Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Everything stops. My breathing. My pulse. The rotation of the earth.
It’s clear as day in the haunted expression on Charlie’s face: that wasn’t the pronoun he was expecting. We’re standing across from each other in an empty room, but it feels like a fresh divide rose up between us, a towering rampart—mortar still wet—bolstering what was already there.
“Charlie—”
But he shakes his head, and his voice flattens, like he’s trying to smash the melding hurt and anger in his throat. “That was better. Try again.”
I duck to pick up the Ovilus off the filthy floor, and consider giving up and lying down myself. Burying myself in a shallow grave. Leaving myself to rot under this decrepit place. The punishment should fit the crime, as they say. And hurting Charlie is the worst thing I’ve ever done.
“It’s not what you think—”
His nostrils flare. “Can we stay focused?”
I open my mouth to explain, but nothing comes out. Why is it so goddamn hard to just be honest with him? I clench my molars, squeeze my eyes shut, try and brute force the truth out of myself. It would fix this.
But this life I’ve carved out for my baby brother and I .
. . it still feels fragile. It feels like something that needs to be fiercely guarded.
Mentioning River would fall the first domino of many.
It would lead to another question, and another, and another.
None of which I want to answer right now.
But I trusted Charlie. Still do.
He’s never given me a reason to doubt him. Every time I drew a line in the sand and told him not to cross it, he never did. Why would I think this would be any different?
“It’s my little brother,” I say quietly to the device he loves so much, brushing dust off the antenna. Saying it out loud drops a boulder low in my gut. “River.”
When I look up, Charlie’s forehead pinches with confusion. “Your . . . brother?”
“Yes,” I say, offering nothing else. He doesn’t move to ask any follow-up questions immediately, even though I see them puckering between his brows, so I close the door before he can. “I just thought you should know. That’s all.”
He presses his lips together and dips his chin. A wordless thank you, and not a single prying question. His relief mirrors my own.
But the energy between us has shifted. The rapport we’d been rebuilding fizzled.
He’s drawn into himself, subdued like he always got when he was dealing with something challenging at work, or was working through a tough conversation with his parents.
Is he ruminating? Is he embarrassed he shared that flash of vulnerability with me?
Whatever the reason, now he’s the one who needs a little help getting out of his head.
“I’m shit at this,” I say, redirecting us as I rub the back of my neck. “I keep screwing up.”
He shakes his head. “Try again. You love to perform.”
“This is different,” I challenge. If there’s anything that’ll bring Charlie back to himself it’s a friendly spar.
And this is different. When I was on a stage, I didn’t have to be myself.
I was movement and timing and practiced choreography and counts of eight droning like a drum beat as I aligned each muscle exactly where I wanted it.
“I don’t have the personality for this. I’m not likable enough. Too bitchy.”
“You can be very likable . . . when you want to be.” His mouth twitches. First signs of life.
“You just assume everyone likes the same things you do.” I cross my arms. “Like when you tried to convince me I liked chemistry because I said lightning was cool.”
He rolls his eyes. “You should love chemistry. Chemistry’s sexy—”
“Oh god,” I snort. Getting warmer.
“—it’s literally the science of combining things and seeing what happens. Why do you think chemistry’s the word we use to explain attraction?”
Discussing chemistry with my ex, a man I have it with in spades, is not where my head needs to be at right now. “I’m not funny enough.”
“You don’t think you’re funny? Seriously?” Charlie glares at me from beneath his lashes in exasperation.
“You were the only one who ever laughed at my jokes.”
“Because you were usually leaning over and whispering them in my ear.” He points to a spot near the door we propped open earlier.
“Lighting’s better over here. I’m giving you three more tries, Win.
You can do this. And if you can’t, well, you’ll have to figure out how to film without me. So make them count.”
There he is. All he needed was a different problem to solve than whatever was tangled in his head. I twist my grin so it looks more annoyed than smug as I cross to where he told me to stand. “Fine.”
The camera goes back up. My stomach drops right back down.
Oh no.
“Hi. Winona here. I’ll be tackling this prison investigation myself, to start.” Tugging at the hem of my shirt, I glance at the row of cells to my left.
“Eyes on me,” Charlie murmurs.
My eyes flare like a lens aperture as a flush warms every inch of me not already sweating with nerves, and my legs soften into jelly.
He didn’t say those words in the context my traitorous body wants to think he did, but that spot low in my belly tightens all the same.
How embarrassing—it’s been so long, all it takes is a few choice words to elicit a response.
Even worse, Charlie clocks my reaction immediately.
“Head out of the gutter, Win,” he huffs, attention focused on me through the viewfinder. “It’s distracting—the way you’re looking around like that. Fidgeting. Try staying focused on the camera. Like in dance. Spotting. I’m your spot. Use me.”
More heat crawls all over me. That wasn’t any better than eyes on me. I shake the thought from my mind.
“Okay. Sure.”
Be yourself. His advice echoes in my head. At this point, I have nothing to lose.
I take what feels like the thousandth deep breath of the day. When I focus again, I lift my gaze a smidge higher. Not on the convex glass, but on two familiar eyes slotted beneath dark brows, drawn in focus. I’m not talking to thousands of people I don’t know. I’m talking to him.
I’m talking to Charlie.
“Unfortunate news—my cohost is indisposed for the moment,” I deadpan, tucking my trembling hands in my pockets. “So, you’re stuck with me today. If you’re new here, I’m Winona. If you’re not new here, I’m offended if you didn’t know that already.”
I can only make out the top half of his face through the camera set up, but the lift of Charlie’s cheeks washes sweet relief over me, tingles rushing from my scalp through all my limbs. It’s silent encouragement—Good. Keep going.
“I have a special guest working this investigation with me today. If you’re into extreme weather, he might have a familiar face. Familiar abs, too.” I roll my eyes. “Yeah, he’s one of the guys from that viral video about tornado chasers running around shirtless. Charlie, you want to say hi?”
He flips the camera around, waves, then focuses it back on me. I walk a few steps for dramatic effect, mirroring River’s move from this morning’s intro.
“We’re set up in one of the cell blocks here at Black Magnolia Penitentiary, trying to make contact with the spirit of James Dewhurst.”
I nail the intro for the segment.
It’s the ghosts who drop the ball.
It doesn’t matter how much history I recount on Black Magnolia, how much legend and lore of the people once imprisoned inside its walls, not even the cat ball flickers. I meander inside a cell, sit on one of the dilapidated bunks, and call out to its former occupant.
Nothing.
Most of our investigations start this way.
A lot of them even end this way—a complete bust. But this place felt different.
I wouldn’t be going to the trouble of parading myself in front of the camera, or working with Charlie, if I knew this would be a failed mission.
But I felt the heaviness that sat in my gut, the pressure in my low back, the chill creeping up my spine.
All the tell tale signs something is here.
And yet . . .
“We’re not here to judge.” I exit the cell and stare up at the open walkway on the second floor. “We just want to talk—get to know you a little better. Could you tell us your name?”
I pace to the far end of the block. No strange smells.
No cold spots. No tension pulling like a taut bowstring in my stomach.
I’d been so caught up with tackling my episode-hosting debut that I completely forgot to tune into my strongest tool: my intuition.
The energy here’s gone flat. Burnt off like an open Coke can left out too long.
“Earlier, someone here seemed to enjoy that light up cat ball on the floor over there. Would you like to touch it again?”
Apparently not.
I run my tongue along the back of my teeth and look anywhere except Charlie’s face; I can’t handle the possibility of a smug smile, or god forbid, sympathy.
“GENDER,” the Ovilus finally spits out in its robotic monotone.
A thrill radiates in my chest. Yes. River’s notes said this was an all-male prison, back when it was functioning.
“It must be funny, seeing a woman in here, right?” I say into the quiet. “You see that antenna on the ground over there? If you get close to it, it’ll make a sound. That’ll let us know you’re there.”
No response.
“We’re trying to connect with James Dewhurst. He used to be an inmate here. Do you know him? We have some really interesting news for him.”
Nothing.
It’s one thing when an investigation is a dud; it happens often enough. It’s another thing to fail miserably in front of someone I so desperately want to impress. I don’t know why I feel the need to prove to Charlie this isn’t child’s play, but the feeling scrapes at my ribs.
“Can I ask a question?” Charlie lowers the camera so I can clearly see his face.
“Sure.”
“That thing—”
I dip my chin. “The Ovilus.”
“Right. That.” He scrapes a hand over his jaw. “If you didn’t know the background of this place, you would’ve equated the word gender to something else entirely. Right? It’s pure conjecture.”
“You say that as if every human on earth doesn’t operate with a bias.” I tilt my head, not shirking from his critique. “But we do have a few methods that aim to eliminate as much bias as possible. We do something called The Estes Method, where—”
A loud clang echoes above us and my heart leaps into my throat as I jump.
“What was that?” Charlie hisses, camera angling toward the noise.
“Are you seriously asking that?”
“Had to be the building settling, or—”
I squint at him. “Ghosts, you moron.”
“But—”
“Ghosts. This building’s over a hundred years old. I think it’s thoroughly settled by now.”
He frowns. “That’s definitely not how old buildings work. There has to be a reasonable explanation.”
“It could be pressure changes from the unstable atmosphere outside. Maybe there’s a raccoon in the vents. Could even be structural instability. But it could also be ghosts. That’s why we never look at a single piece of data in a vacuum. We went over this, Charlie.”
His face twists with what looks like concern as he glances at the camera equipment then back at me, like he’s worried this conversation is ruining the episode.
Or will at least be a pain in the ass to edit out.
What he doesn’t realize is attempting to debunk strange happenings is part of what River and I do when we film.
I crane my neck. “If you’d like to communicate, could you touch one of our devices?”
The answering silence squeezes like a band around my head and I pinch the bridge of my nose. This cell block’s as good as drained, as far as the energy’s concerned. I face the camera again.
“I think it’s time we try a new location,” I say to both Charlie and the lens.
“Before his death, James Dewhurst was said to have worked in the kitchen here at Black Magnolia Penitentiary, sometimes even spending up to twelve hour shifts there. Perhaps his spirit is still alive and well down there.”
“You want me to cut?” Charlie asks.
“No, let it roll. Don’t want to miss anything.” I swipe the REM Pod and return it to my backpack, then scoop the cat ball.
“Here.” Charlie holds out the stacked audio recorders, his fingers brushing mine as I take them and a dangerous heat following suit. After throwing them in the bag too, I shove my hands in my pockets.
He lets me lead the way as we wind back through the prison in search of the kitchen until we come back to the original atrium and the forking hallways. I glance left, then right, then over my shoulder at Charlie. “Which way do you think?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Without overthinking it, I hang a left.
Walking in step, we pass under the gridded shadows of two towering cathedral windows and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end—like we’re being watched. I open my mouth to ask Charlie if he feels it too when a low whistle howls behind us.
I suck in a sharp breath, my fingers curling around the soft skin of Charlie’s bicep on instinct. “Shit.”
“Probably the wind—”
I can’t explain it, but everything in me says to run. And not the way we’re headed. Letting my grip fall to his wrist, I break into a jog in the opposite direction. “This way.”
Together, we zip through the atrium down the other hallway, chasing whatever is causing this vibration in my bones—this frequency shift.
At the door that leads to the guard tower, another hallway breaks off, and I take it, Charlie close on my heels.
The wall is full of grated windows, offering glimpses to what’s on the other side, but I don’t pause to check what it is.
“What’s going—” But Charlie shuts up as we clear a broken metal door and come to a sudden stop.
It’s a large, rectangular room with cinderblock walls and high-set windows filtering meager light in.
Long stainless steel tables are bolted to the floor with attached stools on either side, stretching nearly the length of the space.
A pair of swinging metal doors bookend what looks like it used to be a serving counter, enclosed by a battered rolling metal window on the far wall.
“The cafeteria,” Charlie mutters, the thinnest undercurrent of awe lifting his words.
“And I bet that’s the kitchen.” I jut my chin toward the doors. “We were headed the wrong way. Whatever made that noise led us here. Whoever’s in this room wants to communicate with us. It doesn’t matter what you believe, Charlie. That was real.”
He resists the tug of a smile, but I glance at him in time to catch the barest of movement. “Right. Convenient.”
His hand gives mine an absentminded squeeze and we both look down at the pressure point; I hadn’t even realized our fingers had intertwined. Like flint and kindling, something dangerous sparks between us, and I drop his hand immediately.
I rub my sweaty palms on my shorts and pace a few steps away. “The cell block was a warmup. I have a feeling this is where the real fun begins.”