Never Have I Ever (Catalina Whispers #1)

Prologue

The Island Chooses

Catalina Island doesn’t bury secrets—it lets them ripen, waiting quietly. It stores them deeply, like salt lingering in old wood, like sorrow sinking into deep water. You may not see what’s hidden, but you sense it, sometimes sharply, when the wind shifts and memory clings to the air.

From the mainland, Avalon looks harmless. A postcard pinned to the edge of the Pacific, all bright water and twinkling lights. People arrive with weekend faces, sun-drunk confidence, and the assumption that nothing real can touch them here.

Locals know better.

They’ll tell you the island has moods, that it punishes liars.

That it remembers names the way the ocean remembers storms. Visitors usually laugh at this, because superstition is easier than vigilance.

But if you stay for long enough, you begin to notice the pattern: how certain places feel heavier than they should.

How laughter sometimes cuts off mid-breath.

How you can stand on a trail and feel, with no evidence at all, that something has decided to pay attention to you.

Maybe Poseidon himself lifted Catalina from the sea with his very own hands, fingers closing around stone and pulling it into the light. Some say that’s why the cliffs look carved instead of formed. Others say that’s why the island feels less like a place and more like a presence.

Maybe people just need a god to blame when the truth is ugly: this is what humans do when they think no one is watching.

Catalina tempts you into careless freedom.

The bars pulse with laughter, the nights are scented with warmth, the alleys hold whispered invitations.

The coves cradle secrets in silence, the water accepts every offering without protest. Hurt someone?

Disappear? Slip into another skin for a weekend? The island dares you.

That’s the seduction.

And that’s the trap.

Because the island doesn’t just hide things.

Sometimes, it keeps them.

Sometimes it closes ranks around a secret, the way a body shields a wound. Sometimes it softens edges, erases footprints, swallows sound. Sometimes it seems to decide that what happened belongs here now, and nowhere else.

People don’t like to admit this.

It’s easier to believe that places are neutral. That land can’t approve or disapprove. But Catalina has a way of making people feel . . . chosen. Protected. As if the island itself has decided to look the other way.

Not for everyone.

Only for the ones who seem to understand its rhythms. The ones who return again and again. The ones who learn where the dark collects and how long the tide takes to erase a mistake. Those people move differently. Quieter. More confident. As if they’ve been granted permission.

Is this magic?

Or is it simply opportunity wearing a prettier face?

You’re never truly alone here.

Not by the tourists with their phone cameras and sloppy curiosity. Not by the locals who can tell, by your shoes and posture, whether you belong. Not by the deputies who learn early how to stand still and let others reveal themselves.

And not by the people who use the island’s beauty the way a con artist uses charm: to get you close enough to underestimate them.

You can feel it in the details Catalina refuses to erase.

A footprint too crisp for wet sand.

A cigarette still warm.

A ribbon snagged on a thorn that doesn’t match anyone’s outfit.

A scrape on stone that hasn’t been softened by salt yet.

Little leftovers. Little tells left behind.

Not magic. Not ghosts.

Evidence.

Tragedy doesn’t arrive with thunder. It slips quietly into the night, like dread curling beneath your skin.

It’s a moment that wilts beneath the weight of regret, a drink opening a hidden wound, a door left ajar, a path wandered alone too late.

One moment of beauty—gone. Caution abandoned, replaced by a chill.

Then someone realizes, too late, that the island has plenty of places to hide a scream.

People like to imagine killers as wild-eyed monsters.

The truth is quieter. Sometimes the hands shake.

Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the person doing it looks perfectly normal the next morning, ordering coffee, laughing at the right moments, letting the sunlight soothe their skin like an undeserved absolution.

Catalina notices the still hands most of all.

Because still hands belong to people who aren’t guessing.

They’re practicing. They’re perfecting.

And lately, the feeling of being watched has changed. Not just that prickling instinct on the back of your neck, the one you can brush away. This is different. Sharper. More deliberate. Less like the island observing, and more like someone using the island to hide . . . to watch.

Someone learning where shadows fall.

Someone memorizing routines.

Someone cataloging who breaks, and who doesn’t.

Someone patient enough to wait for the perfect moment to become part of the story.

The island doesn’t stop them.

It doesn’t help them either.

It simply . . . allows.

And whether this makes Catalina a sanctuary or a curse depends entirely on who you are when you arrive.

Some people come here and find peace.

Some come and find devastation.

Some leave unchanged.

Some never leave at all.

You won’t know which you’ll be until you arrive.

You should visit the island.

You’ll love it.

You just won’t know what it’s decided to give you until it’s too late.

And somewhere on Catalina, while the ocean breathes and the cliffs hold their silence, another set of eyes is already reading ahead, waiting for the next page to turn.

Because every island has rumors.

This one has a witness.

And the witness doesn’t warn them.

It simply watches.

People wonder whether the island demands death or transformation. Is a person responsible when the whispers grow too loud to ignore? Perhaps both can be true. Maybe someone merges with Catalina for a time. If Poseidon himself truly did raise this land, perhaps those who walk it must obey.

Sometimes the messenger doesn’t know they’re carrying the story. They think they’re writing it. They think they’re in control. They rarely are.

Catalina will choose who speaks next—and the island has never been gentle with its chosen.