Chapter 1

Two years.

Two years I've been tethered to this rotting wood, this peeling paint, this smell of dust and forgotten things.

The Starlight Motel.

My family's once, now just mine.

They say I died here.

A self-inflicted wound, they told everyone.

After a fight.

Always the fight with Sarah, the problem child.

Mark, he was never the problem.

Mark was perfect.

My spirit, or whatever this is, aches.

Not with pain, not anymore.

It's a hollow thing, a longing for them to see.

Just once.

To see me.

Then, I feel a shift.

Not in the motel, but in the connection I still have to them, a thin, frayed wire.

My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, their voices tight with feigned distress.

And Mark.

His voice, smooth as ever, dripping with concern that isn't real.

"She's tormenting us, Leo," Mom says, her voice cracking on cue.

"In our new house. Things moving. Mark is terrified."

Mark adds, "It's Sarah. I know it is. She was always... volatile."

They're talking to someone new.

Leo Maxwell.

"Legend Trippers," his show. I remember seeing it, flickers of it when I was alive.

He's a ghost hunter.

Or says he is.

"We need you to come to the old motel," Dad says, his tone firm, business-like. "The Starlight. That's where... where it happened."

"We want you to livestream it, Leo," Mark cuts in, his voice earnest. "Show everyone what she's become. A vengeful spirit. We need to expose her, stop this haunting."

My haunting.

I don't leave the Starlight. I can't.

The lies stack up, one on top of the other, building a wall I can't seem to push through.

They want to paint me as a monster.

Again.

And I just want them to know the truth.

What really happened that night.

Who the real monster is.