Scarlett Evans: Something's Off - Scarlett Evans, #2

The town didn't calm down after the crash—it recalibrated. When hostility evaporates overnight and the air turns eerily cooperative, Scarlett Evans knows something is wrong. The tension that once simmered openly is now being compressed, redirected, weaponized. As near-tragedies stack too neatly and the woods near the guardrail whisper with deliberate intent, Scarlett uncovers a ritual designed not to unleash chaos—but to sustain pressure. Someone sanctioned it. Someone local. And whatever was anchored there feeds on fear, fracture, and forced visibility. The entity the town will come to call The Pressing isn't trying to destroy them. It's trying to corner her—into using her magic publicly or disappearing entirely. But Scarlett doesn't break under pressure. She studies it. And when she steps into the woods to confront what's leaning in, she discovers something far more dangerous than a monster in the dark: a system designed to squeeze until something snaps.