The perfect, crystalline beast of a wave crested.

  Seventeen-year-old Frankie Rivera knew its soul. She felt it in the saltwater that ran in her veins, in the sun-bleached strands of her long black hair, in the calloused pads of her feet pressed firmly against the board. The ocean had its language—a constant, rhythmic whisper of power—and few people possessed Frankie's fluency.

  She carved a clean, sharp line across the face of the wave, a liquid wall of emerald green curling over her head. For a heartbeat, the tube sealed her inside a roaring, watery tunnel. The only church she’d ever needed. The place where everything else—school, chores, the low-grade hum of teenage anxiety—simply dissolved. Out here, the board remained, the water, and the pull of the tide only remained.

  Frankie shot out of the end of the tube with a burst of spray, guiding her board gracefully as the wave crumbled into fizzing white foam behind her.

  “Whoo! Did you see that?” a voice hooted from nearby.

  Frankie grinned, shaking the water from her eyes. Dee Dee Matthews paddled toward her on a longboard, her short orange hair a blaze of color against the blue-green water. Even in a wetsuit, Dee Dee looked like a punk-rock pixie, her freckled face split by an infectious grin.

  “Saw it?” Dee Dee said, her voice full of theatrical awe. “I felt it in my bones! A truly epic ride, Rivera. The stuff of legends. I’m already composing the ballad in my head.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Frankie laughed. “Last time you wrote a ballad about my surfing, you rhymed ‘pipeline’ with ‘porcupine.’”

  “It was artistic license!” Dee Dee declared, splashing her with a spray of water.

  A third board slid to join them. Ted Harris ran a hand through his short blond hair, his expression one of calm, scientific appraisal. “It was a solid ride, Frankie. Good velocity. Perfect center of gravity. You compensated for the offshore wind shear just in time.”

  “Thanks, Ted,” Frankie said, rolling her eyes affectionately. “Way to make it sound like a physics problem.”

  “Everything is a physics problem,” Ted said with a shrug. A pragmatic anchor to Dee Dee’s chaotic, creative energy. Their lives in the sleepy surf town of Norchester Bay wove together since childhood.

  Pale orange and pink hues painted the early morning sky as the sun slowly climbed. Their hallowed moment. Dawn patrol. Before tourists, before crowds, before the real world woke up. Just the three of them, facing the endless, rolling expanse of the Atlantic.

  “This town,” Dee Dee said, swirling the water, “it’s like nothing ever truly happens here, you know? Just the tides, the waves.”

  “And early morning surfs like this one,” Ted added, already eyeing for a wave. “Followed by greasy breakfasts at the Sandpiper.”

  “And lazy afternoons arguing about movies, music, and your latest half-finished horror novel,” Frankie teased, nudging Dee Dee with her elbow.

  As they paddled back out to wait for the next set, Frankie’s eyes drifted down the beach. Her breath hitched, just for a second. Near the water’s edge, Damon Rudd waxed his board.

  Damon, a chill local legend, but an intense surfer. He moved with an effortless grace as if born on a board. Frankie found his short black dreadlocks, constantly damp, and his calm, observant way both intimidating and incredibly magnetic. A silent, unspoken respect existed between them, one of the few who could match her skill on the water.

  It would have been a perfect, cinematic moment—the two best surfers in town, sharing a sunrise—if the girl weren’t hanging off his arm.

  Tasia Moreno.

  With dark, knowing eyes constantly scanning for threats, Tasia was tall and willowy, possessing long, curly black hair. Frankie perceived her effortless beach-town royalty as a meticulously built stronghold of insecurity. Tasia had laid claim to Damon months ago, and she guarded her territory with the possessiveness of a hungry shark. Even from fifty yards away, Frankie could see the way Tasia laughed a little too loudly at something Damon said, the way her hand rested a little too firmly on his biceps.

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  “Don’t look,” Dee Dee whispered, not even turning her head. “She can sense it. It’s like a sixth sense for crushing on her boyfriend.”

  Frankie flushed, focusing her gaze on the horizon. “I wasn’t looking.”

  “Your brain might not have been, but your eyeballs were,” Ted noted calmly, squinting at the waves. “Pupillary dilation is an involuntary response to a visually appealing stimulus.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Harris,” Frankie muttered, without the heat in it. She knew they just looked out for her. Tasia had a special venom reserved for Frankie, and confrontations always proved messy and exhausting.

  A sudden shift in the atmosphere pulled away from the teen drama her attention. A group of guys strolled down the beach, their movements loud and aggressive, a stark contrast to the quiet peace of the morning.

  The Jetty Crew.

  An ugly name. A pack of local thugs—guys who had aged out of high school but never out of their need to be menacing—approached. They treated the beaches of Norchester Bay like their own personal kingdom, and their king, Jax.

  A hulking figure of casual menace, all brute muscle, and simmering aggression, topped with a spiky red mohawk that looked like a warning sign. He walked with a swagger that dared you to make eye contact. As Frankie observed, he wantonly demolished a young boy's sandcastle, chuckling as the child fled, weeping, to his mother.Jax’s eyes, dull and cruel, scanned the beach, and for a horrible second, they lingered on their small group in the water.

  “And there goes the neighborhood,” Dee Dee said, her voice losing its usual spark.

  “They’re just bullies,” Ted said, though he instinctively paddled a little closer to the girls. “Ignore them.”

  But you couldn't ignore the Jetty Crew. They stained the town, a constant, low-level threat that everyone just tried to avoid. Their shadow clung to the edges of Norchester’s sunny disposition.

  That storm seems to pick up speed, with the sky already clouding over. The wind picked up, chopping at the surface of the water. The ideal morning had ended.

  “One last wave?” Frankie asked, needing to wash the sight of Jax out of her head.

  “You read my mind,” Dee Dee said.

  They caught the next decent swell, riding it back to shore in a comfortable, practiced synchronicity. The salt, the speed, the raw power of the ocean—it worked its magic, and by the time their feet hit the wet sand, the tension had eased.

  They packed their boards onto the roof of Ted’s beat-up station wagon when Dee Dee got a look in her eye. Frankie knew that look. Her “I have a gloriously terrible idea” face.

  “So,” Dee Dee began, her voice casual. Too casual. “The storm’s not supposed to hit hard for another couple of hours. And we never get to have the beach to ourselves anymore.”

  “What are you getting at, Dee Dee?” Ted asked, already suspicious as he tightened a strap.

  “I was just thinking,” she said, looking toward the rocky northern point of the bay. “We’ve never explored the cove. You know, Black Rock Cove.”

  Frankie and Ted exchanged a look. Black Rock Cove, a local legend, often whispered about but seldom seen. A jagged outcrop of dark, volcanic rock hid the treacherous little inlet, only accessible at low tide. No one went there, though, because the Jetty Crew claimed it. Their forbidden territory, their clubhouse. Stories circulated about what they did to people they caught trespassing there.

  “Absolutely not,” Ted said immediately. “Are you insane? Jax would literally kill us.”

  “Oh, please,” Dee Dee scoffed. “They’re probably all off harassing tourists at the pier by now. It’s just a place, Ted. A piece of the beach. They don’t own it. Think of the adventure! They say there are old smugglers’ caves back there.”

  “They also say a kid drowned there in the seventies and his ghost haunts the tide pools. You’re the one who told me that,” Frankie reminded her.

  “Details, details,” Dee Dee waved a dismissive hand. “That just adds to the atmosphere! Come on, Frankie. One last thrill before the storm locks us all inside for the weekend. We’ll just peek. Five minutes.”

  Frankie hesitated. Ted was right, the idea was stupid and reckless. But a part of her, the part bored with the predictable rhythm of their lives; the part being tired of being quietly intimidated by losers like Jax, intrigued her. The thought of exploring a forbidden, maybe haunted cove held a certain dark appeal. Playing it safe had grown tiresome.

  She looked at Ted’s worried face, then at Dee Dee’s pleading, excited one. A moody, bruised grey sky loomed as the salty wind whipped her hair across her face. It felt like a day for breaking the rules.

  “Okay,” Frankie said, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Let’s go.”

  Ted groaned, lowering his head into his hands. “This is a mistake.”

  “All the best stories start with a mistake,” Dee Dee said, grabbing Frankie’s arm and pulling her toward the rocks.

  Frankie Rivera's decision would haunt her forever.

  Or the final.