The Forgotten Pact

They thought it was just a dare. They were wrong.

On a humid summer night, five teenage girls gathered by the quarry's edge. What began as laughter turned into a test of courage, and when one of them climbed, the moment spiraled into tragedy. One would fall. The others would press their hands together and swear a pact that no one would ever speak of what really happened in the reeds below.

But secrets have weight, and this one is crushing.

Months later, their town simmers with suspicion. Parents lash out in fear. Teachers watch with wary eyes. And Detective Grayson, patient and unrelenting, begins circling closer, pulling at every loose thread. Whispers spread faster than wildfire in the hallways, each rumor sharper than the last. The girls cling to each other at first, desperate to hold the silence intact, but hairline fractures widen every day—trust falters, loyalty splinters, and the creeping certainty grows that one of them has already told.

The pact that once bound them becomes a prison. Rae burns with fury, Sofi trembles under guilt, Val withdraws into silence, and Noa slips further into the unsettling comfort of her own fractured mind. At the center of it all is Claire—the girl who whispered the dare, the one whose voice set the night in motion. For her, silence has become unbearable. But to speak may destroy them all.

Raw, relentless, and deeply human, The Forgotten Pact is a haunting portrait of guilt, loyalty, and the terrifying weight of silence. A story of five girls bound together by tragedy, and the unraveling that comes when truth claws its way back to the surface.

For readers of Karen M. McManus, Courtney Summers, and Jennifer Lynn Barnes, this novel asks one unshakable question:

How long can a secret live before it kills the ones who keep it?