Chapter 6
Chapter Six
My mother raised me to believe nothing in life comes free—it may be the one thing she was right about. Because Charlie has a condition for his help.
“When this is done, do you think we could . . .” His light eyes flash to the right. “Talk?”
The way he says it makes it clear: he doesn’t mean to simply catch up.
Every avoidant bone in my body wants to shout back no. Wants to beg him to leave the past in the past—insist there’s nothing left to say. The truth won’t make him feel any better, so what’s the point in hashing it out? I try not to think about the last time I ever called him.
But I don’t want to film alone.
I’m not sure I believe myself as I force out, “Okay. Sure.”
Maybe by the time we finish I’ll have scraped up enough dregs of courage to be more honest with him than I was the last time. Hopefully.
Relief melts his features. He swipes a hand over his mouth, wiping away his earnestness. He nods toward the way we came from. “I need to set up my own equipment first, too. Shouldn’t take long, assuming I don’t run into any more stuck doors.”
“You need help?” It tumbles out of me before I can decide if I truly want to offer.
My eyes dart to the spot where the cat ball went off as I chew on my lip.
I’m nervous to leave whatever wanted to play, as if it might sneak away when I’m not looking, but something about being alone in this room unnerves me to my core.
Charlie watches me for a long, yawning minute, saying nothing. Thin lines fan around his eyes as his brow furrows. Like he’s caught in his mind, trying to deduce if this is all real or some dream he’ll wake up from, half-remembering, half-wishing it were true.
“Sure,” he says.
I brush off the shiver slicing down my arms and charge forward, leading the way out of this cell block. “You know where you’re going?”
I look over my shoulder just in time to catch his dimples carving into his cheeks, for the first time in so, so long. My stomach has no right to swoop in the way it does. He’s distracted by the strap of his backpack; he doesn’t even notice me noticing. “Who do you think I am, Winona?”
I press ahead, fighting a tiny smile. “Let’s get moving then. The ghosts get pissed if you leave them waiting,” I say flatly.
He catches up to me easily. “Follow me.”
I don’t bother asking where. We’re in a decrepit, abandoned prison. The where doesn’t matter. It all looks the same as it rots.
We crunch through the filthy prison in silence, ducking under dangling wires and sidestepping shattered glass.
Charlie leads us back to the atrium we entered through and across it, turning down the hallway where we originally ran into each other.
At the end of the looming corridor is a heavy metal door.
I hold my breath, lungs pinching, as Charlie reaches for the handle, only letting it out when it grudgingly opens with a screech. Thick, humid air rolls over us.
I can’t say I’ve spent any time in a prison before, but I have seen Shawshank Redemption at least forty-six times.
We’re in the prison yard. A barbed wire fence sections off the pathway before us from the rest of the outdoor area.
Charlie motions his hand, ladies first, and as one of my sneakers crushes into the gravel, I tip my head up to the smoky sky.
Standing several yards ahead, is a guard tower.
It’s nowhere near as sophisticated as they are nowadays, and built directly into a sturdy brick wall.
No, this one looks more like a move of arrogant engineering: a stout, top-heavy windowed room balanced on spindly metal legs, rust speckling like freckles coming out with the sunshine.
I bet it sways when the wind blows too hard.
Charlie tests the bottom step of the zigzagging staircase with his heavy boot, rocking his weight a few times. When the entire thing doesn’t collapse immediately, it earns his stamp of approval and he waves me onward. “Up here.”
My pulse takes off but my body refuses to move. It cajoles me: you’re safer here on flat ground where gravity can’t take your ass out from one wrong step. What would River do without you?
The hesitancy must be written all over my face. A smirk curls on Charlie’s face. “Don’t tell me the ghost hunter’s scared of a little height.”
“Just wondering when I last got a tetanus shot.”
I’ll only embarrass myself if I don’t go up there. Locking my jaw and breathing evenly through my nose, I take the first step. White knuckling the flaking railing, I take another, and another, Charlie behind me.
Up we go.
“You good?” Charlie calls behind me, strangling a chuckle in his throat.
“I’m fine.” If I fall to my death, I’ll just be leaving my kid brother alone to fend for himself in the world. No biggie.
The breeze kicks up, and oh my fucking god, I was right. The structure moves beneath me and my stomach clenches. Like it’s angry we’re invading its space, the metal squeals and creaks, protesting each footfall. But I keep moving. And I don’t dare look down as we crisscross our way to the top.
One more set of stairs. My breathing’s ragged, my thighs heavy as lead.
Maybe I should jump in with my students during conditioning week later this month.
Moving through the burn, I drag my right leg up, but before my foot plants back down on the grated metal, warmth sparks at my side.
Charlie’s large palm curls around my hip.
“Watch your step, baby,” he murmurs.
My eyes drop; there’s a hole on the step beneath my lofted shoe. I avoid the obstacle and it hits us both at the same time what he just said—what he called me. That his hand’s still cradled protectively over my curves.
“Sorry,” he hisses, his hand dropping like I’ve burned him.
My heart’s lodged in my throat, so when I try to brush it off, it comes out more like “I’ssokay” than a real word.
The way his hands used to feel elsewhere on my body—it’s something I could never forget, even if I wanted to.
And Charlie wouldn’t be Charlie if he wasn’t looking out for those around him.
Muscle memory. That’s all. An inconvenient, stupid physiological response. A backslide into an old life. I ignore the question stirring in the back of my head—does he call anyone else baby these days? It’s not my business.
The phantom of his handprint follows me all the way to the top. And up there, I see exactly why his crew dropped him off here for photo duty of today’s storm system.
Standing on the platform, there’s a perfect 360 degree view of the area for miles, in each direction.
The moisture-bloated sky casts a somber, lifeless filter over the pastoral landscape, the smattering of farm houses, the distant white peak of a steeple in the tree canopy, and over Black Magnolia behind me.
Charlie hums, surveying the tower’s observation post, and nudges the sagging door open as we walk inside.
There are windows on every wall—they must be thick glass if none of them have busted all the years this place has sat here, unmaintained.
It’s empty, save for a tipped-over chair, a rickety table, and a thick layer of grime.
Tugging at the frame, Charlie wrestles one of the windows open, then swings his backpack off his shoulder.
His jeans tighten around his thighs as he squats, balancing the bag on one knee as he ruffles through it.
The past two years have been generous to him—he’s found more places to refine his body, to stack taut muscle.
My gaze traces his broad shoulders, the shape of his biceps visible through the thin button up he has layered over his shirt, rolled up to the elbows.
He pulls out a folded tripod, and my attention zings.
His damn hand again.
His strange, knobby knuckles I always liked; the way his veins pop and fork across his skin like a topographic map; the analog leather watch his dad gifted him for his eighteenth birthday.
It happens in quick bursts, the way that hand flashes in my mind’s eye in reverse: wrapped around my thigh as we drove to his parents’ house that last Thanksgiving; holding mine as we whispered promises in the Poetry Garden at the Arboretum; exploring every inch of me as our bodies pressed together and all the other sweaty strangers at Garrett’s surprise rager faded into the background.
Charlie turns to me, and a stupid breath catches in my chest. He holds out the tripod. “I take it you know what to do with this.”
I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts then snatch it from him, grimacing. I need to get a grip. “Obviously.” I extend the legs and quirk a brow at him. “Posting up here and taking some photos and videos doesn’t exactly sound like chasing to me.”
“No. Mostly sitting and waiting. But it’s still important.
” He sighs and I swear I detect a hint of frustration.
It’s not my place to pry into details, but he’s the oldest of three: he’s never liked not being the one in charge.
I lock the last joint in place and he hands me a camera to mount on the tripod.
“There’s a regional severe weather organization that holds a competition every year for best storm photography, and best storm captured on video.
Winner gets some serious cash, which we’re pretty much always in desperate need of.
Chasing’s expensive. We’ve gone through three windshields this year alone. ”
He slides an iPad from his bag, swiping across the screen.
He runs his knuckles across his jaw and turns to look west, a handsome intensity settling in his features, and I notice the faintest trace of crow’s feet extending from his eyes.
They make him look refined in the obnoxious way aging does for most men.