Green Eyes

Before Annabelle.
Before Andrew Grant.
There was Manatachie Falls a town that learned too late that monsters don't always come from the woods.
Charles Grady arrives in eastern Arkansas with a single suitcase and a carefully practiced smile. He's a junior in high school, living with his aunt and uncle, trying to pass for normal in a town that believes it can spot trouble from a mile away. He wants friends. He wants safety. He wants a life that doesn't smell like Tennessee or echo with his stepfather's voice whispering lessons no boy should ever learn.
But the past doesn't stay buried.
It festers.
Inside Charles is something fractured and watchful, a thing that learned early how good it feels to hurt when you're told it's love. He tells himself he can keep it under control. He tells himself he's better now. That the violence is gone.
Then he meets Matthew Sager.
Matthew doesn't just catch Charles's attention he consumes it. He becomes the proof that Charles can still be whole, still be loved. What starts as longing curdles into fixation, then into certainty. Matthew isn't someone to be admired from afar. He's something to be kept. Protected. Claimed.
And Charles has never been good at letting go.
As friendships rot, secrets surface, and the town's quiet rhythms begin to fracture, Manatachie Falls finds itself holding its breath. Accidents happen. People disappear. And Charles Grady watches it all with bright, careful eyes, telling himself he's doing this for love.
By the time the town understands what's stalking it, it's already far too late.
Because in Manatachie Falls, the most dangerous thing isn't what lurks in the dark-
it's what learned to smile in the daylight.