Introduction
When former LAPD detective Dahlia Quinn arrives in the fog-choked town of Woodhollow, she expects quiet. Closure. Maybe redemption.
What she finds is a corpse twitching in a grave, a mysterious local man who flipped her world upside down, and whispers that bleed through the trees at night.
Three towns. Four stories.
One ancient forest.
And a girl named Amy—once dragged into a black stream and never truly returned.
Now, decades later, something monstrous is being reborn from the pieces she left behind—inside a killer’s hands, a lover’s chest, a golden girl’s smile. And Dahlia is about to learn that some things don’t stay buried.
Some things want you to dig.
Terrifying, addictive, and drenched in dread, The One Who Never Left is a supernatural horror-thriller where curiosity is fatal, the forest is alive, and death is just the beginning.
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About Author

Bree
Chapter 1
PROLOGUE
(15 Years Ago – WoodHollow, California)
They say the forest laughed the night Amy Dawson was born.
Not rustled. Not echoed. Laughed.
WoodHollow had always been strange, but that night? Even the stars held their breath.
Amy was different from the start.
Strong-willed. Wild. The kind of child who chewed her braids off instead of tying them. She chased boys through thorn-choked woods, raced broken bikes through cemetery dirt, and climbed rusted rooftops just to scream at the moon.
She was fearless.
But fearlessness doesn’t make you untouchable.
It makes you visible.
To the wrong things.
She grew up poor, near the edge of the town, in a house that creaked when it rained and wept when it didn’t. The legends were old there—passed through whispers, etched in bones, stitched into lullabies mothers only sang during storms.
One summer evening—long after curfew and deep into the kind of dusk where the shadows thicken—Amy was dared by the boys she called friends.
“Touch the black stream,” they dared her.
“No one’s ever done it. Not after dark.”
Amy has never been one to turn down a challenge. So she accepted.
She didn’t flinch.
She went alone.
The forest swallowed her footsteps. The deeper she walked, the quieter the world became—no birds, no crickets, no breath. Just the slow, pulsing silence of something waiting.
When she reached the stream, it didn’t ripple.
It pulsed.
Black as oil. Reeking of rot. Thick with dead leaves and memory.
She turned back triumphantly, ready to mock the boys about her victory.
But then…a voice called her name. Not loudly. Not sweetly. Just a chilling tone.
“Amy... Amy... Amy...”
Whispers rising like mist off the water.
She turned to run, but that’s when she saw it.
A hand.
Bloated. White. Reaching from the river’s center.
She screamed. But the forest moved faster.
Something cold and ancient wrapped around her ankle and dragged her under.
The boys heard her scream, but didn’t dare go in.
By the time adults came, it was too late to enter the forest.
They waited for sunrise before a search party was sent out.
And when they finally found her, she was soaked, shivering, half-conscious and oddly calm.
They said she was lucky. Some called her a miracle child.
But Amy remembered drowning.
She remembered the river’s hunger.
The corpses below, their eyes still open.
The voice that slithered through her bones.
“We have waited long enough. You are ours now.”
The entity didn’t just possess her.
It became her.
Amy Dawson walked out of Hollow Forest that morning…but the girl who entered never came back.
She returned changed.
A vessel.
A carrier for something that should have stayed buried under centuries of blood and black water.
No one saw the dark vein blooming at the base of her spine.
No one noticed the river dripping from her eyes.
No one knew that everyone who touched her...
Everyone who cared for her...
Everyone who carried even a piece of her...
Would drown too.
Because Amy Dawson died that night in the stream.
And something else returned in her place.
A demon older than language, resurrected into a child’s body.
And it had a purpose.
Pain.
This is a story where every ghost has a name.
Every organ a purpose.
Every forest a memory.
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“You’re soaking wet, Genevieve. Tell me, was it me that made you this way or him?” his voice told her to be careful with her answer. His knuckles slid down through her folds and she threw her head back as she moaned. “Weakness?”
“You…” she breathed.
Genevieve loses a bet she can’t afford to pay. In a compromise, she agrees to convince any man her opponent chooses to go home with her that night. What she doesn’t realize when her sister’s friend points out the brooding man sitting alone at the bar, is that man won’t be okay with just one night with her. No, Matteo Accardi, Don of one of the largest gangs in New York City doesn’t do one night stands. Not with her anyway.
From Best Friend To Fiancé
I let out a little gasp. His thumb rubbed across my lower lip.
“I don’t just want to fuck you—I want to keep you. You’re my favorite sin, and I’ll commit it again and again until you understand you’re mine.” His lips twitched a little. “You’ve always been mine, Savannah.”
——-
Her sister is marrying her ex. So she brings her best friend as her fake fiancé. What could possibly go wrong?
Savannah Hart thought she was over Dean Archer—until her sister, Chloe announces she's marrying him. The same man Savannah never stopped loving. The man who left her heartbroken… and now belongs to her sister.
A weeklong wedding in New Hope. One mansion full of guests. And a very bitter maid of honor.
To survive it, Savannah brings a date—her charming, clean-cut best friend, Roman Blackwood. The one man who’s always had her back. He owes her a favor, and pretending to be her fiancé? Easy.
Until fake kisses start to feel real.
Now Savannah’s torn between keeping up the act… or risking everything for the one man she was never supposed to fall for.
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother
"What is wrong with me?
Why does being near him make my skin feel too tight, like I’m wearing a sweater two sizes too small?
It’s just newness, I tell myself firmly.
He’s my boyfirend’s brother.
This is Tyler’s family.
I’m not going to let one cold stare undo that.
**
As a ballet dancer, My life looks perfect—scholarship, starring role, sweet boyfriend Tyler. Until Tyler shows his true colors and his older brother, Asher, comes home.
Asher is a Navy veteran with battle scars and zero patience. He calls me "princess" like it's an insult. I can't stand him.
When My ankle injury forces her to recover at the family lake house, I‘m stuck with both brothers. What starts as mutual hatred slowly turns into something forbidden.
I'm falling for my boyfriend's brother.
**
I hate girls like her.
Entitled.
Delicate.
And still—
Still.
The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying to smile through the awkwardness, won’t leave me.
Neither does the memory of Tyler. Leaving her here without a second thought.
I shouldn’t care.
I don’t care.
It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.
It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.
I’m not here to rescue anyone.
Especially not her.
Especially not someone like her.
She’s not my problem.
And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one.
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Noah
I was here to prove myself—
One last shot at football, at freedom, at a future no one ever thought I’d deserve.
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Coach Aiden Mercer.
Cold. Demanding. Built like a legend and twice as ruthless.
From the first command, I wanted to fight him.
From the first Sir, I wanted to kneel.
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Aiden
Noah Blake was supposed to be a challenge.
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One night on ObeyNet, a stranger with attitude and submission tangled in his words.
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About Author

Bree
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