The sweet promise of a happy ever after paints the club a perfect shade of pink. It stains my cheeks, colors my mood, chasing me into the elevator and clinging to my coat as I burst out of the entryway and under the veranda.
Then my cell buzzes in my coat pocket, and the night fades back to black.
No.
No, no, no.
I fold in half under a heat lamp. My SOS bag slips off my shoulder as my clutch slides from under my arm, and both drop to the concrete with a heavy thud. Why is the punch to my gut always so violent? It's been three years. Daily, for three years, and I still haven't figured out how to soften the blow.
It takes a few seconds for the sting to die and common sense to take its place. Then I straighten my back, smooth down the faux fur of my coat, and walk to the edge of the veranda, where the lamp's orange glow bleeds into the never-ending night.
An ice-cold inhale soothes my lungs and relaxes my shoulders.
I'm being dramatic. Not to toot my own horn, but I probably have lots of notifications coming through after being underground in the Devil's Hollow nightclub for hours with no cell service. Messages from all the group chats I'm in, likes and comments on my latest Instagram post, and probably a text or two from Uncle Finn asking how the night's going.
Even if the buzz was an email, maybe it's not that email. A bad habit of online shopping and an even worse habit of ticking random boxes at the checkout page means I'm subscribed to a million newsletters, and God knows how many back-in-stock notifications I've signed up for.
It could be anything. It could also not even be midnight. But my phone feels like a rock in my pocket, and I can't bring myself to pull it out and check. Instead, I ball my hands into fists and slide my gaze to the starless sky.
"What time is it, Leah?"
The question leaves my lips in a frosted whisper. When the silence stretches over seconds, I wonder if she heard me, or if she's even out here at all. Then wobbly footsteps strike concrete, and a shadow travels along the walkway to merge with mine.
"Just past ten. Why?"
Ten. It's only ten o'clock.
And just like that, I'm one sentence, five words, and thirty-five characters, including spaces, lighter. The high hits me so hard I don't care if the relief is only guaranteed for the next two hours.
I do care when Leah takes two steps toward me, because I'm not quick enough to take two steps back before she doubles over and vomits on my boots.
"Ew!"
All thoughts of midnight emails and unfinished sentences leave my head as I jump out of the splash zone and into action. I'd grabbed my SOS bag from the coatroom when I followed Leah out of the club. Even though she said she only needed some fresh air, I'd watched her sink three tequila shots in as many minutes, and I've spent enough time holding back hair and wiping away tears outside of nightclubs to know there's not a girl on this coastline who can do that without consequence.
Leah hurls again. Thankfully, nowhere near my sparkly pink boots this time. I pull out two types of wipes—antibacterial for my heels and cosmetic for Leah's smudged lipstick—and a hair tie.
"Don't worry, it's one of those spiral ones that doesn't leave a crease in your hair," I reassure her, pulling her long brown locks into a loose bun. She's about to say something, maybe thank you, but more vomit comes out instead.
"You're welcome," I chirp anyway, scrubbing away at my boots as she decorates the deck.
Leah's not the first person to vomit on me, and she won't be the last. And I guess I deserve it, because although I work at The Rusty Anchor in Devil's Dip, where power washing regurgitated beer off the back patio every payday is practically a job requirement, I also volunteer in a lot of places people puke in. Nobody pays me to stand on the Devil's Cove promenade every Saturday night, looking out for worse-for-wear partygoers who need help getting home. Nor for my shifts at the Devil's Hollow hospital, where puke is the bodily fluid I have to worry least about.
Tonight is a rare night when I'm not working or volunteering. This is Rory's bachelorette party, and as her self-appointed party planner, I'll be damned if I spend all night out here.
Time to call Leah a taxi and get back to the party. I toss the wipes in a nearby garbage can and tug out my cell, which is easy now that I know there's no dreaded email waiting for me—yet. I call Coastal Cabs with one hand and rub Leah's back with the other.
Comforting clichés come as easy as always, and I murmur the ones everyone wants to hear when they're bent over outside a super-fancy nightclub spewing their guts up. We've all been sick at some point. Honestly, no one even saw you leave.
I want to add that she should have lined her stomach with the sandwiches I laid out instead of sneering at them, but I keep my thoughts to myself. No one likes a Judgmental Judy.
Before I can tell Leah that a taxi is on its way, the nightclub door groans open and slams shut, trapping the sound of 2000s pop classics and drunken laughter between its hinges.
I glance up and meet the steely eyes of a bouncer I don't recognize. He glares at Leah, at the deck, then at me.
I beam up at him. "Such a chilly night, isn't it? I hope you've got some thick thermals on under that jacket." Frost crackles under my boot as I shift my weight from one foot to the other. "Do you think we'll get a White Christmas this year?" Leah's spine arches under my palm as she retches like a cat. My smile widens as I pretend not to notice. "I suppose it's too early to tell."
I don't catch what he mutters under his breath as he stomps back inside, but his tone is mean, and because I have skin as thick as one-ply toilet paper, it stings.
"Rude," I huff out, my face burning under the heat lamp. Rude and weird. There's not a single bouncer on this coastline who isn't happy to see me.
He must be new.
"Is he going to kick me out?" Leah gargles, slumping back against the wall.
I tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Of course not, honey."
It isn't a lie, not really. No matter how grumpy the bouncer is, he'll have to grin and bear all the perils of a bachelorette party tonight because the bride is marrying into the Visconti family.
I was eleven when Uncle Finn moved us west out of Seattle to the Devil's Coast. The first thing I learned was that he'd picked the worst out of its three towns to live in. The second thing I learned was the name Visconti. They seem to own everything around here. This club, plus all the other clubs, and the bars, the restaurants, the hotels. Leah could punch the bouncer's mother and he'd likely still let her back into the party.
I, on the other hand, am kicking Leah out. I didn't get up at 6:00 a.m. to bake a hundred cupcakes and blow up double that amount of balloons for Leah to puke all over my hard work.
"I've called you a taxi, okay?"
I think she's going to protest, but instead, her upper arm tenses against mine.
"Wren?"
"Yeah?"
She lets out a stuttered breath. "Someone's watching us."
"Huh? Who?"
"I-I don't know."
I stare at her profile for a few seconds before following her gaze and glaring out at the night. Beyond the reach of the heat lamp, there's nothing but black. Even when I blink a few times, I can't make out the club's gravel parking lot I know to be there or the row of willow trees that separate it from the quiet main road.
I slowly exhale and fold my hands together to keep them warm.
I've never been afraid of the dark, even though cautionary tales and horror movies teach us we should be. From a young age, we're told it's where bad things bloom. Where monsters live, sins multiply, and secrets are buried six feet under soft soil. I'm afraid of a lot of things—dying before I find The One, manmade objects at the bottom of the ocean, Rory when she inspects my recycling efforts—but never darkness.
Only, I can't remember why.
"I can't see anyone?"
Leah sniffs beside me. "Me neither, but I can feel it."
I'm about to ask whether she's snorted or swallowed anything she shouldn't have, when suddenly, I feel it too. Awareness, like a rough hand, brushes all the hairs on my body in the wrong direction. Stomach clenching, I squint until my eyes burn, scanning the abyss.
Nothing.
"You're being silly," I whisper, though now I'm conscious of how bright and hot it is under this heat lamp and how dark and cold it is out there. I flatten my bangs with my palm and tug at the hem of my coat.
"I can't see anyone?"
"I bet it's the Boogeyman."
"Okay, now you're definitely being silly." My laugh shakes with relief. Drunk people say the weirdest things, honestly. Still, there's a sense of unease clinging to my skin, and I can't seem to shake it off. I pluck a lip gloss from my clutch to distract myself. "You've watched too many horror movies."
Leah's gaze warms my cheek. "You've never seen him?"
"The Boogeyman? From that film?" I coat my lips in gloss and smack them together. "Horror movies aren't my thing. Besides, didn't it get, like, a four on IMBD?"
"Nooo …" she slurs back. "I'm not talking about the film, I'm talking about him. The Boogeyman of the Devil's Coast."
I slowly twist on the cap of my gloss, eyes narrowing on Leah. She's messing with me. I know everyone on the Coast, at least by nickname. Partly because it's only a short coastline with three small towns, and partly because I'm the nosiest person on it.
"Well, what does he look like?"
She tilts her head against mine. Her sour breath makes my nose scrunch. "Like your worst nightmare."
Then she doubles over and gives my boots a fresh lick of vomit.
Stifling my sigh, I return to consoling her while silently willing a taxi to swing into the parking lot. She's in no state to converse, but that's okay. I'm good at talking for two. I tell her about the cute out-of-towner who came into The Rusty Anchor last weekend, and the new therapy dogs they've brought into the children's wing of the hospital. I'm halfway through rattling off my Christmas wishlist from my phone's Notes app when headlights filter through the trees and sweep over gravel.
Oh, thank God. I've missed at least three ABBA songs and a party game by now. I sling Leah's arm over my shoulder and help her step off the lit veranda and into the dark toward the waiting car. When I see who steps out of the driver's side, I break into a grin.
Roger Burrows is the type of old man who thinks it's super cool to be grumpy. Grunting is his second language, his beard is his fourth child, and if he isn't complaining about sports, politics, or the state of his neighbors' front lawns, then he's probably taking a nap.
Sometimes, I think he's Coastal Cab's only employee who works outside of a Saturday night, because he's the only one they send every time I call.
"Thought you had the night off?" he grumbles, tucking his hands under his armpits.
"Well, good evening to you too, Roger. I'm having a swell night, thank you for asking," I chime. "How's Lou?"
Ignoring both my sarcasm and my question about his wife, he yanks open the back passenger door. He glares at Leah as she crocodile-crawls onto the seat. "She gonna be sick in my car?"
"Yes," I say sweetly.
He scowls at me.
I smile back.
Roger likes to play this silly little game where he pretends he doesn't like me, or more specifically, doesn't like me folding drunk girls into the back of his taxi and asking him to take them home for free, just one more time. He bitches and moans, but he does it anyway, plus texts me a snippy one-word confirmation when they're safely behind their front door. He's got a heart of gold under his too-tight plaid shirts. Besides, I'm sure he'd want someone to do the same for his daughter.
I know he loves me deep down, anyway. At the very least, he loves the homemade brownies I hand out at the Devil's Cove taxi tank every Saturday night. He always inches down his window just enough to snatch them out of my hand like a starving raccoon.
We stare at each other for a little longer, but staring is one of my talents, so of course, Roger breaks eye contact first. He curses into the wind, slams the door shut on Leah, and leans against it.
"I'm getting sick of being your personal run-around, kid. Ain't it about time you learned to drive? You could waste your own damn time instead of mine."
Now it's my turn to ignore his question and the way it prickles my cheeks and curdles in my stomach.
I clear my throat and force a tight smile. "Excuse me, please," I say, trying to keep the wobble from my voice. I usher him away from the passenger door with a flutter of a fresh antibacterial wipe in my hand, then rap-tap-tap on the window.
When Leah rolls it down, I fish out a water bottle from my SOS bag and drop it on her lap. "Sip it, don't gulp. When you get home, don't get into bed until you've had two more glasses of water and eaten a slice of dry toast. Oh, and don't forget to take your makeup off. Did you know that every time you don't take your makeup off, you age ten days?" I heard this on TikTok, so it's probably not true, but I've found the threat of it is enough to get most girls to at least drag a wipe over their face before their head hits the pillow. "Sleep on your left side if you still feel sick. Actually, sleep on your side anyway, because—"noveldrama
"Enough with that damn monologue," Roger grunts, rounding the car and yanking the driver's door open. "I've heard you say it so many times, I could recite it in my sleep."
I catch his eye over the roof of the car and raise a brow. "And it shows. I can tell you take your makeup off every night without fail."
Even though the light from the car's headlights barely touch him, I'm sure I see the corner of his lips lift under his handlebar mustache. Before I can tease him about it, his shoulders pinch. With a tight grip on the doorframe, he twists around and glares out into the night.
Ice-cold silence crackles against the nape of my neck. Holding my breath, I ball the wipe in my fist and stare at the rigid line of his back. It feels like ages before he looks back at me, and when he does, the unease in his gaze makes the breath catch at the back of my throat.
"Don't hang around, kid" is all he says.
That rough hand reaches for me again, and I wonder if it grabbed hold of him too.
With a quick nod, I push away the paranoia and duck my head through Leah's window. I press the wipe in her hand and give her shoulder a sympathetic pat. "You'll feel better in the morning, I promise."
She smiles weakly and hiccups. "You're so nice, Wren. Like, if God held a gun to my head and told me I had to nominate only one person I know to go to heaven, it'd be you."
And there it is.
My laugh warps with delirium, and suddenly, the December chill has lost its bite and all I can feel is the warmth of her words.
You're so nice, Wren. Like everyone else does on the Devil's Coast, she said it like one would say the grass is green or the sky is blue. Like it's a simple, undeniable fact.
Though I don't take drugs, aside from the occasional Tylenol, I know the high from being called nice is comparable. And I don't just dabble in "nice" either.
I've had a full-blown addiction to it since I was eighteen.
Volunteering at the hospital and peeling drunk partygoers off the Devil's Cove boardwalk is the tip of the iceberg. I do everything—from knitting onesies for premature babies and checking in daily with my elderly neighbors, to holding bake sales for every charity under the sun—and I do it all for my hit of nice.
The Good Samaritan, the Angel in Pink. The fun sponge who writes down the license plates of every punter at the bar she works at, just in case they ignore her makeshift "no drunk driving" sign. I don't care how the residents of the Devil's Coast call me nice, as long as they call me it.
But it's polite to be modest, so I dismiss Leah's compliment with a flap of my hand. "Nice is just what I do, honey!"
With a reluctant promise to text me when Leah's home safe, Roger pulls out of the parking lot. I wave them off with a bright smile, but when the headlights simmer, dim, and fade, I find myself alone in the dark with a heart that's sliding south.
Because that's the thing about feeding your addictions: the high is only ever temporary.
Tucking my clutch under one arm and hitching my SOS bag over the other, I close my eyes and suck in a breath so deep the night's frost burns my chest. I'm hoping it'll burn away at the guilt that sits there too, but when it doesn't, I try to turn my attention to other parts of my body. A trick my therapist taught me years ago to deal with my thoughts sliding south. I find the steady beat of my pulse in my neck. I taste the night's moisture on the tip of my tongue and smell its earthy scent. My ears prickle at the sound of tires hissing over the frosted tarmac of the nearby road and the bare trees shivering in the forest beyond it.
Crack.
What the hell was that?
My eyes pop open and scan the darkness. It sounded like a twig crunching underfoot, and it sounded close.
"Hello?" I whisper, clutching my bag strap. "Who's there?"
Silence.
My stomach clenches as I glare out to the never-ending void. It stares right back, offering me only the trickling sensation of being watched.
Seconds pass, slowed by the weight of tension. I stare until my eyes ache.
Nothing.
A sharp gust of wind skates down my collar, and I shudder enough to shake myself out of my trance.
I've let Leah get into my head with all that nonsense about the "Boogeyman" of the Devil's Coast. She was so drunk she was probably hallucinating. I'm being silly, and even if I'm not, why am I still standing out here? I might choose a rom-com over a horror any day, but even I know the ditzy blond doing something careless, like hanging out alone in an empty parking lot, always dies in the opening sequence.
Not the type of movie I daydream about starring in, thank you very much.
With a weak chuckle, I turn on my heel. I only make it two steps toward the dimly lit veranda when another noise reaches out from the dark and taps me on the shoulder.
Hiss. Fizz.
My laugh wilts on my tongue. I spin around, and now, at the heart of the dark, there's a flickering flame. A match, little more than a pinprick against the broad black expanse. The flame moves north, and my eyes move with it, transfixed by how it dances at the mercy of the wind. I can't make out most of the objects that shift and contort in its wake. Something patterned. Something metallic. Then something that makes my heart trip over its next beat.
A cigarette.
Which means someone is out there smoking it.
I let out a stunted gasp. The flame comes to a stop beneath its tip, and I almost don't dare drag my gaze up to what it's brought to light. I follow the length of the cigarette, skim over the full lips its tucked between, then trail the sharp, straight line of a scar over a hollowed cheekbone, and come to rest on a heavy brow.
Is he the "Boogeyman" Leah spoke of?
He sure looks like a monster.
The man's eyes lift from the match and clash with mine. Suddenly, the air drops ten degrees, chilling my blood and slowing my breathing.
And now I'm not breathing at all.
I recognize those eyes—only, I don't. It's a weird, fleeting feeling. A short, sharp tug on a memory I didn't know I had. Perhaps an alternate me has seen them in an alternate universe or in a dream that slipped from my mind the moment I woke up.
That gaze … it's glassy. Magnetic. Certain.
And then I have this slow, syrup-like feeling it didn't find me by chance.
The realization shoves me backward. One step, two, my heels skating over frosted asphalt. Three steps and I nearly trip over the raised deck of the veranda. Four, and I'm back under the light of the heat lamp, grappling for the nightclub's door handle.
There's a voice screaming at me to get inside. I hear it often, and I'm pretty certain it belongs to my friend Tayce—she has a habit of yelling at me about safety, and I have a habit of rolling my eyes in response. But I guess being the nosiest person on the coast has its pitfalls, one of them being I can never resist the pull of curiosity.
Heart slamming against my ribs, I slowly turn and press my back against the door.
He's still there. Watching me. The flame is fading now, its dying reflection trapped within the walls of his cold gaze. I'm trapped there too, frozen between running inside and staying to find out what will happen when the flame reaches the end of its life.
I don't have to wait long. The flame never kisses the tip of his cigarette. It doesn't burn out, either. The monster kills it with a quick snap of his wrist, plunging him back into the dark.
I blink at the night, straining my ears to find something, anything to latch onto in the silence.
Nothing.
A beat passes as I shift from one sticky boot to the other. He's still watching me; I can feel it. Seconds stretch into minutes, and eventually, my heartbeat slows to its regular rhythm. My lungs expand, and when I release my next breath, a laugh tumbles out with it, nervous and light.
I've suddenly remembered why I'm not afraid of the dark.
It's because I know those cautionary tales and horror movies are just fiction.
In real life, monsters don't live in the dark; they live in the light.
They hold your hair back when you're puking.
They bake cakes, make signs, volunteer in hospitals.
And sometimes, they even wear pink.
I stick my tongue out toward the black horizon, turn on my heel, and run back inside.