Chapter One

Greyhaven

Chapter One.

                                                                             "A photograph is a memory made visible"
                                                                                                                            —Unknown

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"Drunk people, games that only make sense when alcohol is involved, naked idiots running around, locked bathrooms because we all know what's happening in there, watermelons, and—"

"Wait, wait, wait." Quinn holds up a hand. "How did we go from drunk people, alcohol, and making out... to watermelons?"

Quinn Summer glances away from the road to look at his best friend in the passenger seat. His skin is bronze, his short, curly hair is a dark brown, and his light green eyes are the kind that make people jealous. He's wearing his usual brown aviator jacket over a simple shirt with a pair of chinos. Tall and lean, he has just enough muscle definition to show he takes care of himself.

"One of the most common things at a house party?" Esther raises an eyebrow as if he's the one asking the strange question.

Esther Grey.

Long, pale-blonde hair falls loosely and messily beneath a dark brown beanie. Her pale skin contrasts with her gray eyes. An oversized denim jacket hangs open over her thin frame, revealing a white button-up shirt that's been messily tucked into her brown cargo pants. Around her neck hangs a compact camera.

"To... eat?"

"Not really." Esther shakes her head. "You cut holes into them, pour alcohol inside, let it soak for a while, and then drink it straight from the watermelon."

Quinn frowns.

"Wouldn't it just taste the same?"

Esther shrugs.

"And also... how do you even know that? This is literally the first party you've ever gone to."

"You're making me sound like some kind of weirdo." Esther groans. "I just never saw those parties as something worth going to. There are already enough fucking creeps at school. What do you think we'll find at a house party full of drunk teenagers?" She throws both hands into the air dramatically. "Even more creeps!"

"Dramatic much?" Quinn grins, stealing another quick glance at her before returning his attention to the road.

"You're one to talk."

"Excuse me?"

"You're the one who spent ten minutes explaining the various ways people can get arrested at a house party like some paranoid guy."

"That's called being prepared."

"Easy for you to say. You're a guy. I get my ass checked out every time I so much as turn an inch to the left."Esther scoffs.

Quinn lets out a surprised laugh, and after a second, Esther joins in.

"Yeah..." Quinn says with a sheepish smile. "I guess I shouldn't judge, huh?" He glances at her again. "You don't have to come in if you don't want to."

"It's fine. I've always wanted to see the inside of Daniel Silver's house. I heard he has those tiny shiny dragon figurines that cost a fortune."

Quinn hums thoughtfully.

"I thought you said rich people were boring."

"I said rich people were boring. I never said their expensive shit was."

He laughs under his breath.

As they drive past, both of them notice the flyers stapled to the trees, briefly illuminated by the car's headlights. It's just enough for Esther to recognize what they are.

Missing Person flyers.

It's been two months since Hailey Edens disappeared.

She was a student at the same high school as Quinn and Esther, and they shared most of their classes with her. According to her parents, she would never have run away from home, certainly not for this long. Even without that statement, the police had immediately begun searching all over Greyhaven.

Greyhaven is a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Nothing ever happened here.

The same stores opened every morning. The same people sat in the same diners. Everyone knew everyone, and if they didn't, they knew someone who did.

In at least twenty years, there hadn't been a single missing-person case.

Until Hailey.

That was why the Greyhaven Police Department had reacted so quickly.

And yet, despite their efforts, they never found her.

Not a body.

Not a note.

Not a single piece of evidence.

Just an empty bedroom and a family waiting for someone who never came home.

Life has a cruel habit of taking away the people who deserve it the least.

With no trace of Hailey ever found, no one can say for certain whether she's still alive. But after two months, most people have quietly begun expecting the worst.

"Do you think she'll ever be found?"

Esther's voice breaks the silence that has settled over the car, thick with an uncomfortable tension.

Quinn doesn't answer immediately. His eyes remain fixed on the dark road ahead, his hands tightening ever so slightly around the steering wheel.

"Yes... but not alive." His voice is quiet. "I don't think she'll still be alive by the time they find her."

"...How can someone just disappear like that?"

Esther leans against the window again, staring out into the darkness as though the trees might hold an answer.

Quinn says nothing.

He only reacts when he notices her wrapping both hands around the camera hanging from her neck, a thoughtful frown settling on her pale face.

"Oh no. You won't, Etta."

She looks up at him, letting go of the camera as one hand reaches up to straighten her beanie.

"I didn't say anything." She pouts.

"You didn't have to. I know that look. Every time you stare at that camera like it's the most important thing in the world—"

"It is important—"

"—You're thinking about trying to find Hailey by playing with the dead."

Esther was born with what could only be described as a gift.

She can see people who have been dead for a long time.

When she was little, her grandmother believed she simply had an overactive imagination—an unsettling one, perhaps, but still only a child's fantasy. An eight-year-old wandering around and insisting she could see people no one else could wasn't exactly the best first impression to make.

As Esther grew older, she slowly realized that what she saw wasn't normal. She stopped talking about it entirely, allowing her grandmother to keep believing she had simply grown out of her imagination.

But as she became more accustomed to her ability, she discovered something even stranger.

The figures she saw weren't spirits.

They were memories. Or, at least, something in that way.

Fragments left behind long after their owners had moved on.

Nowadays, it's almost normal for Esther to suddenly spot someone standing on a street corner or in the middle of an empty room. Their eyes are hollow, devoid of life, while their bodies flicker and distort, as though they're slowly dissolving into dust before her eyes.

The only other person who knows about this is Quinn.

They've known each other since childhood, and there's no one Esther trusts more.

The compact camera hanging around her neck is more than just a hobby. She genuinely loves photography, but she also uses it to make photos of those memories; it's the only way she can show Quinn the same things she sees with her eyes.

Whenever she photographs one of those lingering memories, the image captures it exactly as she sees it.

And that's the first time even Quinn could see them; the camera captures them for everyone to see.

"Don't."

Quinn says it again, his finger tapping against the steering wheel.

"What if you actually succeed in finding her? What are you going to tell the police?" He gives Esther a worried glance. "You'd become the first suspect on their list."

"But it would be worth it if I found her," Esther replies. "And I don't think the police would just arrest an innocent person without any evidence."

"You never know, Etta." He sighs.

Esther pulls off her beanie and lets herself sink back into the seat, staring blankly through the windshield.

"I don't know..." she murmurs. "I just feel useless."

Quinn smiles.

"We're in our junior year of high school. It's practically our destiny to feel useless."

A grin spreads across Esther's face.

"Dramatic much?"

Quinn chuckles.

With a huff, Esther leans forward in her seat, ready to change the subject to something lighter. "How long till we arrive?"

"Ten minutes, give or take."

Esther groans and leans over to turn on the radio. "This dude is living isolated from all of us, I swear," she mutters, then leans back against the seat as rock music fills the car. Quinn reaches with one hand to lower the volume a bit.

"I'm more interested in how he can drive to school every day like this. It's a one-hour drive."

"He has his butler drive him." She smirks. Quinn looks over to her, his eyes wide.

"He has a butler?"

"No idea," She rolls her eyes, a smile painting her lips. "Though, I wouldn't be surprised if he had."

"Brave of him to let a crowd of high schoolers into his house," Quinn hums. "Half the school will probably be there, and I doubt he even knows most of them. Look at us, we've never even spoken to him."

"That's only because he's a senior year student. I've never even crossed paths with the guy."

The green-eyed young man smirks.

"Yeah, well, he should be careful. Leaving you alone in a stranger's house is a good way to have things mysteriously disappear."

Esther slaps him on the shoulder.

"I'm not a thief, idiot!" she says between laughs.

A mischievous grin spreads across her face.

"I just... touch things." She shrugs innocently. "I mean, who wouldn't? The guy's rich."

Time flies as the two of them lose themselves in a conversation about the music currently playing. After a while, while Esther scrolls through her phone, Quinn speaks up.

"We're here."

He parks farther down the street, the spaces closest to the house already packed with cars. Even from inside the car, the music blares through the night. Every window of the house glows with light, and bursts of laughter drift over from groups of people wandering outside.

Esther grimaces.

"You sure you're okay?" Quinn asks, giving her a concerned look. "There are a lot of people, and... you know... your thing. I don't want it to stress you out."

It wouldn't be the first time Esther had caught glimpses of shadowy memories lingering among a crowd. With this many people gathered in one place, it could easily become overwhelming.

Esther hesitates for only a moment before lightly punching his shoulder.

"Don't worry so much. Come on." She smiles as she pushes open the car door.

Quinn follows a moment later.

"Damn, it's colder than I expected."

He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and looks around. Esther steps up beside him, pulling her beanie back onto her head before absentmindedly nodding along to the music spilling from inside the house.

Indie rock.

People call out to Quinn as they walk toward the entrance. A few guys wave him over, but he politely declines. Together, he and Esther weave through the crowd, carefully avoiding people who are already far too drunk to walk in a straight line.

"Sometimes I hate that you're so popular."

Quinn gives her a small, sheepish smile, his cheeks tinged pink. He isn't particularly fond of the attention either.

"You know it's not my fault," he says.

And it really isn't.

For as long as Esther had known him, Quinn had been a magnet for people. Part of it was his looks; girls constantly found excuses to talk to him in the school hallways, hoping to catch his attention, but it wasn't just that. He was genuinely kind, easy to talk to, and effortlessly charming.

Ironically, despite all the attention, he'd never seemed interested in any of it.

Inside, the party is even more chaotic.

Lights flash in every color imaginable. People dance wherever they can, some even standing on tables, while others lounge on the floor without a care, right in the middle of the room, forcing everyone else to weave around them.

Farther inside the enormous house lies what appears to be the center of the party, the dance floor. As Quinn and Esther make their way toward it, the crowd gradually becomes a little less suffocating.

Esther stays close behind Quinn, a grimace on her face as a group of drunken boys nearly stumbles into her.

"Dude, when did this party even start?" Esther calls over the music as she catches up to him. "Everyone here is already wasted."

Quinn is just about to answer when someone slams into Esther's shoulder.

She stumbles, but Quinn catches her by the arm before she loses her balance.

"Watch where you're—"

The high-pitched voice cuts off the moment their eyes meet.

Madeline Hilton's expression shifts from irritation to complete indifference.

"Oh." She sighs. "It's you."

"Madeline," Esther replies flatly.

Quinn offers the other girl a small, uncertain smile.

Madeline is one of the school's cheerleaders, making her one of the more popular girls on campus. Beyond that, she's actually an excellent student, though she'd never admit it out loud. It would ruin the image she likes to maintain, especially considering she isn't exactly shy about calling people she dislikes "nerds."

Tonight, she wears a short white skirt that shows off her long, pale legs, paired with a matching crop top. Her long, wavy auburn hair is styled as perfectly as ever, her makeup immaculate.

Her gray eyes, however, are fixed squarely on Esther with an unmistakable glare.

"Who invited the tomboy trash in here?" She spits, her eyes travel as she looks Esther's clothing over with clear disgust.

"What did you just-"

Quinn grabs Esther's arm and drags her away before she can start another fight with Madeline.

Madeline only scoffs before walking away into the crowd.

"It's not worth it," Quinn says once they've put some distance between themselves and Madeline.

Esther adjusts her beanie with a pout.

"I already hate this. I just realized practically everyone is here. How long do you think it'll take before we run into Shea and her boyfriend on a leash?"

Quinn smiles, clearly amused, but it quickly fades into something closer to a pained grimace as he looks over her shoulder.

"You jinxed it, Etta."

"Quinn! Get over here!"

Jordan calls out as he starts making his way toward them.

And, of course, Shea is right beside him.

"What the fuck..." Esther mutters, taking a step back with a grimace. "He's piss drunk."

"Yup."

Quinn watches Jordan stumble toward them.

Shea, on the other hand, looks completely composed. She wears her usual expression of bored indifference, not showing the slightest sign of being drunk. If she'd had anything to drink, she certainly wasn't letting it show.

Shea Brooks is exactly the kind of person you don't want to deal with.

The popular girl.

The mean girl.

The kind of person most people would rather avoid altogether.

Rumours have circulated for years that she had some sort of affair with one of the teachers. But rumours are just that. rumours. And lies tend to spread even faster than the truth.

Shea has never commented on them.

Jordan is a tall, muscular guy, also popular for being on the soccer team.

Jordan stumbles to a stop in front of them, flashing Quinn a wide, lopsided grin. He has short-cropped brown hair, tanned skin, and warm brown eyes that are now glazed over with alcohol.

"Dude, where've you been?" Jordan rambles, his words slurring together. "I didn't even see you at school all week."

Shea comes to a stop behind him. The moment her eyes land on Esther, an annoyed frown settles across her face.

"Me and the boys are having a camping night next week," Jordan continues, completely oblivious to Esther's presence—or simply too drunk to notice her standing there with her arms crossed. "You should come."

Quinn lets out an awkward chuckle.

"Ah... no, I'm not really the camping type. And I've been busy, you know... with school."

Jordan dismisses the excuse with an exaggerated wave of his hand.

"Who cares about that? Fun! Fun is important!" His head swivels from side to side as he scans the room. "Where's Tom? Didn't he say he'd come find us?"

"Thomas is here?" Quinn stiffens.

Almost instinctively, he glances toward Esther.

The spot where she'd been standing is empty.

"She went toward the bathrooms," Shea says matter-of-factly, noticing the sudden panic on Quinn's face.

"Huh?" Jordan blinks, looking between them in confusion. "Who?"

(end of part one)