Chapter 1
Hannah's POV
Two years ago, my best friend Maddie knelt in front of me, crying as she borrowed $50,000.
The very next day, she vanished off the face of the earth. No explanation, no apology, not even a single text message.
I was left carrying her toxic debt. I lost my fiancé, and I lost my ability to trust anyone.
Until one late night, a call came in from an unknown number originating in an abandoned mining district in West Virginia.
On the other end of the line, Maddie said she was getting married. She had the money ready—every last cent.
The wedding venue was a ruined church deep in the mountains, abandoned for a decade. The time: Friday, midnight.
I was sitting in my cubicle in the claims department, mechanically chewing on a turkey sandwich, when my phone suddenly buzzed like crazy on the desk.
The screen flashed a glaring "Unknown Caller." I was about to reject what looked like a typical spam call, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the "304" area code.
Deep in the mountains of West Virginia. As a claims adjuster for the past two years, my pitiful sense of responsibility kicked in—what if it was a client from the mining district who’d been in a wreck?
I swiped to answer and pressed the phone to my ear. "Hello, this is—"
Dead silence.
There was no sound of human breathing on the other end, just the hollow howl of wind rushing into the receiver.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" I frowned, tapping my keyboard impatiently. "Speak up, or I’m hanging up."
Just as my thumb hovered over the end-call button, a trembling, hoarse female voice came through—a sound that sent a sudden, violent chill down my spine.
"Hannah... it's me. Maddie."
Madison Reeves. The friend who had been MIA for two whole years.
"You actually have the nerve to call me?" I said through gritted teeth.
"Hannah, please, just listen to me..."
"Listen to what?!" Two years of pent-up resentment instantly exploded. I shot up from my chair and roared into the phone. "Listen to how your fentanyl-fried brother Caleb drove drunk and hit someone again? Or how your psycho mother Darlene held a knife to her own throat to force you to pay his bail?!"
The tragedy from two years ago replayed in my mind like a nightmare.
That day, Maddie had knelt on the floor of our dorm, clinging to my legs, crying hysterically, and swearing it was the last time.
Me, the naive Southern country girl who was always mocked for being "too soft-hearted," didn't just drain the very last cent of my tuition fund—I even secretly embezzled the down payment for a car from my boyfriend of three years.
And the outcome? The day after she got the money, Maddie vanished into thin air.
$50,000. Gone.
"Do you have any idea what you ruined?!" I was shaking with rage. "I’ve spent two years drowning in a debt I still can't pay off! My parents called me a moron! My fiancé completely broke it off with me! And you didn't even send one damn text!"
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Her voice drifted in and out, accompanied by a bizarre, eerie echo. "I didn't know it would turn out like this. Hannah, I have the money now. I have all of it!"
"Save it to buy your brother a coffin," I sneered. "Consider that money the price of buying out a leech of a friend like you, and paying off a pathetic joke of a romance. Don't ever contact me again, Miss Reeves."
I slammed my thumb down toward the end-call button.
"DON'T HANG UP!!"
A shriek so shrill, so desperate it sounded barely human, vibrated painfully against my eardrum.
It was the first time I had ever heard the perpetually submissive Maddie let out a sound like that.
"I'm getting married!" she gasped, her breath ragged, sounding like she was being violently chased. "This Friday! Hannah, I have all the money ready, every single cent! Principal and interest, I’m paying it all back!"
"Venmo it to me, or mail a check to my company." I was merciless. "There is zero chance I'm coming to see you."
"No! I have to hand it to you in person!"
The phone suddenly erupted with violent sobbing.
"You are the only person in this lifetime who ever helped me! If you don't come... I'll be trapped here forever, Hannah!"
I took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of my nose, and finally caved. "Fine. Time and place. I'm taking the money and leaving immediately."
The crying on the other end stopped instantly.
Unnaturally fast.
"Friday, midnight. First Apostolic Old Church."
Her voice suddenly became incredibly ethereal, as weightless as a feather.
I frowned. "What kind of wedding happens in a hellhole like that? And the middle of the night? What kind of normal person picks that time?"
"It’s... it’s a local custom from Wyatt’s hometown!"
Maddie's voice was getting more frantic, and the background noise filled with a heavy, crackling static.
"Maddie, what exactly is going on?!" A massive, suffocating sense of dread clamped down on me.
"You have to come! Hannah, you promised me!"
The line went dead.
