Page 32 of Silent Shadows

By the time night settles over camp, the high desert temperature drops hard and fast. The Machine creaks softly around us as everyone winds down into their usual rhythm.

I’m relaxing in my bunk, trying to take notes in my journal. Taylor’s playing music quietly through her headphones while organizing crystals in her bunk for reasons I’ll never understand. In the front area, Jax is still editing footage, lit only by his laptop’s glow. Maya’s typing away as if our lives depend on it, and, financially speaking, they probably do.

In the back, Daisy is perched on the counter, eating trail mix straight from a bag while recording notes into her phone.

“…there’s a surprising level of competence here,” she murmurs.

“Again,” I call from my bunk area, “rude.”

“I’m documenting. And based on what I’ve seen and read, you guys seem more competent than other crews.”

“Well, we’re not full of shit like the Ridgefield crew. Most of us do have degrees.”

“In what? Monster history?” She leans forward to make eye contact.

“No, though I did consider a master's in folklore. But I double-majored in biology and anthropology. People assume I woke up one day and decided to chase ghosts and cryptids. That's not really how it happened. I spent a few years working for the Forest Service doing trail maintenance, wildlife surveys, fire mitigation, whatever needed doing. It was honest work, and I loved it. I got paid to disappear into the woods for days at a time."

“Still doesn’t explain why you laminated behavioral policies.”

“That was preparedness.”

I hear her laugh softly under her breath.

It does something weird to my chest.

I ignore that.

Instead, I try to focus on my notes, which becomes far more difficult as Daisy approaches the ladder to her bunk above mine. I will my eyes to stay on the blank page before me.

Not because looking would be inappropriate exactly—we’re all existing in a space the size of a glorified hallway—but because the second she distracts me, my brain becomes profoundly unhelpful.

And it’s getting worse.

She changed sometime after dinner, swapping out the polished podcast-host version of herself for gray shorts and a faded university sweatshirt that hangs loose off one shoulder as she moves. She’s gotten more casual over the last day. The sleek hair she arrived with now falls in soft, dark waves around her face, as if she forgot to care how it looked. It suits her.

She grips the ladder with one hand, muttering under her breath as the oversized sleeve falls down her wrist. She climbs carefully into the top bunk. There’s no performance to her right now. No polished delivery or well-timed sarcasm. Just sleepy irritation and bare skin catching warm amber light from the bunk lamps.

And I hate—absolutely hate—that I notice details.

Like the tiny scar near her knee.

Or the fact that she scrunches her nose when she’s concentrating on not hitting her head.

Or the way her ankle brushes the edge of my bunk for half a second as she shifts upward, all warm skin and accidental closeness.

Annoying.

“Okay,” she mutters once she finally gets settled above me, hair falling over the edge of the mattress as she peers downward. “I think I was so tired last night that I passed out without thinking. Tonight, this feels like sleeping in an expensive coffin.”

I glance up before I can stop myself.

Big mistake.

Because now she’s upside down, looking down at me with sleepy eyes and flushed cheeks, and I'm once again distracted to the point of losing access to my expansive vocabulary.

“It’s not not coffin-like,” I say, clearing my throat. Then I add, “But it’s spatially efficient.”

She smirks. “There’s the weird little camp counselor energy again.”