1

“You ever think you’re cursed?”

The barista said it like it was nothing, like she hadn’t just handed me my espresso with a smile and a death sentence.

I paused, halfway through a sip. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged. Her nametag said “Jules,” and she had stars tattooed on her fingers. “This town. It does something to people. Like, even the good ones start rotting from the inside.” She glanced toward the foggy window. “If you’re smart, you’ll leave before it sticks.”

I blinked, unsure of how to respond.

Then she added. "Welcome to Seabridge Bay, where your coffee comes with a side of doom."

“Thanks,” I muttered, walking out with my drink and a chill I couldn’t shake.

The fog curled around the narrow streets like a living thing—wet, gray, constant. It rolled down the cliffs and across the crumbling sidewalks, hiding the ocean just yards away. I have been here for two weeks now and I still haven’t seen the sun.

I told myself it's perfect even if there is no heat, light and reminders of blood drying on concrete or the scream I still heard when I closed my eyes.

I moved into the guesthouse of an old Victorian-style rental on the edge of town—with peeling paint, vines like claws on the siding. The kind of house that would’ve scared me as a kid but now, It just felt honest, like it wasn’t trying to be anything other than haunted, kinda like me.

After changing into jeans and a long-sleeved tee, I opened my laptop and checked my inbox—nothing. No clients, cases nor ghosts.

I was trying not to be disappointed because I came here to stop chasing things but my hands twitched like they needed to be digging through case files, analyzing blood patterns, looking for a motive that explained why the world kept breaking people open and calling it justice.

I closed the laptop and stepped outside. I needed air or at least fog that pretended to be it.

The beach wasn’t far—ten minutes on foot, fifteen if you let the wind slow you down, so I let it. The fog thickened near the coast, blanketing everything in silver, until even the sound of waves became muted.

That should’ve comforted me but it didn’t.

I saw her before I know what I was looking at.

A shape in the surf. Its pale and still. Like a mannequin dumped by a cruel god.

I froze and said to myself. "No, not again."

By the time I got close enough to see the bruising on her throat and the open, glassy eyes, my hands were shaking.

Teenage girl. She is thin, blonde. Her face too calm for the violence her body had endured. Her mouth was parted slightly, as if mid-sentence. Someone had posed her.

Her fingers curled around a rusted locket, and when I pried it loose, my world dropped sideways.

Inside was a photo, faded and blurred by salt and around her neck—was a necklace I haven’t seen in years.

It's was silver, twisted, handmade and one of a kind.

I was shocked because this is the necklace I made for my sister before she died.

I stood there long after the cops arrived, their voices breaking the fog like it had something to hide.

Sheriff Boone Carter was a tall man with a kinda smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re the L.A. cop, right? Camille something?”

“Hayes,” I said.

His gaze sharpened, and I hated how fast word traveled in towns like this.

“We’ll take it from here,” he added, but he didn’t offer to walk me home or tell me to come in for a statement. He just looked at me like I was a puzzle he wasn’t ready to solve yet.

I walked home with wet jeans, frozen toes, and a screaming in my skull I haven’t heard since L.A.

~

My guesthouse had a leak in the ceiling, a heater that groaned like a dying animal, and—apparently—a door that wouldn’t lock properly. I cursed under my breath when the knob jammed for the third time and reached for the wrench on the windowsill.

“Need a hand?” Someone said behind me.

I turned so fast I nearly hit him on the face.

He's tall, broad and lean muscle under a black henley. A toolbox in one hand, having nothing in his expression but quiet interest. His jaw was shadowed with dark hair and his eyes... darker.

He is too calm, observant and dangerous.

“Do you always sneak up on women who just found a dead body?” I asked.

His mouth twitched like I surprised him. “I’m Damien, the contractor. Your Landlord sent me here to fix your door.”

I didn’t answer but stepped back, letting him into my space while every of my nerve screamed.

He crouched at the door, while his tool belt brushing the floor. “You from L.A.?”

I stiffened. “What makes you say that?”

“Seen your license plate. Also, you’re too tense to be local.”

I crossed my arms. “Are you always this charming?”

“No,” he said. “Only with broken things that I fix.”

That should’ve pissed me off, but Instead, it made something in my chest tighten like a locked jaw.

He fixed the door in fifteen minutes. When he stood to leave, our eyes met—and for a moment, the whole world narrowed to the scent of cedar and something warm.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

“No, I'm not.” I replied signifying him to leave.

He nodded like he understood exactly what that meant.

He left and I stared at the fixed door like it just cracked open something inside me.

I didn’t sleep, not really.

I lay in the dark with the ceiling fan creaking above me and the wind scratching at the windows like it wanted in.

I kept seeing her, the girl on the beach, the locket and Ivy’s necklace, my sister.

It's not possible, but it's real. I have held it in my hand. Felt the tarnished edges dig into my palm like it belonged there.

My sister died years ago. Buried, mourned and cremated. So how the hell did her necklace end up around the throat of a drowned teenager in a town I was never supposed to step foot in?