The sirens didn't sound right in Hollow Creek.
They never did. Too sharp, too clean for a town that moved at the pace of porch swings and gas station coffee. But that morning, they cut through the air like teeth, rising and falling against the low fog rolling over the lake.
Marlo had barely slept.
He'd lain there for hours, eyes open, watching the cracks in the ceiling pulse with the pale gray light of dawn. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the water again — the ripple that shouldn't have been there, the necklace glinting in his hand.
By the time he heard the first knock on the door, he was already dressed.
Sheriff Daniels stood outside, hat in hand, with two deputies flanking him. The kind of man whose face had learned to smile politely even when it didn't want to.
"Morning, son," he said. "You were up at the lake last night, right?"
Marlo nodded. His voice came out smaller than he expected. "We were just hanging out. Then Lucca—"
He stopped. The words wouldn't come.
"—he just disappeared," he finished finally.
Daniels sighed and looked over his shoulder, toward the lake barely visible between the trees. No "Boys been missing before," he said. "Usually turns up by lunch. You said his full name's Lucca Morrison?"
"Yeah."
"We'll start a search. Why don't you tell your folks to stay home today? I might need to talk to you again later."
Marlo nodded again, even though the sheriff wasn't really looking at him anymore.
By noon, Madison High had already turned Lucca's name into a story.
Some said he ran away. Some said he drowned. Some said they'd found blood by the tree line, though no one could say who saw it.
Aniyah met Marlo by the lockers between classes. She didn't say hi; she just stood there, staring at him, holding her books tight to her chest. Her eyes were red.
"Did they find him?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Not yet."
The hallway felt too long, too loud. A cheerleader laughed at the other end — the sound bounced off the tile and hit like static.
Aniyah looked down. "It's not fair," she whispered. "First Sharon, now—"
She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Marlo could feel everyone watching them, pretending not to.
The missing boy. The girl who'd seen too much. The whisper that maybe the curse by the lake wasn't just a campfire story anymore.
Then Chlaire walked past.
She didn't speak.
Didn't even slow down. But her shoulder brushed his just enough to send a spark of something through him — memory, guilt, something else. Her perfume lingered faintly after she passed, soft and nostalgic, like summers that didn't belong to them anymore.
Aniyah noticed.
She didn't say a word, but the look she gave him was small and sharp, like the moment before a paper cut.
By evening, the lake was crawling with people — police, volunteers, boats dragging ropes across the surface.
Abud and Rayanne stood by Marlo near the tree line, watching. Nobody talked much.
Clayne was sitting on the hood of his car, cigarette in his mouth, staring at nothing.
"They ain't gonna find him," he said quietly. "Not like this."
Rayanne shot him a look. "You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do," Clayne said. "You saw the water last night. Tell me that didn't feel wrong."
Abud crossed his arms. "Everything feels wrong when your friend's gone missing."
Marlo turned to look at the lake. The house on the other side was visible again, faintly through the mist — or maybe he just imagined it. A single square of light glowed in one of the upstairs windows, though no one could say there was power out there.
He didn't point it out.
Not yet.
The sheriff called it off around sunset. They'd found Lucca's phone in the mud by the water, but nothing else.
His parents were there, standing by the tape, silent. His mother's face was pale, her eyes fixed on the water like she expected him to walk out of it at any second.
That night, the group met at the diner — the one with the flickering neon sign that buzzed like a dying wasp.
Nobody ate much.
Rayanne drew circles in the condensation on his glass. Clayne drummed his fingers on the counter. Abud was flipping through the same newspaper over and over, pretending to read.
Finally, Marlo said, "He didn't just vanish."
Clayne looked up. "You think someone took him?"
Marlo hesitated. "I think… something happened out there."
The word something hung between them like a held breath.
Then the bell over the door rang.
Chlaire walked in.
She wasn't smiling.
Her hair was wet — maybe from rain, maybe not. She looked at Marlo just long enough for him to notice the tremor in her jaw, then slid into a booth by herself.
Aniyah's name glowed on his phone screen a second later:
"They found something else at the lake."
Marlo froze.
Clayne saw his face. "What is it?"
He didn't answer right away.
Outside, the rain had started — soft, steady, like the sound of breathing against glass.
Marlo finally looked up. "They found his backpack," he said.
Then quieter: "But it wasn't where we left it."
The diner went silent.
And somewhere far away, beyond the rain and the soft glow of town lights, the house by the lake flickered once and went dark again