CHAPTER ONE: TWO SHADOWS, ONE BOY
Writer's POV
The first time Fabiola Morales saw the Harlow twins, she thought she was seeing double.
She was nine years old, sitting cross-legged on the gymnasium floor of Millbrook Elementary, her dark brown legs sticky with summer heat beneath her yellow sundress. The principal droned on about the new school year, about behavior and excellence, but Fabiola wasn't listening. She was watching the two boys who'd just walked in late.
Identical.
Perfectly, impossibly identical.
They moved through the side door like shadows tall for their age, rail-thin, with that awkward grace of boys who hadn't quite grown into their limbs. Both had hair so black it looked blue under the fluorescent lights, falling messsy over their foreheads in a way that made Fabiola think of ravens. Sharp cheekbones. Pale skin that seemed to drink in the light rather than reflect it. And eyes gray eyes, the color of storm clouds before rain.
Beautiful.
The word came to her unbidden, and she felt her cheeks warm. Boys weren't supposed to be beautiful. Handsome, maybe. Cute. But these two were beautiful in a way that made her chest feel tight.
"That's the Harlow boys," whispered Maria Chen, who sat beside her. "Twins. Their dad owns, like, everything in town."
Fabiola watched as they separated one heading left, one right, finding seats on opposite sides of the gym. The one on the left smiled at a group of kids, waved, sat down among them like he belonged. The one on the right sat alone in the corner, back straight, hands folded in his lap, staring at nothing.
"Which one is which?" Fabiola asked.
Maria shrugged. "Lucas is the nice one. Evan is the weird one."
Fabiola looked from one to the other. Lucas the smiling one was laughing now, whispering to the boy next to him. He looked... normal. Happy. Human.
Evan the quiet one hadn't moved. Hadn't blinked. His gray eyes were fixed on some point in the middle distance, and Fabiola found herself following his gaze. There was nothing there. Just empty air.
Then he turned his head.
Looked directly at her.
Fabiola's breath caught. His eyes locked onto hers, and for a moment just a moment she saw something flicker in them. Not curiosity. Not interest. Something older. Sadder. Like he was looking at her from the bottom of a well.
She should have looked away. That's what you did when a strange boy stared at you. But she didn't. She stared back, her heart hammering in her small chest, her fingers twisting in the hem of her dress.
Evan didn't smile. Didn't nod. Just... looked. Like he was memorizing her. Her brown skin, darker than anyone else in the room. Her hair, a cloud of black coils her mother had wrestled into two puffs that morning. Her wide, dark eyes. The gap between her front teeth.
Then he looked away.
Fabiola released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
After the assembly, the children spilled out into the August sunshine like ants from a kicked hill. Fabiola lingered by the water fountain, watching as Lucas Harlow was immediately swallowed by a crowd of kids, all wanting to be near him, to talk to him, to touch the hem of his expensive jacket.
Evan walked past them all without a glance.
Fabiola don't know why she followed him. Didn't know why her feet carried her across the blacktop, past the tetherball poles and the rusty swing set, to where he stood alone at the edge of the fence, staring out at the woods beyond.
"Hi," she said.
He didn't turn.
"I'm Fabiola." She pronounced it carefully Fah-bee-OH-lah the way her mother taught her, with pride in each syllable.
Still nothing.
She stepped closer, close enough to see the sharp line of his jaw, the way his throat moved when he swallowed. Up close, he was even more striking all angles and edges, like someone had carved him from marble and forgotten to soften the lines. His skin was so pale she could see the blue veins at his temples, the purple shadows beneath his eyes.
He looked tired. He looked haunted.
He looked beautiful.
"Do you like the woods?" she tried again.
This time, he did turn. Slowly. And Fabiola was struck again by his eyes gray like winter ice, gray like tombstones, gray like nothing she'd ever seen. They should have been cold. They were cold. But there was something underneath. Something burning.
"No," he said. His voice was quiet. Rough, like he didn't use it much.
"Oh." Fabiola twisted her hands together. "Why are you looking at them, then?"
"Because something's out there."
A chill ran down her spine despite the heat. "What kind of something?"
Evan's eyes flicked past her, toward where his brother stood surrounded by admirers, then back to the woods. "I don't know yet."
Fabiola looked at the trees. They were just trees oak and pine, normal, boring trees. She saw nothing. But she felt... something. A heaviness in the air. Like the moment before a thunderstorm.
When she looked back, Evan was watching her again. Really watching her, his eyes moving over her face with an intensity that made her feel naked.
"You're different," he said.
Fabiola blinked. "Different how?"
"You smell like..." He stopped. Shook his head. "Never mind."
"I smell like what?" She lifted her arm, sniffed. Her mother's shea butter. The coconut oil in her hair. Little girl sweat. Nothing weird.
But Evan had already turned away, walking back toward the school building, his shoulders hunched like he was carrying something heavy.
"Wait!" Fabiola called. "I didn't...."
"Fabiola!"
She turned. Her mother's car was pulling up to the curb, her mother's face visible through the windshield beautiful and stern, her skin the same rich brown as Fabiola's, her hair wrapped in a purple headscarf.
When Fabiola looked back, Evan was gone.
That night, tucked into bed, Fabiola asked her mother about the Harlow twins.
Rosa Morales set down the storybook she'd been reading and looked at her daughter with eyes that had seen too much. "Why do you want to know about those boys?"
"I met them today. At school."
Her mother's jaw tightened. "Stay away from them, mija."
"Why?"
Rosa was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Because that boy, the quiet one he has two shadows. I saw it when I picked you up. One shadow on the ground, and one..." She touched her chest. "One inside him. It's not right."
"Mama, that doesn't make sense."
"You'll understand when you're older." Rosa kissed her forehead, smoothed her coils. "Promise me, Fabiola. Stay away from the Harlow boys."
Fabiola promised.
She was nine years old, and she meant it.
But in her dreams that night, she saw gray eyes in the darkness, watching her.
Waiting.