CHAPTER ONE:
DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
(trigger warning: mentions of violence and murder)

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CALL IT DELINQUENCY. CALL it teenage angst. Whatever it was that plagued Sadie Swan's every waking move, it had developed into an awfully bad habit that frequently landed her in what had to be her favourite place. The police station. She was sure that by the end of the year, if she worked hard enough, she could learn every single name of the officers in Charlie's department. Really, she wasn't sure why he or her mums were so surprised anymore. When Sadie put her mind to something, there was no going back.

Besides, it was only little things. A spray-painted impressionist piece of the infamous Mr Newton — with emphasis on the impressionist part — on the side of the newly closed Newton's Olympic Outfitters (maybe they didn't appreciate her creativity after all… who would've thought?) But it didn't stop there. Oh, no. Next was the 'theft' of a chocolate bar from the local grocery, then a boat taken for a joy ride before being safely returned to the old dockyard where Waylan Forge — God bless his soul as Charlie would say — used to work. If they ever bothered to ask Sadie rather than slapping her in the clink, she'd have informed them that the people of Forks were just too sensitive. In California, no one thought twice of a missing dollar chocolate.

But as Sadie was continuously reminded, over and over again like a punch to the gut, California wasn't her home anymore. If it was, maybe Finley wouldn't have gone missing.

For the first time since the Swans decided to grace the people of Forks with their presence, Sadie winded up at the station out of handcuffs. She had a bawling Erin glued to her side, her face almost as red as her hair from how much crying she'd done since they woke up in the morning to find Finley hadn't come home.

"Maybe he's still out with his friends," Sadie had shrugged when her mum first woke her up. It was safe to say she wasn't overly concerned at six in the morning when the sun was yet to fully rise. As it was, sleep was once again calling her name, luring her back in with thoughts of Finley fading fast. 

"But he didn't text me," Erin insisted stubbornly. "He always texts me when he's staying out overnight. And my calls are going straight to voicemail."

Sadie sighed, forcing herself to sit up and tame the bird's nest of hair on her head. So much for a holiday sleep-in. "His phone might be dead. Have you called Jia?"

Jia Littlesea was Finley's closest friend. She was originally from the Washington area — more specifically La Push — but she moved to California at sixteen to pursue music at Lohmans Music School where Finley used to attend. But when Finley had ended up graduating at Forks like a star fallen from grace, Jia stayed on at Lohmans and had come back the night before to celebrate her own graduation with Finley. 

"Voicemail," Erin despaired, her eyes glossing over. "Sadie, something's wrong. I know it."

So they went to the station. Sadie called Diana along the way, and she agreed to meet them as soon as she could get out of work. Like Sadie, she wasn't overly concerned to the point of panicking. But Erin Swan was a mother and her maternal instincts were rarely ever wrong. That much, Sadie could admit.

Charlie looked vaguely alarmed when his receptionist opened the door to his office without knocking. He was on the phone with someone unimportant but quickly mumbled an 'I'll call you back' before hanging up. 

"Erin," he was quick to stand, brows pinched like he had two moustaches stuck to his face, one above his lips and the other above his eyes. Sadie would've laughed at that ridiculous thought had her mum not burst into tears again. She threw her arms around Charlie, to which her brother-in-law hesitated before uncomfortably patting her on the back. "Hey, what's wrong? Is it Diana?"

He let out a short-lived sigh of relief when Erin shook her head. "Finley. He didn't come home last night."

And so they went through the same conversation as this morning. Maybe his phone died. Maybe he stayed with his friends. Maybe, maybe, maybe. So many excuses, and the more she dwelled on it, the more Sadie failed to make sense of them. It wasn't like Finley to scare their mother to this extent. He'd never leave her hanging willingly. In the end, Erin let out a screech worthy of her daughter and exclaimed, "Don't patronise me, Charlie! My son is missing!"

"Okay, okay," he backed up with wide eyes, surely questioning his sister's taste in women. "Let me see what I can do. Just… sit tight."

He all but ran out of the office, leaving Erin to raid the tissues on his desk while Sadie began trying to contact Finley herself. By the fifth ignored call, her stomach had started to sink with dread. Maybe her mum was right, no matter how much Sadie thought to deny it. Still, she kept quiet — a shocking feat for Sadie Swan — even when Charlie decided to send out a search party. It was mainly made up of locals from the Forks and La Push area. As soon as Jia's family caught wind that something might be wrong with Finley, they just about lost their shit and declared Jia missing too. Hence the combined effort.

Sadie should've expected it but she was none too pleased to find a certain someone in the midst of the La Push group. Seth Clearwater. Like a disease, he always seemed to show up where he wasn't wanted. Always smiling with those shiny teeth of his and warm brown eyes, always… always pissing her off! It was a long story. One she didn't have time for when her brother and his best friend might be missing.

"Hey, I'm so sorry! I came as quickly as I could!" Diana slammed the car door and sprinted across her brother's yard to where Charlie, Erin, Bella and Sadie were gathered by the porch steps. 

Charlie had a map in his hand and was busy organising groups by sections on the map. After gathering their volunteers, they decided to reconvene outside the Swan Residence as it bordered on the forest that eventually became La Push. Erin was a nervous wreck. Sadie, in spite of herself, held her mother's hand without protest. She was more than happy to pass Erin over to Diana as the younger woman opened her arms to her.

"It's gonna be okay," Sadie heard her whisper. She sounded so confident. "If anyone can find him, it's Charlie."

But perhaps she spoke too soon. Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Billy Black shouted Charlie's name from halfway across the yard. His wheelchair was parked beside an unfamiliar man, Seth (ugh!) and his mother, Sue. Her eyes glinted grimly as she watched the other man exchange heated words through the phone.

"They found something," Billy declared as Erin and Diana rushed over to them.

Something. The word dawned on Sadie as she and Charlie followed after them. Not someone…

The three men exchanged several quiet words before Charlie turned to Erin and Diana. "You should—"

"Don't even think about it," Erin snapped, gritting her teeth when Charlie let out a sigh. "We're coming with you, Charlie. Let's not waste time arguing like toddlers about it."

Which was how Sadie found herself in the passenger side of Bella's shitty truck, following Charlie's cruiser down the winding main road that ventured through the thick of the forest. The silence between the two girls — cousins, technically — could've been cut with a butcher knife and it would've barely made a dent. Sadie was distracting herself by tapping her fingers against her thigh. It was the only visible sign of her anxiety and Bella latched onto it like some kind of leech.

"I'm sure it's nothing," she said, trying her best to smile when Sadie made a vague humming noise in reply. "Whatever they found. I'm sure it's nothing serious."

Sadie didn't answer. She had to bite down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood. Bella thankfully took the hint and stayed quiet until they rounded a bend in the road and came across a large group of men and one woman blocking off a section of the road. There were no cars in sight but no one else seemed confused about this so Sadie let it slide. It was pretty much forgotten anyways when she shoved past Seth (ugh, again! How many more witnesses did she need to the very essence of her family fracturing to pieces?) and spotted what everyone else was staring at.

At first, she considered the lack of cars to be a good thing. That meant Finley's wasn't there. But just a few metres away from the road, where tyre tracks ran off the asphalt, the dirt was soaked with dark red liquid. In the mid-morning sun, it had dried into an otherwise suspicious stain that Sadie swore looked like an outline of a male body. Breathing shakily, she stepped back, the world around her slipping and swinging like a pendulum as a man Charlie called Sam gestured to an object that was somewhat concealed by a chunk of what looked to be human flesh.

"We didn't want to touch it in case there's fingerprints—"

They were cut off by the loud blaring of the cracked phone ringing. For a moment, no one said anything, shocked like the call was coming from beyond the grave itself. A hazy photo of two redheaded children lit up the screen, barely noticeable at first. Then Erin let out a horrified wail and Sadie lowered her own phone from her ear. The device stopped ringing.

"We need to seal this area off quickly," a frenzied Charlie forced himself to take charge. He urged Diana and Bella to take Erin back to the cars, took one look at Sadie rooted in place beside her brother's broken phone, then began to speak into the radio attached to his gun belt. "I need officers at… we've got a suspected homicide on our hands… eighteen-year-old male Finley Swan… my nephew..."

Sadie felt the world slip one last time. Away it went. Right through her fingers and into the abyss of darkness rapidly expanding behind her eyes. It squeezed the air out of her lungs until her head really had no choice but to dip back as she fell, unconscious and deliriously afraid, searching for a brother just out of reach. She didn't hit the ground, but as her body and mind disconnected, Sadie swore she saw Finley lying in the dirt. His family kept calling for him while he rotted.

Erin was right. She knew her children. And from there on out, neither of them would ever be the same.

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A/N: I'm starting to think I have a thing for making my characters suffer lmao. I promise Sadie's story isn't overly dark, but if you're caught up on Jia's book (just a reminder her story is the Quil Ateara one on my profile!) you'd have known this was coming. So Finley's missing (👀) and Sadie already knows Seth. Who's excited to read more about them? I'm excited to write them! Let me know what you guys think! And if you're still here after the months I abandoned this story for, thank you for reading <3

(Also, I promise the next chapters are going to be longer than this! Consider this another prologue haha.)