Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“Hi,” I eke out.
It’s the best I can do, given the circumstances. There is no such thing as the right words for our situation. I’m sorry wouldn’t begin to cut it. And maybe my bitchy side doesn’t want to be the first to say it, either.
Charlie’s brows pitch, eyes darting over every inch of my face, my body, like he’s scanning to see if I’m real. “Why are you . . . what are you doing here? And—in Texas? I thought . . . Am I seeing things? Is there a gas leak? What the hell’s going on? Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”
He’s still staring and I don’t know what to say, or do, so I let him.
It’s a strange sort of time warp, standing here with him.
Never mind the fact we’re in a creepy, deserted prison.
We’re in the same room. Breathing the same air.
I could reach out and touch his heartbeat.
Feel the warmth on his skin, if I wanted to.
“What are you doing here?” he repeats, taking a half step closer. The twist of his brow looks like he’s worried we are suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and I’m seconds away from kicking it.
Maybe I should speak.
But there’s no easy way to explain I’ve picked up the hobby of communing with the dead since we last saw each other—it sounds silly when you say it out loud. Charlie’s all left-brain. The only room for fantastical ideas in his life are the books I got him hooked on back in college.
“Working,” I squeak. A normal person, who hasn’t been keeping tabs on him since she left, would ask what he’s doing here, because she wouldn’t already know this from her part-time sleuthing. I say nothing.
“In . . . here?”
“Yes.”
The quiet used to be something comfortable we shared.
A gentle reassuring reminder that neither of us needed to work to fill the space—we were just happy to be there.
Together. But this silence is so awkward, so tense, it winds and winds and winds around my throat, constricting anything else from coming out.
His gaze drops down my body, unfocused and distant, confusion still tugging on his features.
Like the snick of a blade on a whetstone, his attention sharpens in the vicinity of my chest and I scramble to cross my arms, but I’m too late.
The Halbach Hunts Paranormal Investigations logo sits loud and proud, smack dab above my heart—because someone has to wear these stupid branded shirts, after how much money we spent on them—and there’s no hiding it.
“Halbach Hunts, huh?”
I could write and illustrate a visual dictionary on all things Charles Anthony Rosenhoth if I had any sort of artistic talent, and a reason to do so.
I could ink a star chart of every mole and lingering childhood scar on his body.
I could sort and categorize his idiosyncratic reactions by what emotion was percolating in that quiet, locked up brain of his.
If there is one thing I know in this world, it’s him.
And that feathering muscle in his jaw, that small tic in the twist of his mouth, like a sneer’s begging to be set free and he’s chewing it back—that’s not the hurt, the betrayal, the ache I would’ve expected.
No.
Charlie’s pissed.
Maybe I don’t remember him as well as I thought.
“New side hustle,” I answer vaguely, shaving back my cuticle with my thumbnail.
“Like . . . hunting ghosts?” He scoffs.
Molten lava spurts from the chambers of my heart to my cheeks. I narrow my eyes. “We prefer the term paranormal investigators.”
His dry laugh fires off like a gun. Its echo in the barren room taunts me. Dragging a hand down his jaw, he mutters under his breath, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What are you doing here?” I finally shoot back, hands curling into fists at my side.
“New side hustle,” he deadpans. “Storm stuff. This area’s tornado warned today. I’m on photo duty.”
Tornado warned? That explains all the weather alerts I’ve been swiping away the past few days. “So you’ll . . . be here a while?”
Charlie steps out of the thin light and closer to my darkness, bathing the angles of his face in shadows that only serve to make him look sharper—more piercing. His voice drops, gravelly and goading, as he says, “Don’t sound so excited, sweetheart.”
My eyes flare back at him as I suck in a sharp breath, snorting his bitterness like a drug, letting it consume the festering shame in my gut. “We can’t both be here.” Not with words like that lingering between us. Sweetheart.
“I’ll be up in the guard tower.” He looks away, shaking his head a little. “Don’t worry, Winona, you can keep avoiding me.” He says my name with a dark and heavy tone. A practiced curse. Nothing like the way it used to sound like gospel.
We’re mirror images of each other, thumbs tucked behind our backpack straps and fat-bellied hurt that’s been feasting for years nesting in our brows. I want to shoulder check him and storm out and never see him again—leave our tangled past ground to dust beneath my shoe.
But I’m doing this for River.
This is our one shot at this episode. The one day he secured permission for us to be here—since no way am I condoning a crowbar entry.
This time next month, Black Magnolia will be a pile of rubble with the demolition coming.
It’s now or never. I refuse to let my past be the reason I let my brother down; I promised I’d always put him first.
“Fine,” I bite.
“Fine.”
“You stay on your side of the prison and I’ll stay on mine.”
“Of course.” He rolls his eyes—just so disappointed in me.
It turns up the burner on my simmering annoyance.
I don’t want his passive aggression. I want his rage.
If he’s going to be mad at me, I want him to at least do it right.
None of this pseudo-polite bullshit, dancing around what he really wants to say.
The tight smiles, the practiced words. The truth, shackled and barred behind his teeth. We used to be honest with each other.
I need to get out of here—out of this atrium. I’m suddenly claustrophobic standing so close to him. Every inhale is tainted with his scent: sharp and smoky vetiver with the faintest snap of something citrus. Guess he hasn’t given up wearing the cologne I bought him for his twenty-fourth birthday.
“So, it’s agreed?” I slip my tongue across dry lips, and for some idiotic reason I can’t place, I extend my hand. It’s out, and I can’t take it back now.
Charlie eyes it like he’s questioning if he wants to pull the pin on a grenade. Finally, he takes it, his large, warm palm enveloping mine with a firm squeeze. A zing of victory jolts up my arm like a match dropped on a trail of gasoline.
“Okay,” he says.
Our shake lingers for a beat too long. I drop his hand like a hot pan, and swipe my palm over my jean shorts to cool the burn.
I clear my throat, but Charlie stands there.
Staring. Like he’s waiting for something else.
Some kind of acknowledgment, beyond this strange coincidence we’ve found ourselves in.
And it’s a reasonable thing to want, but like hell am I going to give that to him off the cuff considering he caught me off guard like this. I don’t even know where I’d start.
“Right. Well. Good luck with your storm,” I say.
“It’s nice to see you again.” His words are rough and rusted over as the front entrance’s hinges, like he’s been storing them for a long while. Each syllable scrapes me raw—latent venom sinking in to sting. “You look good, Winnie.”
It pierces me like a weapon, that old nickname. So soft from his lips, yet sharp enough to draw blood. That is exactly why I need to get out of here.
I nod, because my throat’s too tight to speak.
He nods back, that vague disappointment in me sinking even deeper into the crease between his brows.
Then he turns on his heel and carries on down the corridor and I study the shape of him as he walks away.
And it hits me—this is a moment he never got to have.
Shaking the thought from my head, I round the corner and head back for the door. I’m in serious need of fresh air.
But I push on the door Charlie closed behind him and it doesn’t budge. My brows furrow and I push again, leaning my weight into it. Nothing. I attempt to jiggle the handle, but nothing budges. Shoes sliding on grimy tile, I ram a shoulder into the wood and hold it.
Nothing.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
My chest pinches.
“I—uhm . . .”
With each subsequent shove against the door, my hands grow clammier, my body a million degrees hotter. Thoughts swim in my head. I’m stuck here. There’s no way out. What if I die in here? What about River?
“Um. Charlie?” I call, an embarrassing shake to my voice. I don’t know what else to do. My hip aches with the force as I throw my body against the stubborn wood. Louder, more frantic—“Charlie!”
Blood’s rushing so loud in my ears I don’t even hear his echoing footsteps come up behind me until he’s suddenly there. “What’s—”
“It won’t open,” I blurt.
“It’s probably swollen from the humidity.” Or the pissed off ghost of a felon playing a mean prank. “Here,” Charlie murmurs, right by my ear. “Let me see.”
Ridged veins crisscross the back of his hands as he gently pushes mine aside and takes the handle. The muscles in his arms flex as he pushes his weight against it.
I feel silly for calling him for help. But what else was I supposed to do? If we’re stuck in here, that’s his problem too. Charlie makes another attempt at loosening the damn thing, a grunt vibrating in his chest as he surges against it. The deteriorating metal howls but doesn’t move.
“Okay,” he pants. “It won’t open.”
My breaths come out sharp and fast as I rest a hand on my relentless heart, then press the cool back of it to my warm forehead. Nausea roils in my stomach and I brace my other palm against the filthy wall.
Charlie’s head tilts ever so slightly, his brows pulling together as he steps toward me, all frustration in his features gone. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I bark and jolt back from him.
His jaw feathers as his eyes narrow. “Didn’t know you were so claustrophobic,” he grumbles. He eyes me like this is a detail I’ve changed about myself only to spite him.
“I’m not,” I growl.
Or I wasn’t. But ever since River, the stakes have felt higher with everything I do.
Because if I screw up, I’m not just letting myself down, I’m letting him down.
If I hurt myself, he’ll be stuck worrying about me.
If, god forbid, something terrible happens and I die, he’s left all alone in this world.
“Should I call nine-one-one?” My teeth worry my bottom lip.
“That’s extreme. This isn’t an emergency.”
“We’re stuck in here.”
“We can find another way out.”
“Right. Because prisons are notoriously easy to break out of,” I deadpan.
“Hey, Ted Bundy did it.”
“What a role model. Besides, he jumped from a courthouse window, genius.”
He brushes off my biting remark, his light eyes turning pensive behind his glasses as he looks over his shoulder toward the other doorway.
“When I checked this place out on Google Earth, I noticed the fence in the yard was partially down. If we can find an exit out back, then we should be good. We can probably walk right out.”
“Probably,” I echo. “So we should—”
He nods. “Make sure, yeah.”
“All right. So we double-check for a way out of this place. Then go our separate ways.”
“Right. Yeah.” He runs a hand through his tousled chestnut hair, mussing it more than it already is.
The way his eyes dart, that sideways pinch of his mouth .
. . I know he’s going to ask an uncomfortable question—something he’s been sitting on.
It doesn’t take a genius to know what. He clears his throat.
“Guess that gives us some time to catch up.”
Our shared history beats between us like a pulse, but what’s done is done.
There are no questions, no answers, no heart-to-hearts that can unplay the cards we’ve both put down.
It’s not that I’m avoiding it to be a bitch—although that’s probably what he thinks—I just don’t see a point in revisiting things.
Charlie and I are over. Nothing will change the fact that I don’t deserve him.
But if he wants to grill me at some fruitless attempt for closure, then he can be my guest.
I set my jaw, wrap my arms around myself and lift my chin. “Sure. For the ten minutes it’ll take us to find an exit.”
“I think you’ve forgotten the things I can get done in ten minutes,” he quips.
My stomach swoops. He wants to play dirty? I can play dirty. I’m not interested in being the bigger person. “I don’t remember things ever getting done that fast.”
Even his soft huh of amusement oozes pretension, needling me without even a word. As if he’s silently volleying back My memory recalls otherwise.
He looks at me with equal parts resentment and a devilish desire to push every single one of my buttons and see which still makes me tick. It makes me want to lock myself up and throw away the key. This was not how I expected the day to go.
All these years later, and Charlie still has this unruly habit of barging in at precisely the wrong time.