyes, the tremble of her lips. Her own nose, flecks of blood left behind from where she must have wiped it away.
What the actual fuck had just happened?
“Oh, I'm so... I'm so sorry," Gabby uttered, voice cracked with fear. "Dani, I-"
“Stay away from her, you freak!" She heard Mack groan behind her, probably still trapped in his seat.
“Dani, it's me." She felt warm hands on the side of her face. "I'm here.”
They were trembling. A rush of confusion flooded her insides. Was Gabby hurt? It was replaced by worry. The thought of Gabby hurtling toward danger without her sent a cold panic through Dani's veins. That was then replaced with a spiking lurch of nausea under her ribcage, hot and churning.
Dani's thoughts were a mess. She figured her body was too. Why-
Why had she thrown that cooler?
Had Gabby meant to hurt her? No, that couldn't be. Gabby had never once been violent toward anything in the world.
She pushed the anger down for now.
“Did you..." She finally found her voice, albeit weak, eyes focusing on Gabby's. "Did you see?”
“What?" Gabby's voice was soft, comforting even, as an unsettling calm found its way, fledged and weaving through the endless trees they were surrounded by. "See what, Dani?”
"The…"
Each heartbeat drummed, relentless and thundering against her temples, which only now she registered was dripping with even more blood. She forced herself forward, limbs trembling, vision lifting and narrowing to the tunnel of trees and shadows in the distance.
Would she believe her? She doesn't even know if she would believe her. Gabby was and had always been too damn stubborn. The confession lay sour on her tongue, but she swallowed it down anyway.
Because what she saw, with no speck of aching doubt, was the witch.
She'd seen Sarah Fier.