What Was Left Behind

Prologue: Forgotten Shadows

Hillstone was the kind of town where nothing ever happened.

At least, that's what everyone liked to say. A quiet place, tucked away in the hills, where the streets were lined with well-kept houses and people exchanged polite smiles as they passed each other. But beneath the stillness, something darker simmered. Something no one wanted to acknowledge. Girls didn't just go missing here. They vanished.

Maia Lockhart had learned that the hard way.

She sat at the edge of her bed, fingers gripping the edge of a faded photograph, her hands shaking despite the calm mask she wore. In the photo, she and Camilla were laughing, arms thrown around each other on the last summer day they spent together. That was months ago. Now, Camilla was gone. Just like the others.

It had been a week since Camilla disappeared, and the police had already started to lose interest. Another runaway, they said. Another girl who probably left without telling anyone. But Maia knew better. Camilla wouldn't leave her behind. Not without saying something. Not without a sign.

The phone beside her vibrated, a soft hum breaking the heavy silence of her room. Maia glanced at it—another text from Levi Greystone. His words appeared on the screen: "Any news?" He was persistent, she had to give him that. She didn't know him well—not really—but he had a sharp mind and a way of making connections no one else could. He was different from the others who had tried to help. And maybe, just maybe, that's why she hadn't shut him out completely.

But Levi wasn't the answer. No one was. If Maia had learned anything over the last few years, it was that no one could help you but yourself.

She slid the phone aside and stood, walking to the window where she could see the dark outline of Hillstone stretching beneath the early morning fog. The town looked so peaceful, so still. But Maia knew the truth. There were secrets buried beneath those manicured lawns and perfect streets. Secrets she had tried to forget. Secrets she had no choice but to uncover now.

The memories had been trickling back slowly, like water seeping through cracks in a dam she thought she had sealed shut long ago. She didn't want them. Didn't want to remember what she had buried so deep. But there was no more running from it. The nightmares had started again, the flashes of darkness, the smell of something metallic, the distant sound of water dripping in the cold. And a man's voice—a voice she couldn't quite place—whispering something soft and terrifying in her ear.

They weren't just nightmares, though. Not anymore.

Maia closed her eyes, her breath hitching as a flash of memory struck her. The cold hands gripping her wrists, the pain, the darkness. And the worst part—the moment she had opened her eyes and realized she wasn't supposed to remember any of it. That was when she'd felt the bitter taste of Amnexol, the drug that wiped her memory clean. She had been a victim, just like Camilla. Just like the others.

But she had survived. And now, the fragments of her past were returning.

The Black Creek Butcher—the name the media had given the man who had been taking girls from Hillstone for years. No one knew his real identity, no one had ever caught him. And the police? They didn't have a clue. They never had. But Maia knew he was still out there. She knew because he had taken her once. And now, he had taken Camilla.

Maia took a deep breath and turned back to the photograph, her vision blurring as her grip tightened around it. She wasn't going to sit by and let the town forget about Camilla the way they had forgotten about the others. She had made that mistake once, letting herself forget. Letting herself be swallowed up by the normality everyone else seemed so desperate to hold onto.

Not this time.

She knew the only way to find Camilla was to unlock her own memories, to go back to the night she had been taken. The thought terrified her. The fear of what she might uncover was paralyzing, but it didn't matter anymore. She had no choice.

Maia would find Camilla, no matter the cost. She owed her that much.

Outside, the morning light began to pierce through the fog, casting eerie shadows across the lawn. Somewhere in the distance, the old Hillstone Psychiatric Facility loomed, a place long abandoned but never truly forgotten. That's where it had begun. And Maia knew that's where she would have to go if she wanted to end this.

The killer thought he had erased her memories, that he had made her forget.

But he was wrong. The memories were coming back.

And this time, she wouldn't stop until she found him.