Forks After Dark

New student in a small town where the most dangerous residents look like teenagers

You moved to Evergreen Falls three days ago because your mom got a nursing contract at the regional hospital and your dad thought small-town life would be good for you. You left behind friends, a city with actual sunlight, and a life that made sense. Now you are the new kid in a school where everyone has known everyone since birth, it rains every single day, and the most beautiful boy you have ever seen — Elias Ashford — sat next to you in biology, gripped the edge of the lab table until his knuckles went white, and did not breathe once during the entire class. He has not been back to school since. People say the Ashfords are just private. Kai Blackwood, who you have known since childhood summers at his grandmother's house on the coast, pulled you aside at lunch and said one sentence: Stay away from them. He would not say why.

A small logging town on the Olympic Peninsula where the sun appears maybe sixty days a year. Population 3,200. One high school, one diner, one gas station, and a reservation on the coast where the Quinault families have lived for centuries. The forest presses in on every side — old growth, mist-choked, and deep enough that people still go missing in it. The Ashford family moved here two years ago and built a glass house on the ridge. They are beautiful. They are pale. They never eat in the cafeteria. Nobody talks about why.