Chapter 3 #2
I took a deep breath. “I…woke up in the stable one night.”
She frowned. “You’re a sleepwalker?”
“Didn’t use to be, but…stress will do that to a person.” I picked at a hangnail and shrugged. “I just figured I’d film it to see what time of night it was. See how long it took me to get out of the room.”
Rae’s jaw ticked as she digested the information. She exchanged looks with December and Nico before saying, “We’ll take on the job.”
“Really?” My hands fell to my sides.
“Even if it hadn’t won the toss,” Nico said with a heavy exhale. “Sleepwalking’s not a good sign.”
He twisted his mouth to the side, studying the still image on the camera. His disapproval turned intrigue made my stomach churn. They were taking this far more seriously than I thought possible.
“Could I keep this for a bit?” Nico lifted the camera slightly. “I want to transfer the footage to my computer so I can inspect it.”
I nodded. “Yeah, go for it.”
“Alright, so, quick, one-second admin moment.” December held up her index fingers. “We require a cash deposit to make it official. Are you familiar with our rates?”
“I am.” My heart was in my throat. This was actually happening. “I’ll get it to you as soon as I find an ATM.”
“There’s one outside the lobby.” December pointed and then tugged out a pocket journal to write something down. “And we have a travel fee. Once you give me the address, I’ll get you a quote. And later on, tonight, the contract for you to look over. Sounds good?”
“Sounds great…do you…Do you all think we can resolve this within a couple of days?”
“We won’t know for sure until we finish our preliminary assessment.” Rae pulled out a bag of almonds and started snacking. “But from your home video—if there aren’t any surprises—we could nip this in the bud over the weekend. What do you think, Jonah?”
His eyes widened at the mic pass. “Uh…I can see that…I mean, sure. The average time for a spirit removal takes no longer than a couple of hours…”
“It’ll be a piece of cake,” she finished for him.
The ATM’s buttons were sticky, and the screen was ruined with scratches and cracks. I punched in my PIN twice to get it to register. Thankfully, my money spat out without protest.
“Need any help?” A voice called from a few feet away. It was the woman from the front desk. She had a bag of trash in her hand and wore the same wide grin as before. A fly buzzed around her ear, but she didn’t move to swat it away.
My eye twitched. “No…I’m fine. Thanks.” I stuffed the large bills into my jacket pocket and hurried back to my truck. A few other people loitered outside the lobby, casting subtle glances my way.
Before their death, my parents hopped from small town to small town. They preferred their quiet corners and empty streets. So, though I’d been around an array of people, I had no guide to participating in casual social interactions.
After their death, I’d inherited my parents’ asocial habits and preference for isolation.
I opted to attend a small community college for two years and finish the rest of my degree online.
The isolation used to scare me, but that fear hardened as time went on.
Now, the fear was no longer malleable but a firm surface for me to find shelter behind.
As I counted the money, I kept my eye on my rearview for any impending trouble.
The five-hundred-dollar deposit was all there. I grabbed my backpack and room keys, hopping out of the truck. After checking my lock three times, I started up the staircase where Rae and her team had disappeared. Not knowing which of the two rooms she’d been in, I just knocked on the first one.
The sound of voices and music filtered through the scuffed metal door. After waiting for what felt like a respectable amount of time, I knocked again.
Nico opened the door, a towel wrapped around his neck, sweats hung low on his waist, and hair dripped wet from a shower. There were two crescent-shaped scars on his chest.
“Hi…” I tried to smile, but the thin line of his mouth made nicety feel frivolous. “Um…I have the deposit.”
He scanned me, as if I’d had the time and desire to grab some sort of weapon in the small window in which we’d separated.
I glanced over his shoulder to find Jonah in the room, rummaging through bags of equipment.
I raised a brow at a chunky laptop that looked like it had sonar testing capabilities.
One of the opened bags housed rows and rows of tiny knives, stakes, and colorful vials.
“That’s a sonar machine, right?” I asked, still peering over his shoulder.
“Correct,” he said carefully, as if an affirmative would give too much away.
“What’s the point of using one of those outside of water? Seems highly ineffective.”
Nico chuckled and sucked a deep breath through his teeth. “That’s the point of research, right? Solving life’s ineffectiveness.”
Before I could bombard him with more questions, he called over his shoulder, “Rae! You have company.”
She walked through the adjoining door from the neighboring room. From how Nico barred the door, I knew there would be no way I’d be getting an invitation inside.
“Hey.” Rae took over blocking the door, giving Nico a nod to leave. He shut the sonar machine, giving me a half-smile before turning to help Jonah organize the vials.
I twisted my mouth to the side, still wanting my question answered as I retrieved the rolled stack of bills from my pocket. “The deposit.”
Rae accepted the money, turning her shoulder slightly so no one outside could see her counting the bills. She’d shed her jacket from earlier, now only in a black tee that exposed an impressive set of biceps and an implanted glucose monitor.
“December,” she called after she finished counting the money. “We’re all set.”
Her cousin appeared to take the cash, slipping it into a pouch. “I’ll get the contract sent over ASAP.”
I nodded, taking a deep breath. “So…that’s it? We’re good to go back together tomorrow?”
“Two of us will go back with you tomorrow. We’ll do the assessment, and if it’s a job that’ll take more than a couple of days, we’ll have the entire team on the case.
” Rae crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorframe as she spoke.
Her team kept moving in the background, trying to figure out which one of them had misplaced the “stakes” and who’d overseen divvying out the silver bullets.
“You own us for as long as it takes to fix your pesky ghost problem,” Rae promised. “Or…group hallucination.”
She smiled, dipping her head a bit to see if I’d do the same.
My gaze had blurred, though, distracted by the hope that maybe I’d finally be able to sleep tonight.
A small, dusty corner of my brain wondered if whatever nightmare clung to me at Elmwood followed me here.
My heartbeat quickened at the thought of the nightmare coaxing me to sleepwalk outside of my motel room.
Sleepwalking wasn’t an immediate concern while at the ranch as it’d be in a strange motel parking lot.
“All good?” she asked, wariness dragging her tone down a notch.
“Sure.” I nodded, though my internal thunderstorm leaked through, casting flashes of warning lightning across my expression. Rae studied me, her smile fading into something unreadable to my untrained eye.
With a glance over her shoulder, she told her team, “I’m going to step out for a sec.”
She didn’t give them much time to protest as she joined me outside, gently shutting the door behind her. “Take a walk with me?”
“Um…sure.” I followed Rae down the breezeway. The dim light from the motel’s red signage outlined her. When she glanced over her shoulder to make sure I followed, the curve of her smile seemed less vixen and more sweetheart in the absence of other company.
“Why a ranch?” Her hand hovered over the staircase railing, her fingers never actually contacting the chipped green steel. Rae’s long hair swayed with every step she took, flyaways reaching toward the sky.
“Huh?” I blinked, trying to process the question after my gaze slipped to her hips. Rae’s shirt rode up a little, revealing a small sliver of skin. Her sweatpants hung low, allowing the waistband of black boxers to peek through.
“Not many people like you own a ranch.” When we reached the bottom of the stairs, she started walking backward.
I kept my gaze trained on hers. Rae was used to people fawning over her.
And though I wasn’t special enough to resist her brand of beauty, I couldn’t find a logical reason to desire anything more than an assessment from her.
The cockiness in her charm soured the taste.
“Do you frequent ranches?” I asked, shoving my hands into my back pockets.
She shrugged. “Sure, they’re prime hotspots for paranormal activity.”
I raised a brow. “Really?”
“Clean air, lots of land, plenty of history.” She held up a finger for everything she listed. “There’s a belt of them on the west coast.”
“Belt?”
“Of prime hotspots.” She frowned as if confused why I couldn’t keep up.
“You realize this isn’t an average conversation,” I said, voice tight with defense.
“Averages differ.”
“Yeah, but…”
“You realize you ended up asking for my help anyway, right?” she asked. “Despite not believing, you’re here.”
“I ran out of options and time.”
She hummed, considering. “I don’t know if I believe that.”
“It’s the truth. So, you should.”
Rae smiled. “That’s never how life worked.”
“It’s how it should work.”
“Should,” she repeated in a low voice as if she were practicing the word for the first time. “Octavia?”
The sound of my name coming from her deep voice made the air feel like sand in my lungs.
“What do you believe?” Rae asked.
“If not the paranormal?” I finished for her.
“If anything.”
“I believe the Earth’s round and not the center of the universe. That we landed on the moon,” I said. “Plenty of science proves enough for us to understand that a thousand different things could cause perceived paranormal activity belts.”