Chapter 10
I take a detour to pick up Bob from my room and bring him downstairs to the kitchen, where DJ and Benji already are.
I’m surprised by how big it is in here. I could do cartwheels without hitting anything, not that I know how to do a cartwheel, but the point stands.
Copper pots hang from a rack above a central island counter where Griffin works.
He’s wearing jeans and a heather gray T-shirt, and his hair has dried enough to curl on the ends.
“Good timing. Here, taste this.” Griffin extends a wooden spoon toward me, a dollop of red sauce on the end, his other hand cupped under it to catch any drips.
I glance at the spoon, then at DJ, who’s watching us with raised eyebrows.
“It’s just leftovers,” Griffin adds, misinterpreting my hesitation. “Had to reheat since we got home late, but it’s still better than anything you’ll find in a restaurant.”
“I go to shitty restaurants, so that’s not saying much for me,” I say, but I’m already leaning forward because whatever’s on that spoon smells incredible and my body has officially overruled my brain.
The sauce is rich and garlicky, with undertones of something sweet.
It’s nothing like the watery marinara I had for dinner earlier this week, or even the fancy stuff Dylan loved to pour over ground beef and pasta when he was bulking.
Barring the sandwich Ray gave me, this will be the best meal I’ve had in a long time.
“Well?” Griffin asks.
“It’s edible,” I manage with a shrug, even though my mouth is watering for more.
DJ covers her mouth, but I can see her shoulders shaking with laughter.
Griffin switches the spoon out for another one, and I scan the kitchen, looking for something useful to do other than stand here watching Griffin cook.
The long rectangular table isn’t set yet.
Dad always said I should never ask if I can help because people will just say no—I should jump in and start helping. So I do.
I open cabinets until I find plates, then carry a stack to the table. Bob limps after me, sniffing around the baseboards.
Griffin glances over as I set a plate down. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do.” I move around the table, counting each plate until I’ve made seven settings. “My dad used to tell me I should never stand around when other people worked.”
“Good man,” Griffin says.
I close my eyes for half a second, forcing the wave of grief back into my box. I don’t need any of that shit to come out when I’m having dinner with new people.
I reach for another question, something to keep from spiraling: “So, what’s the deal with team dinners? Do you do this every night?”
DJ pulls a handful of forks from a drawer. “Only on Sundays—or special occasions like this. Otherwise, it’s pretty much fend for yourself around here. The kitchen’s communal, so label your stuff or it’s fair game.”
“She means I’ll eat it,” Griffin says.
“Last week he ate my leftover Pad Thai that I was saving for lunch the next day.” DJ jabs a fork in his direction. “I’d written my name on it, and he didn’t care.”
“In my defense, seeing ghosts burns a lot of calories,” Griffin says.
“You don’t burn calories by looking at things.”
“Sure you do,” Griffin says. “Ghosts are cold, right? So being around them all the time means my body has to work harder to maintain its core temperature.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” DJ says.
Benji lifts the forks from her hands.
She reaches up on her toes to ruffle his hair, and he angles away from her touch. “Care to enlighten him, Benj?”
“I mean, technically—and I’m just saying technically—there could be a marginal increase in metabolic rate if you were constantly exposed to temperature drops, but you’re not around entities all the time.
” Benji lines up each fork to the left of the plates.
“We spend maybe… what, ten percent of our week in the field? Even then, the ambient temperature drop from spectral manifestation averages only about five to eight degrees, which wouldn’t even cancel out one of the seventeen pancakes you ate last Sunday. ”
Griffin clutches his chest. “Betrayed by my own team.”
“Seventeen?” I can’t help but gape at him. “How are you still alive?”
“Exceptional genetics,” Griffin says.
DJ snorts. “You’re so full of shit.”
“I’m just saying,” Griffin says, raising his hands. “Whether or not my extraordinary perception plays a role, I have a naturally high metabolism and need calories to function at peak performance.”
“Oh, shut up,” DJ says. “You’re only a Type Two.”
I raise my eyebrows, glancing between them. “Type Two?”
“Oh, right—you probably don’t know about NDP classifications yet,” DJ says. “Near Death Perception—which is Donny’s fancy way of saying ‘seeing ghosts’—comes in different strengths, depending on how much your brain got rewired when you died.”
“I’m a Type Two, which means I see ghosts all the time,” Griffin says. “So’s DJ.”
“I am, too,” Benji adds, going up behind DJ to straighten all the butter knives she’s putting down. “I’d be Type One if I weren’t on my meds, but the meds make things better for everyone involved.”
“Type Ones are the most sensitive,” DJ explains. “They can see ghosts, hear them, experience their emotions, see their memories—all that fun stuff. Type Twos can just see ghosts, which is what most of us are, and Type Threes, like Donny, can only see them during high-activity manifestations.”
“Do you have any Type Ones?” I ask.
“Nico is our only Type One,” she says.
Why am I not surprised? Clearly, being impossibly beautiful and able to take down possessed accountants like some kind of Kung Fu god wasn’t enough. The universe really went all out when it made that guy.
I can’t even imagine what that must be like. Just seeing ghosts is overwhelming enough. But to actually experience their emotions?
My mind goes to that ghost from the library. I’m familiar with misery, but experiencing decades of it, while alone and confused and not understanding what’s happening to me, must feel worse than anything I’ve ever experienced.
I take a sip of water, trying to push down the sad feeling that thinking about that is giving me, but it lingers.
“Is Zoey your sixth team member?” I ask, remembering the name I saw on the locker in the prep room.
“You’re not going to meet her tonight,” DJ says, rolling her eyes. “Zoey never graces us with her presence at dinner. She lives mostly in her room—only comes out when necessary—but between you and me—” She lowers her voice. “She’s not very nice.”
Griffin lets out a low whistle.
“What does she do?” I ask.
“She’s our hacker.” DJ sinks into one of the stools at the island.
“Donny found her five years ago, when she hacked some big-name politician’s servers when she was barely out of high school.
The FBI was onto her, but Donny got to her first and offered her protection and a paycheck in exchange for her skills.
Now, she handles our digital needs—gets us any information locked behind firewalls that speed up our investigation.
Just don’t expect her to be friendly about it—or friendly at all.
She sees us as the annoying consequences of being caught that one time. ”
Griffin leans against the counter. “Zoey just doesn’t like you because you’re basically a human version of one of those singing chipmunks.”
“Alvin and the Chipmunks?” DJ looks genuinely offended. “That’s so mean!”
“I say it with love,” Griffin says.
DJ smacks him on the back of the head, and he dramatically clutches his skull. Griffin slings his arm around DJ’s shoulders, pulling her into a loose headlock. She immediately squirms out of it.
Rosie and I used to wrestle like that. She’d launch herself at me from the couch, trying to knock me over even though I was twice her size.
Bob’s standing next to my chair. I reach down to scratch behind his ears, grateful for something solid to focus on instead of the memory threatening to pull me under. He’s tense and still looks suspicious, but he must be tired after meeting so many new people because he’s given up growling.
“Zoey’s insanely smart,” DJ says, straightening her shirt, “and legitimately terrifying.”
“Noted,” I say, my voice coming out a little rougher than I mean it to. “I’ll try not to get on her bad side.”
Benji crouches to toss a piece of chicken behind Bob, which Bob quickly turns to eat. I give Benji a grateful smile.
“I read this afternoon that the best way to approach a dog is to keep your side or back turned toward them, and to avoid eye contact,” Benji says. “Eye contact is considered threatening.”
“Bob finds most things threatening,” I say. “I would, too, if I were as small as he is.”
“I read up on it this afternoon,” Benji says. “I haven’t spent a lot of time around dogs, but I’d like us to be friends.”
Of all the people in this house (besides Donny, who Bob already seems to be fine with), I get the feeling Benji will have the least amount of trouble convincing Bob to warm up to him. Even I feel calmer around Benji.
Griffin wipes his hands on a dish towel. “Alright, food’s ready. Let me grab everyone.”
He moves to a panel by the stove and presses a red button. A soft chime echoes through the house, and footsteps approach from down the hall.
Donny appears in the doorway wearing a tartan bathrobe over pajama pants.
“Eden,” Donny greets me as he passes. “Getting comfortable?”
“So far, no one’s tried to kill me today, so it’s an upgrade from yesterday,” I say.
Donny’s laugh warms the kitchen. “That’s the spirit.”
Griffin pulls out a chair for Donny at the head of the table. Donny sits down with a labored grunt and waves me over.
“Come, sit,” he says. “Griffin’s chicken parmesan is legendary around here, although I suspect his cooking tonight is just an excuse for him to impress you.”
Griffin’s ears flush. “Not true.”