Unknown
Chapter Thirteen
McKayla
I was officially going cross-eyed. Again.
The footage from the ghost town looped across the laptop screen while I sat curled against the headboard with one knee bent and my fingers pressed against my temple. Hours had passed since we’d gotten back from the ghost town, and I still hadn’t found anything useful.
No mysterious hoodie guy.
No person hanging the wanted poster.
No Erin.
Just tourists, employees, actors, and enough fake ghosts to haunt me in my sleep for the next ten years. I rubbed my eyes hard and leaned back against the wall.
The problem was I couldn’t focus. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.
I could focus just fine on one thing. Push. Unfortunately, Push was not the thing I was supposed to be focusing on.
I sighed heavily and glanced toward the doorway where he stood talking quietly with Prime. One big, tattooed arm was braced against the frame while the other held a beer bottle loose at his side. He’d changed shirts after we got back from the ghost town, but it hadn’t helped my situation at all.
Because apparently all Push needed to look unfairly attractive was jeans, tattoos, muscles, a deep voice, and eyeballs
I closed my eyes and groaned softly.
What the hell was I doing? My sister was missing and people were being murdered. I was basically being supervised by a motorcycle club on a haunted island. And somewhere in the middle of all of that chaos, I’d gone and kissed a biker.
A very hot biker. A biker who had looked at me like he wanted to eat me alive on that trail earlier. Which had not helped my mental stability at all.
“Margaritas!”
My eyes snapped open.
Shay and Pearl stood in the doorway grinning like tiny chaotic alcohol fairies. Shay carried a giant pitcher filled with margaritas while Pearl balanced a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa against her hip.
“You need a break,” Shay announced.
Before I could protest, she reached over, closed the laptop, and pulled it out of my lap.
“Hey!”
“Nope,” Pearl said while climbing onto the foot of my bed. “Investigation time is over.”
“It is absolutely not over.”
“It is for tonight,” she chirped.
“I need to-”
“You need tequila,” Shay interrupted.
Pearl leaned toward the hallway and hollered, “Prime! Bring me the margarita glasses!”
Prime appeared beside Push a second later already looking tired of our shit. “They are beer glasses,” he corrected while stepping into the room carrying three large glasses. “And Anchor is gonna shit a brick when he finds out you three are in here getting drunk.”
Pearl snatched the glasses from him. “Then I guess we need to get margarita glasses.”
Prime grunted.
Pearl winked at me while pouring. “And don’t worry about Anchor. He’s my problem that I can handle.”
Prime shot Shay a pointed look. “Don’t drink too much so you can handle your own problem later.”
Shay batted her eyes dramatically. “That’s the only kind of problem I like, and I’ll drink just enough to have some fun.”
Prime shook his head slowly. “Jesus Christ.”
Push stayed leaning against the doorway watching the whole thing with amusement sitting low in his eyes. And there it was again, that stupid little stomach flip.
I grabbed the margarita Pearl handed me mostly so I had something to do with my hands. “I really should keep looking at the footage,” I muttered.
“No,” Shay said immediately.
“Yes.”
Pearl pointed at me with a tortilla chip. “McKayla. You have spent the last several hours staring at grainy security footage while looking like you might start speaking in camera timestamps.”
“She already sort of does that,” Push said from the doorway.
I narrowed my eyes at him and he smirked slightly.
Shay climbed onto the bed beside me and nudged my shoulder with hers. “You found something huge today. Your brain needs a break before it melts.”
“I don’t think brains technically melt.”
Piney suddenly appeared in the hallway behind Push. “I microwaved one once.”
Push glanced over his shoulder. “Get out.”
Piney pointed at the pitcher. “That enough margaritas for everyone?”
“No,” Pearl answered.
He disappeared again.
I laughed despite myself and finally took a drink. Cold lime and tequila hit my tongue immediately. “Oh,” I sighed. “That’s dangerous.”
Pearl looked proud. “I know.”
The room settled into easy conversation after that.
The laptop stayed closed beside Shay while the three of us sat cross-legged on the bed eating chips, drinking margaritas, and talking loud enough that Prime kept glaring down the hallway every few minutes like he expected Anchor to come storming in at any second.
He probably wasn’t wrong.
The first drink disappeared faster than I intended.
Then the second one happened.
Somewhere during refill number two, the tension in my shoulders finally started loosening for the first time in days.
The girls shifted the conversation toward Bernice and Shay eventually, and the mood softened.
“You didn’t know?” I asked quietly.
Shay shook her head slowly while tracing her finger around the rim of her glass. “No, I didn’t figure it out until after she died.”
“That’s insane.”
“Pretty much,” Pearl muttered.
Shay leaned back against the wall. “My mom left the island years ago after Caleb Token died. Mom never told me who my real family was or anything about that night.”
I frowned slightly. “And Caleb Token died at the clubhouse by the lake?”
Pearl nodded. “A long time ago.”
I looked between them slowly while pieces moved around in my head again. “The killer has to be connected to that time period somehow.”
Shay sighed. “That’s what we think too.”
“Because all of this keeps circling back there,” I continued. “Bernice. Shay. Your mom. Caleb Token.”
“And now Erin,” Pearl added quietly.
The room went still again.
Shay frowned into her drink. “Yeah, but why?”
Nobody answered immediately, because none of us knew.
Shay finally looked up. “Why would the killer have Erin’s picture and that date?”
I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know.”
“The date bothers me,” Pearl admitted.
“Everything bothers me,” I muttered.
We fell quiet again for a second before Shay’s eyes suddenly narrowed at me suspiciously.
Uh-oh.
“I think we need to shift this conversation to something else Pearl and I have been noticing,” she sang.
I blinked. “What?”
Pearl slowly grinned.
Double uh-oh.
Shay pointed her margarita at me dramatically. “Prime! Take Push and go play pool or something.”
Prime called from the doorway, “Why?”
“Because girl talk.”
“No.”
She glared at Prime. “Yes.”
Push’s deep laugh drifted from the hallway.
Pearl waved both hands impatiently. “Go away. Shoo.”
Prime appeared in the doorway again looking annoyed. “Push already thinks you’re corrupting McKayla.”
Pearl looked delighted. “Good.”
Push’s eyes met mine briefly, and suddenly I was very aware of the kiss again.
Out on the trail, his hands on me, and the way he’d looked right before he kissed me. My stomach flipped hard.
Shay caught it immediately because apparently she was emotionally psychic. She waited until Prime and Push disappeared down the hallway. “Oh my God,” she whispered dramatically. “Something happened.”
“Nothing happened,” I lied.
“Liar,” Pearl and Shay said together.
“Spill,” Shay demanded.
I laughed nervously and took another drink. Then another. Liquid courage immediately kicked my mouth into motion. “We kissed.”
Pearl slapped Shay’s arm triumphantly. “I told you.”
“You absolutely did,” Shay said.
I pointed at both of them. “You two are terrifying.”
“What happened?” Pearl demanded.
So I told them.
And unfortunately, once I started talking, it all came spilling out faster than intended.
“It’s insane,” I finished. “I’m trapped at a motorcycle clubhouse on a haunted island while my sister is missing and people keep turning up dead, so I absolutely should not be thinking about Push and his stupid mouth. ”
Pearl choked on her drink, laughing.
“And his eyes,” I continued dramatically because apparently tequila had stolen my dignity. “Which do this soft thing when he looks at me sometimes.”
Shay made a tiny squealing noise.
I covered my face. “I hate both of you.”
“No you don’t,” Pearl laughed.
I peeked through my fingers. “A little.”
Pearl nudged my knee gently. “You shouldn’t feel bad.”
“I do though.”
“Why?”
“Because Erin is missing.”
Shay’s expression softened immediately. “McKayla, you’re still allowed to feel things.”
“Even inappropriate biker things?”
Pearl snorted. “Especially biker things.”
I groaned loudly.
Shay leaned closer. “Listen. You can still focus on finding your sister while liking Push.”
“And,” Pearl added, “it’s probably a good thing you have him helping you.”
I lowered my hands slowly.
Pearl smiled softly. “Push cares about you already. Everyone sees it.”
My cheeks heated instantly. “No he doesn’t.”
“All he does is stare at you and threaten everyone around you,” Shay said.
“That’s basically biker flirting,” Pearl agreed.
I laughed despite myself.
And maybe because of the margaritas, or the exhaustion, or the way Push had looked at me earlier… I stopped fighting it quite so hard.
Because the truth was simple. I liked him. A lot more than I should, and maybe that didn’t have to mean I was betraying Erin somehow. Maybe it just meant I was human.
Shay suddenly hollered toward the hallway. “Prime! Refill!”
“I am not your bartender!” he shouted.
“Please!”
Silence. Then, “Fine.”
I laughed into my drink.
Prime appeared a minute later with another smaller pitcher while muttering something about enabling chaos.
“I’m done after this glass,” I announced immediately.
Prime leaned against the doorway. “Good. Bar’s closed.”
“Rude,” Shay muttered.
“It’s after midnight,” Prime said. “Pearl’s problem is already stewing at the bar, and it looks like McKayla might have her own problem now.”
He glanced meaningfully down the hallway.
My stomach flipped again.
Anchor’s deep voice suddenly boomed from the common room. “Pearl!”