Page 124 of Silent Shadows

I unlock my phone and forward the email I sent to Marissa earlier before I can overthink.

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

He doesn’t take it out.

“Thank you,” he says.

Two words with too much weight.

That night, we go to a local bar.

Of course cheap beer and pool tables are the only appropriate response to finding potential evidence of an undiscovered primate, recording my first podcast episode, and nearly blowing up my entire professional life for one beautifully earnest man.

The place is called The Antler & Ash, which feels less like a bar name and more like the title of a folk album recorded by your high school bully’s whiny older brother.

It sits a twenty minute drive from camp at the edge of a two-lane road, low and dark against the trees, with a gravel lot full of mud-splattered trucks and one neon sign buzzing weakly in the window. Inside, it smells like beer, fried food, old wood, and rain-soaked denim. The walls are covered in license plates, taxidermy, faded trail maps, and Polaroids of hunters holding up things I choose not to inspect too closely.

A jukebox glows in the corner.

A pool table leans slightly to the left.

The bartender looks like he was carved out of cigarettes, jerky, and disappointment.

It is perfect.

“This place has definitely seen at least one unsolved disappearance,” Jax says happily.

Maya slides onto a barstool. “Don’t flirt with the building.”

“I’m not flirting. I’m appreciating the atmosphere.”

Taylor orders a whiskey neat, which surprises no one. Maya gets a cider. Jax orders something pink and tropical that will eventually involve regret. Miles gets one beer and then spends five minutes reading the label like it contains field data.

I get a tequila soda because I am a woman of mystery and also because the wine list is one handwritten word: red.

We claim a booth near the pool table, and everyone gets comfortable.

Jax tells a story about accidentally crashing a drone into a wedding arch in Sedona. Taylor laughs so hard she has to wipe her eyes. Maya, who I assumed was the responsible one, turns out to be quietly vicious at pool and destroys a man in a camo hat who made the mistake of calling her “little lady.”

Miles sits beside me.

Not suspiciously close. But his knee brushes mine under the table. Once. Then again. The second time, neither of us moves away. It is agonizing. It is also, unfortunately, fun. Secret things should not be fun.

That feels like how people end up making bad decisions in cabins, elevators, and apparently cryptid-adjacent dive bars.

My phone buzzes with messages from Marissa at one point.

Marissa

Okay, I love it. It surprised me, because it was as funny as I thought it was going to be. But you went deeper, and I’m here for it.

Me

Yeah?

Marissa

It sounds more like you than you have in a long time. I think you’ve got something here.