The island might rest, but it never slept. Neither did its storyteller. Someone was always watching from high above with eyes as cold as glass.
Harmony couldn’t tell if those eyes belonged to the sea, to a deputy lingering on patrol, or to someone like her, cataloging every move and waiting for the right moment to turn it into a story.
Chapter Five
Darkness Before the Light
The night cracked open in gold and shadow, bonfires throwing sparks like tiny stars trying to escape. Music, salt air, and laughter wrapped around those who’d come to be free for a few hours, pretending the world beyond the sand didn’t exist.
Harmony sank into the cool sand with her drink, letting the fire lick at her shins. For a moment, the heat felt too sharp, like it was leaning toward her instead of away. She blamed the tequila she hadn’t yet finished and forced the unease down. A cheer went up near the waterline. Someone spilled liquor, a dark stain on the sand. Two silhouettes slipped away from the circle without a word. Conversations rose and fell in waves, loud and careless. Everyone behaved as if they were safe.
A few people lingered at the edges of the firelight—faces she didn’t recognize. Locals, maybe. Or not. One man watched the group longer than he should have, expression unreadable. When Harmony looked again, he was gone.
Lisa spun near the fire in wild, bright joy, her white dress fluttering, her skin lit by flame. Tosh leaned back, danger wrapped in charm, eyes tracking her with a lazy smile that made women forgive him for things they shouldn’t.
Lisa stumbled, and for a brief moment, Tosh’s body twitched as if he might go to her. Their eyes met, and something passed between them that said this was more than a fling, whether either of them admitted it or not.
Torie arrived just in time to catch the look between Tosh and Lisa. Her lip trembled, just once. Blink and you’d miss it. Her face smoothed over.
“Maybe Lisa’s auditioning for something,” Torie murmured, her tone wrapped in sugar with just enough venom to sting.
Cass glanced toward the shoreline. “She’s trying too hard.” Worry edged the comment, though she tried to hide it.
“She’s trying just hard enough,” Candy said, swaying near the fire, guitar slung low, eyes already glossy. “Lisa’s just . . . high on the moonlight. You should try it sometime.”
Torie’s smile thinned, then snapped back into place. “Whatever she’s on, it won’t last.”
The flames burned low and steady, illuminating their faces and making the darkness just beyond them feel thicker. Harmony noticed how abruptly the light ended, how quickly the shadows took over.
Zach sat slightly apart from the group, whittling a piece of driftwood into the suggestion of a heart. He had the kind of stillness that felt both safe and slightly dangerous, like a man who knew exactly how quickly things could go wrong, and how to fix them when they did. He listened more than he spoke, filed details away, and didn’t forget.
The fire flared near him, and he glanced up. His gaze lingered for a heartbeat on someone across the flames, something tender flickering and then vanishing. Most people missed it. Harmonydidn’t. There was distance around him, as if he carried his secrets like tools in a belt, ready to use when needed.
Mary was perched on a rock, hands folded, eyes on the horizon. Her dark hair lifted in the breeze. For a brief moment, her mouth curved, her features softening, as if whatever she saw out past the dark water pleased her. The sharpness she carried in her shoulders eased, then returned.
Mary always looked like she believed the world owed her a correction, that the scales had once tipped the wrong way and never returned. Harmony had often wondered what Mary would do if she ever decided to collect.
Someone whispered Harmony’s name—soft, almost testing it—but when she scanned the faces in the firelight, no one was looking at her. Harmony watched the shadows, certain for a heartbeat that someone—or something—was moving against the tide. She was pulled back to the present when the conversation continued.
“Should we play something?” Candy asked, fingers already at the strings. “A song for ghosts?”
A hush slid over the group, small but sharp, tightening the air for a second. Tosh broke it.
“No ghosts tonight,” he said. “Only impulse and darkness.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Harmony asked.
Tosh grinned. “That’s why I like you, Harmony. You make doom sound elegant.”
“Practice,” she said, eyes on the flames. She didn’t want to look too long into the dark.
Candy strummed a chord. Her voice wove through the night, snagging on certain words like it knew more than she did. Her fingers slipped once, the sound fraying at the edges. Harmony listened, something pulling low in her chest. The melody drifted toward the water and dissolved into a silence that didn’t belong on a beach full of people. It felt too alert. Too expectant.
The night pretended to be beautiful. Time loosened. Bodies swayed. Lovers disappeared into the black gaps between coves. Harmony couldn’t stop tracking them, noting each pair that vanished, each person who wandered alone. She’d spent her life observing; she didn’t know how to stop. Watching had always felt harmless. Safer to turn people into stories than to interfere.
Laughter rose again. Someone staggered into the shadows and stayed gone too long. A cold gust twisted the smoke into a tight spiral and sent it upward. Danger was out there.Oneamong them wasn’t afraid of it. They’d slipped away unnoticed. Time passed. No one could’ve said for how long. Someone came back, their absence unmarked.
Then . . . a scream tore the night in half.
