Chapter 4
chapter
four
MILES
It’s only been one night, but I know Daisy Bennett has officially disrupted the ecosystem of the Mystery Machine when Taylor starts brushing her hair before breakfast.
Not fully doing her hair. But there’s definitely more effort happening than usual as she stands in the kitchenette using the microwave reflection as a mirror.
“You know she interviews celebrities, right?” Jax says from the bench, not even looking up from his camera footage. “She’s not here to ask you for hairstyle tips.”
Taylor flips him off.
I’m at the monitor station trying to focus on route mapping for the next three days, but my focus is compromised by a very observant podcaster sitting cross-legged on the floor behind me.
Daisy is recording voice notes into her phone like a tiny anthropologist documenting a newly discovered species.
“Day one embedded with the Strange Terrain Division,” she murmurs into the recorder. “Initial observations: they operate like a codependent staff at a summer camp run by conspiracy theorists with REI memberships.”
Taylor gasps. “That’s so accurate.”
“No, it’s invasive,” I snap before Taylor even finishes her sentence.
Daisy looks up at me, eyes bright with amusement. “See? That’s what I mean. You guys all react like a unit.”
Jax, Taylor, and I all snort.
Maya doesn’t even look up from her laptop. “You all snorted at the same time.”
I pause.
“That feels statistically unlikely.”
“You say ‘statistically’ way too often,” Daisy says.
“And you record way too often.”
She gestures apologetically with the recorder. “Occupational hazard.”
I point at it. “That reminds me. Boundary update.”
Taylor groans. “Oh my God, he has updates.”
“I’m refining the system,” I defend.
“You made amendments to the recording constitution?” Jax asks.
“I haven’t even done anything yet!” Daisy protests.
“It’s not a constitution,” I reply to Jax, ignoring Daisy.
Daisy’s mouth twitches like she’s trying not to smile. Which makes me want to keep talking.
“Okay,” I say, turning toward her. “New rule. No recording active strategy discussions.”
Her brow furrows. “Why?”
“Because operational planning requires contextual understanding and partial conversations can create misleading interpretations.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“It wasn’t rehearsed,” I lie. It was maybe a little rehearsed.
She studies me for a second too long, as if she somehow knows.
God. She really is observant.
“Fine,” she says at last. “No strategy sessions.”
“Thank you.”
“But in exchange, I want access to interviews afterward.”
“That depends on the questions.”
“That’s literally the whole point of interviews.”
“Yes, but there’s a difference between productive inquiry and exploitative framing.”
She leans back against the cabinet, crossing her arms. “Whoa, you think I’m exploitative?”
“No,” I admit. “I think you’re trained to look for narrative.”
She tilts her head. “You don’t think you’re doing the same thing?”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
Because… okay. That’s annoyingly solid.
Jax looks between us like he’s watching tennis.
Taylor whispers loudly to Maya, “So, they’re both weird.”
“I can hear you,” both Daisy and I say.
Taylor loses it with laughter. “This is the best day of my life.”
I bump my glasses up to sit on top of my head and drag a hand down my face. “Can we focus, please?”
“Sure,” Daisy says sweetly. “Lead your meeting.”
I narrow my eyes at her, and she responds with an angelic smile.
The worst part is, I can’t tell if she’s trying to get under my skin or if this is just how she interacts with people.
Either way, it’s working.
I turn back to the monitor and pull up the terrain maps. “Alright. Next three days. We’ll start near the canyon systems east of Four Corners. Most recent sighting reports cluster here—” I point at the screen—“particularly around water access points and cave entrances.”
Daisy’s recorder appears in her hand again.
I point at her without fully turning around. “No strategy recording.”
“I wasn’t recording.”
“You literally clicked the button.”
She pauses for a beat. “You heard that?”
“I hear everything.”
“That’s annoying.”
“It’s field awareness.”
“It’s neuroticism.”
Taylor chokes on her drink, laughing.
I should probably be more offended by her behavior.
Instead, I feel this weird energy buzzing under my skin that I can’t categorize.
Because Daisy doesn’t treat tension like something to avoid. She pushes at things. Pokes at them. At me.
Most people either dismiss me immediately or overcompensate once they realize I actually know what I’m talking about. But Daisy engages, even when she’s making fun of me—especially then.
I clear my throat. “We’ll split into pairs during daylight scouting. Taylor handles transport routes. Jax runs aerial sweeps. Maya and I cross-reference environmental markers.”
“And me?” Daisy asks.
I glance at her.
“You stay with the Machine during active field operations until we establish baseline safety protocols.”
Her expression flattens. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not personal.”
“It feels personal.”
“It’s logistical.”
“ Why am I here if I can’t record or join in?”
I exhale. “You’ve never done field investigations before.”
“You think I can’t walk around outside?”
“I think unfamiliar terrain plus active search conditions plus distraction variables increases risk.”
“You just called me a distraction variable.”
“You are objectively a distraction variable.”
Taylor buries her face in a throw pillow to hide her laughter.
Daisy stares at me. “Wow.”
“I don’t mean that offensively.”
“That somehow makes it worse.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Look, until we know how you move in the field—”
“How I move?”
“Yeah.”
She blinks. “What does that even mean?”
“It means some people panic under environmental stressors.”
“I interview celebrities for a living, Miles. I’ve stared down armed entourages.”
“That’s not geographically dangerous,” I point out.
“It is when you don’t understand an East Coast vs. West Coast feud.”
Jax wheezes.
Daisy shakes her head, muttering something under her breath that includes the word “unbelievable.” I begin to roll through the plan again, focusing on the details.
When I’m done and the rest of the crew has dispersed, she leans closer to the map. “You’re assuming migration patterns based on elevation shifts,” she says.
I glance up, surprised. “Yeah?”
“Wouldn’t that change seasonally?”
I stare at her for half a second too long. She’s right.
Interesting.
“It does.”
“Cool,” she says, turning to walk towards her bunk. She looks back over her shoulder to add, “And I’m definitely coming tomorrow.”
By the time night settles over camp, the high desert temperature drops hard and fast. The Machine creaks softly around us as everyone winds down into their usual rhythm.
I’m relaxing in my bunk, trying to take notes in my journal.
Taylor’s playing music quietly through her headphones while organizing crystals in her bunk for reasons I’ll never understand.
In the front area, Jax is still editing footage, lit only by his laptop’s glow.
Maya’s typing away as if our lives depend on it, and, financially speaking, they probably do.
In the back, Daisy is perched on the counter, eating trail mix straight from a bag while recording notes into her phone.
“…there’s a surprising level of competence here,” she murmurs.
“Again,” I call from my bunk area, “rude.”
“I’m documenting. And based on what I’ve seen and read, you guys seem more competent than other crews.”
“Well, we’re not full of shit like the Ridgefield crew. Most of us do have degrees.”
“In what? Monster history?” She leans forward to make eye contact.
“No, though I did consider a master's in folklore.
But I double-majored in biology and anthropology.
People assume I woke up one day and decided to chase ghosts and cryptids.
That's not really how it happened. I spent a few years working for the Forest Service doing trail maintenance, wildlife surveys, fire mitigation, whatever needed doing.
It was honest work, and I loved it. I got paid to disappear into the woods for days at a time. "
“Still doesn’t explain why you laminated behavioral policies.”
“That was preparedness.”
I hear her laugh softly under her breath.
It does something weird to my chest.
I ignore that.
Instead, I try to focus on my notes, which becomes far more difficult as Daisy approaches the ladder to her bunk above mine. I will my eyes to stay on the blank page before me.
Not because looking would be inappropriate exactly—we’re all existing in a space the size of a glorified hallway—but because the second she distracts me, my brain becomes profoundly unhelpful.
And it’s getting worse.
She changed sometime after dinner, swapping out the polished podcast-host version of herself for gray shorts and a faded university sweatshirt that hangs loose off one shoulder as she moves.
She’s gotten more casual over the last day.
The sleek hair she arrived with now falls in soft, dark waves around her face, as if she forgot to care how it looked. It suits her.
She grips the ladder with one hand, muttering under her breath as the oversized sleeve falls down her wrist. She climbs carefully into the top bunk.
There’s no performance to her right now.
No polished delivery or well-timed sarcasm.
Just sleepy irritation and bare skin catching warm amber light from the bunk lamps.
And I hate—absolutely hate—that I notice details.
Like the tiny scar near her knee.
Or the fact that she scrunches her nose when she’s concentrating on not hitting her head.
Or the way her ankle brushes the edge of my bunk for half a second as she shifts upward, all warm skin and accidental closeness.
Annoying.
“Okay,” she mutters once she finally gets settled above me, hair falling over the edge of the mattress as she peers downward. “I think I was so tired last night that I passed out without thinking. Tonight, this feels like sleeping in an expensive coffin.”
I glance up before I can stop myself.
Big mistake.