Chapter 1: The Unexpected Visitor
The porch swing groaned under Cadence’s weight, a familiar, complaining sound that was part of the soundtrack of Briley’s house. A textbook on differential equations lay open but unread on her lap, its pages threatening to curl in the humid afternoon air. She traced the constellation of freckles on her knee, her mind far from campus, listening to the distant thump of bass from inside where Annie was probably reorganizing the kitchen for the third time this week.
A car door slammed, hard and definitive, out on the street.
Cadence didn’t look up. Cars came and went all day here. She turned a page, the paper rustling in the thick silence between waves of someone’s muffled laughter from a nearby yard.
Then she heard Briley’s voice, a half-octave higher than normal, fluttering from the side yard. “You made it!”
The engine was a low, predatory growl that didn’t fade. It idled, a vibration Cadence felt in her teeth. That made her look.
A black Dodge Charger sat at the curb, sleek and out of place among the dented sedans and bikes. The driver’s door was open, and leaning against it was a girl Cadence had seen in flashes across campus—in the back of lecture halls leaving early, at parties Cadence quickly left, a sharp smile always on her face. Ryli.
Today she wore a leather jacket despite the heat, shrugged over her shoulders like an afterthought. Her jeans were ripped, her posture a study in casual ownership of the space around her. She was looking at Briley, who was practically vibrating beside the overgrown lilac bush, a tray of forgotten sodas sweating in her hands.
“Traffic was a nightmare,” Ryli said, her voice carrying easily, a warm, confident scratch. “You’d think people learned how to drive.”
Briley laughed, a brittle, grateful sound. “Right? Come on, everyone’s out back. Annie’s got, like, a gallon of potato salad. It’s a whole thing.”
The screen door banged behind Cadence. Annie emerged, balancing two paper grocery bags. “Cadence, you’re a saint for waiting. Can you grab the one with the chips? My fingers are slipping.”
Cadence stood, setting her textbook aside. She took the top bag, the crinkle of plastic loud in the tense porch space. As she turned, her movement caught Ryli’s eye.
Ryli’s head swiveled. Her smirk, that easy, practiced curve of her lips, dissolved.
It didn’t just fade; it was wiped clean. Her eyes, a dark, unreadable color from this distance, locked onto Cadence. The confident line of her shoulders went very still. The idle rumble of the Charger seemed to swell, filling the sudden void of her silence.
Briley kept talking, her words tumbling into the quiet. “...and I told her no one eats that much celery, but you know Annie, she goes for the full aesthetic—”
Ryli wasn’t hearing any of it. She was just staring. A strange, tingling heat flushed through her chest, climbing her throat. She knew how to talk. Talking was what she did. It was a tool, a weapon, a diversion. A hundred easy lines perched on her tongue, ready for Briley, for anyone. They all evaporated, leaving behind a blank, white static.
Cadence felt the weight of the stare. It was different from the quick, appreciative glances she occasionally noticed and dismissed. This was a full-stop. It was disassembling. She shifted the grocery bag, the rustle seeming absurdly loud. A faint, self-conscious smile touched her lips, a polite, questioning look she might give someone who’d called her name. Do I know you?
It was that small, friendly gesture that broke the spell for Ryli—or deepened it. She blinked, finally. Her jaw, which had gone slack, tightened. She managed to drag her gaze away from Cadence’s face, from the stupidly perfect sweep of blonde hair over her shoulder, from the calm, lake-blue eyes, down to the grocery bag in her arms, then back up. She found her voice, but it wasn’t hers. It was thinner, stripped of its usual velvet confidence. “Hey.”
Just that. Hey.
Briley stopped her monologue about potato salad. She looked from Ryli, whose entire being was now oriented toward her porch, to Cadence, who was just standing there holding chips. A cold needle of understanding pricked her. The flustered hope on her face curdled, settling into something confused and wounded.
“Oh,” Briley said, the word small. “Uh, Cadence, this is Ryli. Ryli, Cadence.” She gestured weakly between them, a reluctant bridge.
“Hi,” Cadence said, her voice soft, normal. A friendly, nothing-special hi. She adjusted her grip on the bag.
Ryli’s mind was a scrambled, frenetic search for the next word. A joke. A question. Anything. The air felt thicker here, harder to breathe. She was acutely aware of her own image—the leather jacket now felt try-hard, the Charger obnoxious. She wanted to shuck it all off. “You, uh… you need a hand with that?”
It was the most inane thing she could have possibly said. There were two bags. Cadence was already holding one. Briley was standing right there, empty-handed.
Cadence’s polite smile lingered, touched with faint bemusement. “I think we’ve got it. Thanks, though.”
Annie, oblivious to the current cracking the air between the porch and the curb, nudged Cadence with her elbow. “Garage door’s open. Let’s dump this stuff inside before the ice cream melts.”
“Right,” Cadence said, turning away. She followed Annie, the screen door sucking shut behind them with a final slap of wood and wire.
Ryli stood frozen, watching the empty space where Cadence had been. The ghost of the girl’s outline seemed to linger in the afternoon sun, a negative imprint. The tingling in her chest had condensed into a hard, unfamiliar knot.
Briley walked toward her, steps slow on the cracked walkway. The earlier excitement in her eyes had been replaced by a wary, assessing look. “So. You wanna come in?”
Ryli finally pushed off from the car door, shutting it with a solid thunk that made Briley jump. The engine cut, leaving a ringing silence. “Yeah,” she said, her voice creeping back toward its normal register, but it was forced. She shrugged the jacket off, hooking it on a finger over her shoulder. “Lead the way.”
As she followed Briley up the walk, her eyes flicked once, twice, to the blank screen door. The cool, quiet dark behind it. She felt off-balance, as if the ground had subtly tilted. She had walked into a hundred parties, a hundred rooms, knowing exactly what she wanted and how to get it. Now, all she knew was a single, disorienting fact: she wanted to see again the girl who had just vanished, and she had no idea what to do next. The script was empty. The road ahead, for the first time, felt like an empty highway at night, no signs, no maps.
The road ahead, for the first time, felt like an empty highway at night, no signs, no maps.
Inside, the house was a cool, dim cave compared to the porch. The thumping bass Cadence had heard earlier was now a muffled pulse from upstairs. Annie dumped her grocery bags on the cluttered kitchen counter with a sigh of relief. “Crisis averted. Hey, Brie said something about a movie.”
Briley trailed in behind Ryli, who moved through the doorway like she was scanning a room for threats. Her eyes found Cadence again, immediately, as if pulled by a wire.
“Movie’s in the den,” Briley said, her voice artificially bright. “Hunt’s already claiming the good couch.”
The den was a shrine to college-level comfort: a sagging sectional, a massive TV, and a carpet that had seen too many spilled drinks. Hunt, tall and languid as a cat, was indeed stretched across the largest cushion. He held up a remote in greeting. “Cadence. Save me from myself. I’m about to pick something pretentious.”
Cadence smiled, the first real, easy one since the porch. “No French subtitles, Hunt. It’s a Thursday.”
She took a spot on the opposite end of the sectional, curling her legs beneath her. Briley hovered, then pointedly patted the space right next to Cadence. “Ryli, sit here.”
Ryli did, lowering herself onto the middle cushion, leaving a careful, intentional foot of space between herself and Cadence. The leather of her jacket whispered against the fabric of the couch.
Hunt raised a brow, his gaze flicking between Briley’s tense posture and Ryli’s unusual stillness. “So,” he said, drawing the word out. “The choice is a trashy reality show anthology, or that new horror movie everyone says is actually scary.”
“Horror,” Briley said quickly, at the same time Ryli said, “Reality.”
Ryli cleared her throat. “Horror’s fine.”
The movie started, a bleak palette of grays and shadows filling the room. Briley passed around a bowl of pretzels. She made sure her fingers brushed Ryli’s when she handed it over. Ryli muttered a thanks without looking, her attention fixed on the screen.
For twenty minutes, the only sounds were the movie’s creeping score and Hunt’s crunching. A jump-scare made Briley shriek and clutch at Ryli’s arm. Ryli gently, firmly, extracted herself. “Just the cat,” she murmured, her eyes sliding away from Briley’s wounded pout and toward Cadence.
Cadence was watching the screen, her face softly illuminated by the flickering light. She didn’t jump at the scare. She just watched, thoughtful, gnawing lightly on her bottom lip.
Halfway through, a visceral, wet sound effect erupted from the speakers. Hunt gagged dramatically. “Okay, I need a palate cleanser. Who wants actual food? Annie bought those weird jalapeño poppers.”
“God, yes,” Briley said, untangling herself. “Help me microwave them, Hunt?”
They left. The room shrunk. The space between Ryli and Cadence on the couch seemed to hum.
On screen, a character whispered in the dark. Ryli’s voice cut through, quiet but clear. “This is stupid.”
Cadence glanced over. “The movie?”
“Yeah. He just heard a noise in the shed. He’s going to the shed. Don’t go to the shed.” Her tone was flat, analytical.
A small laugh escaped Cadence. “It’s the rules.”
“They’re bad rules.” Ryli shifted, turning her body slightly toward Cadence. Her knee now rested almost against Cadence’s curled legs. “You’re not scared.”
“It’s not real.”
“Some people get scared of things that aren’t real.” Ryli’s gaze was direct, probing. “You don’t seem like the type.”
“What type do I seem like?” Cadence asked, the question softer than she intended.
The door banged open. Briley entered with a heaping plate of steaming poppers, Hunt behind her with napkins. “Save yourselves from the cinematic atrocity!” Hunt announced.
The moment fractured. Briley re-claimed her spot, this time sitting closer to Ryli than before, her body a possessive angle. The group ate. Briley chattered, telling a story about her biology lab, her laughter a little too loud. She offered Ryli the first popper, then another.
Ryli took them with absent nods. She didn’t laugh at the punchlines.
Instead, she waited until Cadence reached for a napkin. The stack was on the couch-side table to Ryli’s left. Cadence leaned forward, stretching.
“Here,” Ryli said, and her hand was there, offering a napkin before Cadence’s fingers had to brush past her. It was a simple, small gesture. But it was precise. It was for Cadence alone.
Cadence paused, then took it. “Thanks.”
A minute later, Cadence’s glass of water, sweating on a coaster, was almost empty. Ryli noticed. She didn’t say anything. She just reached for the pitcher on the floor near her own feet, filled it quietly, and set it back without a word, her focus seemingly on the movie where someone was now running through a forest.
Briley’s story died in her throat. She watched the exchange—the napkin, the water—her eyes narrowing. She offered Ryli a popper, her voice sugary. “These are good, right?”
“Yeah,” Ryli said, but she didn’t look at Briley. She was looking at the way Cadence had tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, at the faint freckles on her temple just visible in the TV’s glow.
Hunt watched it all from his corner, his expression unreadable. He caught Cadence’s eye once and gave a slow, almost imperceptible blink.
The movie ground toward its bloody climax. Bodies fell. The survivor wept.
As the credits rolled, Briley stretched, arching her back. “So good! Ryli, you wanna hang out? We could go up to the roof.”
Ryli stood up. The movement was swift, decisive. “Can’t. Early thing tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Briley’s face fell. “Maybe this weekend?”
“Maybe.” Ryli’s answer was a hollow placeholder. She shrugged her jacket back on, the leather creaking. Her eyes found Cadence, who was now gathering the empties. “Bye, Cadence.”
It was deliberate. Naming her. Leaving the others as a vague afterthought.
Cadence looked up, met that intense, searching stare. “Bye, Ryli.”
Ryli nodded once, a sharp, awkward motion, and left. The Charger’s growl erupted outside, then faded down the street.
The room felt suddenly flat. Quiet.
Briley sank back onto the couch, her face a storm of confusion and rejection. Hunt collected the last of the plates. “Well,” he said lightly. “That was a thing.”
Cadence carried the glasses to the kitchen, the cold water from her refill still lingering on her fingertips. She felt a prickle on the back of her neck, a persistent, warm echo. She fought the inexplicable, foolish urge to smile.
She fought the inexplicable, foolish urge to smile.
The Charger’s engine screamed, a raw sound that matched the turmoil under Ryli’s ribs. She drove without direction, the suburban streets a blur of identical lawns and peeling lamplight. The ghost of Cadence’s calm face floated on her windshield. Don’t seem like the type. What the hell did that even mean? She hated not knowing what she meant. She never stumbled over words.
Her phone buzzed on the passenger seat, a series of convulsions. She glanced at the screen lit up with a cascade of notifications from a group chat called “Sin Bin.” Promises of top-shelf whiskey. A blurry photo of a bag of pills, rainbow-colored. Jaden’s message: Ryli where u at? The party’s weak without its villain.
Twenty minutes ago, it was exactly where she’d planned to be. The natural next step after leaving Briley’s awkward den. A reset. A few drinks, something to take the edge off, maybe find a warm, uncomplicated body in a dark corner. The usual.
She swung the wheel hard, tires chirping in protest as she pulled into the lot of a darkened mini-mart. The party was at Milo’s warehouse loft across town. The bass would be so loud it felt like a physical assault. The air would be thick with weed smoke and the sweet, chemical tang of vapes. She would walk in and the atmosphere would bend around her, a dozen voices calling her name, hands offering her things. It was a script. She was the lead actor.
Her fingers drummed on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. The idea of it—of smiling that wide, empty smile, of performing—made her skin feel tight and dirty.
The phone buzzed again. Jaden: You dead?
She picked it up. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. She typed, Something came up, then deleted it. Too explanatory. She settled for, Busy. Later maybe.
She tossed the phone back onto the seat as if it were hot. The silence in the car was suddenly absolute, pressurized. She stared out at the flickering neon sign of the closed mart, the buzz of it the only sound.
Cadence Stover.
The name had come to her halfway home, unearthed from some shallow mental filing cabinet. She’d heard it in passing, always attached to words like “nice” or “quiet” or “on the tennis team.” Background noise. A portrait of harmless blandness. That was before the porch. Before the den. That hi.
Before Ryli had poured her a glass of water like some kind of nervous attendant.
A scoff escaped her, loud in the quiet car. Pathetic.
But the laugh didn’t stick. The restless energy had a new channel, narrow and focused. She snatched her phone back up, thumb unlocking it. The bright screen washed out the dark. She opened Snapchat.
Her own story was a montage of the last 24 hours: a sleek shot of her car’s speedometer hitting ninety, a dark, glamorous selfie in a mirror smudged with lipstick, a cryptic quote about chaos. The performance. She swiped past it, to the search bar.
She typed C-a-d-e.
Cadence Baker. Cadence Liu. Cadence Greene.
Her pulse, which had been a dull throb, sharpened. This was stupid. This was bordering on obsessive. Briley probably had her on Snap. She could just ask Briley. The thought made her jaw clench. No. That would involve explaining. Involving Briley in… whatever this itch was.
She tried a different spelling. K-a-y-d-e-n-s.
Nothing.
She sat back, frustration rising. The world was digitally connected, everyone was findable. Especially someone that… wholesome. They were usually the most documented. She navigated to Annie’s profile—Annie was friends with everyone. She opened Annie’s friend list, a seemingly endless scroll of tiny bitmojis and baby pictures.
And there it was. Halfway down.
Not a bitmoji. A real picture. A candid shot, slightly blurry, of Cadence on a tennis court, hair back in a ponytail, caught mid-laugh, her hand blocking the sun from her eyes. The username: c.stoverrr.
Ryli’s breathing shallowed. The noise of the world—the distant highway, the neon buzz—fell away. Here was the quiet girl from the porch, contained in a tiny, square icon. A direct line.
Her thumb hovered over the ‘Add’ button.
This was the gateway. This was how it always started. A follow. A casual streak. A flirtatious reel. A late-night reply. A transaction, familiar and easy.
But looking at that sun-squinted, laughing face, the script evaporated again. She couldn’t send the usual winking ghost emoji. She couldn’t send a flat “hey.” Every option felt grotesquely wrong, a crude instrument applied to something finely made.
The pressure built in her chest, a confusing cocktail of want and fear.
She didn’t add her. Not yet.
Instead, she just stared at the picture, zooming in slightly on the constellation of freckles across Cadence’s nose, until the screen dimmed, then went black, reflecting her own wide, uncertain eyes back at her in the dark.