Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
I’m crashing and burning so spectacularly this whole prison’s about to go up in smoke.
“Hello,” I blurt, drawing the ‘o’ out like it’ll buy me time to get my shit together. “I—uhm, welcome back. To another episode. Wait—no. Let me try again.”
Dammit. I’m already regretting telling Charlie to keep the camera continuously rolling.
My mind’s completely blank in the face of that stupid lens.
Soothing the heat, I press a palm to my forehead and ease out a breath.
I swallow my frustration, which settles in my stomach right on top of my embarrassment.
Not only am I screwing everything up, I’m doing it in front of Charlie.
I pace to the other end of the cell block, glaring at the spot where the cat ball flared earlier. Whatever set it off is what got me into this mess in the first place.
Why did I think I could do this? I’m the behind-the-scenes equipment mule.
The off-camera quippy sidekick. Nothing that ever comes out of my mouth could hold a candle to River’s natural charisma.
Not to mention the “script” he said was in the backpack is a few vague, high-level talking points, most of which are dubbed voice over for B-roll. He left me to the wolves.
“Walk me through your setup,” Charlie says, panning the camera after me. “Can’t say I’ve ever ghost hunted before.”
“Yeah, you just chase clouds and pray they bless you with something interesting,” I snarl, arms crossing.
His tongue clicks. “Ouch. Claws are back out, I see.”
Rolling my eyes, I tip my head back and gather my tangles, furled and frizzed under the weight of moist air, then cinch them in a sloppy bun. The back of my neck is still too hot, burning with the familiar ugly discomfort of feeling like there’s been a chip in my armor. I’ve shown too much.
I’m being a bitch. I know I am. If River wasn’t so damn fixated on this Dewhurst story, I’d have thrown in the towel three screwed up attempts ago.
I can’t do this.
“You’re not usually the one in front of the camera, are you?” Charlie asks.
“Actually, fifteen straight minutes of fucking up is a recurring bit on the show,” I growl.
“Then you’re killing it.” A grin splits his face. “Keep going. Five more and we’re there.”
I pinch my eyes shut and—god help me—tuck my amusement between my teeth. “Ass.”
“I’m trying to help, Win.” He takes measured strides across the room, watching me through the viewfinder. “You’re just a little stiff. Get out of your head.”
I pulse my temples with the heels of my hands. “I don’t know how—”
“Walk me through your setup,” he repeats. Slower. A little more patient. “What did you ask me to do first?”
“Put your phone in airplane mode and turn off unnecessary electronic devices.” I tug at the straps on my backpack as my body rotates on its own accord, following the path he cuts across the cell block.
“Keep going,” Charlie says.
He’d been obedient as a Boy Scout, meticulously addressing everything in his backpack that was a risk of tainting this investigation.
“Then I asked you to check the cells for drafts while I took a baseline EMF read of the room. There was a hotspot”—I point to the wall by the exit—“right there. Probably old electrical work.”
He gives a small, approving nod, the corner of his mouth tweaking up. “And I didn’t notice any drafts.”
“Then I had you help me set out the tools.”
Charlie pans the camera toward the REM Pod on the floor. When I told him the antenna on the short cylinder detected fluctuations in the electromagnetic field to let us know if there were spirits potentially nearby, to his credit, he didn’t even twitch a brow.
“This is perhaps the most sophisticated of them all,” he says, sounding far too stoic for me to take him seriously. He crosses to the far side of the room and squats. “The cat ball.”
I snort. “Motion sensor.”
I’d tasked him with finding a nice, flat surface to set it.
Despite the are-you-kidding-me look he’d shot me, he did a fantastic job.
I watched with rapt interest as he dragged the toe of his boot across the floor, checking for unevenness.
Presumably satisfied, he set it down. He studied the ball as it threw lights in every direction, like it was the latest run of a weather prediction model and he was trying to analyze what it meant for the DFW area.
His brain—the way it works—has always entranced me. Thoughtful. Always problem solving. Never works in half measures, even for things he questions.
Just like now. How easy it would’ve been for him to make me feel small over all of this. The ghosts. The tools. The way I’m failing spectacularly on camera. Instead, he’s helping and knew exactly what to ask to get me to stop fixating on the intro I was bombing.
“You’re good at this.” I scrunch my nose and wave vaguely toward the equipment in his hands.
Charlie shrugs. “Picked up a thing or two working with Saddle Up. Chad freezes up too. If I don’t prompt him with questions he’ll sit there with a thousand yard stare.”
“So you’re the designated camera guy?”
“More like I’m the only one who took the time to figure out how to get good at it,” he mutters.
The shadow of disdain in his voice piques my interest. That, coupled with the frustration I picked up from him in the guard tower, has me stalking the meaning like prey.
I circle around it, from all different angles.
Trouble in paradise with the guys at Saddle Up?
Is he clashing with Garrett? What about this new guy, Chad?
I used to be the shepherd of all his secrets. Now I have to pull them out with my teeth.
I lay bait instead of going for the kill.
“You sound a little bitter.”
“Just prefer being out on the chase,” he says.
He doesn’t bite. And I forfeited the right to be upset over being denied access to his every thought when I packed a bag after Thanksgiving at his parents’ house two years ago, but that doesn’t stop my spine from stiffening. Like my vertebrae are still convinced he’s mine.
I grind the thought to dust beneath my shoe as I pivot, pacing away. “I put out two audio recorders, to try catching some EVP, like voices or sounds. And that’s—oh. Wait.”
How could I possibly forget River’s favorite part of any investigation?
“Last but not least, the Ovilus 5.” I palm the small device from the side pocket of my backpack.
Lowering the camera, Charlie squints at it. “What’s that?”
“A communication tool,” I say. He gestures for me to pass it over, and I do. “We usually use dictionary mode, which translates environmental disturbances to words in a pre-loaded dictionary.”
The compact device looks like a doll’s toy in the palm of his large hand as he scrutinizes it. He taps one of two stout antennae, traces the red border around the touch screen interface. “So, it’s a random word generator.”
“No.” I hold my hand out and he passes it back. “It’s—it’s legit.”
He levels the camera back up, pointing it right at me as his head tilts. “How do the ghosts know what disturbance correlates to what word? Do we get a manual for this thing when we die?”
I won’t even dignify that with a response. “A good investigator never uses a tool in isolation. That’s why we have all these other devices to cross-reference our data points.” I plant a hand on my popped hip. “Very scientific, wouldn’t you say?”
He snorts. “Not the word I was thinking of.”
I conjure the flattest death-stare possible. “Another key to a successful investigation is shutting the fuck up.”
Charlie lifts a hand in surrender. “Wow. Okay. I’ll behave.”
The words don’t bite on my behalf. The fangs are all for River, the true brains behind this operation.
Never mind the fact I used to tease him about his obsession with ghosts before he dragged me to the abandoned old sugar factory on the outskirts of our dumpy hometown.
He’s my brother, it’s my job to tease him.
Anyone else, though? They don’t stand a chance.
I feign like I’m messing with the Ovilus so I don’t have to meet Charlie’s gaze.
I take no issue with skeptics. Some of our most dedicated viewers fall into that category, tuning in only to push the boundaries of their beliefs.
But what I don’t have patience for is when someone acts like this is all .
. . silly. Stupid. Like River shouldn’t be wasting his time with this kind of fantasy.
“Sorry,” I force out, fighting my instinct to shut down entirely. “You’re allowed to question this stuff, I don’t care, I just . . .” I trail off, words failing me. Per usual.
“All good,” Charlie says quietly. He moves the camera stabilizer to the side, no longer hiding behind it. “I took it too far. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be a dick. I’m trying to . . .” He exhales a slow breath. “Understand.”
Understand. It’s a loaded word. Like he thinks the smoking gun of exactly what went wrong between us lies somewhere within the walls of this prison, tucked behind explanations of what I’m doing here and why.
In a way, I guess it is.
Finally, I deign to meet his eyes, which are already on me. Long lashes curl around the galaxies, swirling in light blue. Supermassive black hole right in the middle, tugging me toward its all-consuming center of gravity.
I swallow and whirl, freeing myself from it.
“If I’m being completely honest, I have no idea how the Ovilus really works-works.
And not everything it spits out feels legit, but sometimes it has uncanny responses that are more than just coincidence.
And outside of all these novel devices, I trust my gut more than anything else.
Sometimes information feels right. Sometimes it feels wrong. ”
“Fair. I respect that.”
His tone is nothing but earnest and I’m reminded Charlie doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body.
He always used to give me the benefit of the doubt.
Clearly, that hasn’t changed. He’s not some internet asshole looking to spoil the thing someone enjoys.
He’s a skeptic, cursed with a brain that never stops hungering for answers, trying to learn. My shoulders loosen.
“I think I want to try again.” My teeth worry my bottom lip as I run my hand around my shirt collar, checking to ensure my mic’s still in place.
I take a deep breath, center myself, and try to channel my inner River, minus the stupid clothes.
“Welcome back to another episode of Halbach Hunts. Uh, you might know me as . . . Winona.” I say it like I’m not convinced I’m telling the truth, still stumbling and awkward. “Today, we’re investigating Black Mag—fuck. He already covered that.”
I drop the Ovilus.
Charlie’s staring at me. Brows drawn. Shoulders sagging. Lips parted.
“He?”