“I mean, technically—and I’m just sayingtechnically—there could be a marginal increase in metabolic rate if you were constantly exposed to temperature drops, but you’re not around entities all the time.” Benji lines up each fork to the left of the plates. “We spend maybe… what, ten percent of our week in the field? Even then, the ambient temperature drop from spectral manifestation averages only about five to eight degrees, which wouldn’t even cancel out one of the seventeen pancakes you ate last Sunday.”
Griffin clutches his chest. “Betrayed by my own team.”
“Seventeen?” I can’t help but gape at him. “How are you still alive?”
“Exceptional genetics,” Griffin says.
DJ snorts. “You’re so full of shit.”
“I’m just saying,” Griffin says, raising his hands. “Whether or not my extraordinary perception plays a role, I have a naturally high metabolism and need calories to function at peak performance.”
“Oh, shut up,” DJ says. “You’re only a Type Two.”
I raise my eyebrows, glancing between them. “Type Two?”
“Oh, right—you probably don’t know about NDP classifications yet,” DJ says. “Near Death Perception—which is Donny’s fancy way of saying ‘seeing ghosts’—comes in different strengths, depending on how much your brain got rewired when you died.”
“I’m a Type Two, which means I see ghosts all the time,” Griffin says. “So’s DJ.”
“I am, too,” Benji adds, going up behind DJ to straighten all the butter knives she’s putting down. “I’d be Type One if I weren’t on my meds, but the meds make things better for everyone involved.”
“Type Ones are the most sensitive,” DJ explains. “They can see ghosts, hear them, experience their emotions, see their memories—all that fun stuff. Type Twos can just see ghosts, which is what most of us are, and Type Threes, like Donny, can only see them during high-activity manifestations.”
“Do you have any Type Ones?” I ask.
“Nico is our only Type One,” she says.
Why am I not surprised? Clearly, being impossibly beautiful and able to take down possessed accountants like some kind of Kung Fu god wasn’t enough. The universe really went all out when it made that guy.
I can’t even imagine what that must be like. Justseeingghosts is overwhelming enough. But to actually experience their emotions?
My mind goes to that ghost from the library. I’m familiar with misery, but experiencing decades of it, while alone and confused and not understanding what’s happening to me, must feel worse than anything I’ve ever experienced.
I take a sip of water, trying to push down the sad feeling that thinking about that is giving me, but it lingers.
“Is Zoey your sixth team member?” I ask, remembering the name I saw on the locker in the prep room.
“You’re not going to meet her tonight,” DJ says, rolling her eyes. “Zoeynevergraces us with her presence at dinner. She lives mostly in her room—only comes out when necessary—but between you and me—” She lowers her voice. “She’s not very nice.”
Griffin lets out a low whistle.
“What does she do?” I ask.
“She’s our hacker.” DJ sinks into one of the stools at the island. “Donny found her five years ago, when she hacked some big-name politician’s servers when she was barely out of high school. The FBI was onto her, but Donny got to her first and offered her protection and a paycheck in exchange for her skills. Now, she handles our digital needs—gets us any information locked behind firewalls that speed up our investigation. Just don’t expect her to be friendly about it—or friendly at all. She sees us as the annoying consequences of being caught that one time.”
Griffin leans against the counter. “Zoey just doesn’t like you because you’re basically a human version of one of those singing chipmunks.”
“Alvin and the Chipmunks?” DJ looks genuinely offended. “That’s so mean!”
“I say it with love,” Griffin says.
DJ smacks him on the back of the head, and he dramatically clutches his skull. Griffin slings his arm around DJ’s shoulders, pulling her into a loose headlock. She immediately squirms out of it.
Rosie and I used to wrestle like that. She’d launch herself at me from the couch, trying to knock me over even though I was twice her size.
Bob’s standing next to my chair. I reach down to scratch behind his ears, grateful for something solid to focus on instead of the memory threatening to pull me under.He’s tense and still looks suspicious, but he must be tired after meeting so many new people because he’s given up growling.
“Zoey’s insanely smart,” DJ says, straightening her shirt, “and legitimately terrifying.”
