She balls up the label and places it on the glossy wood.
“Everyone thought he was perfect,” she says, her fingers picking at the glue still clinging to the bottle. “But he wasn’t. He’d get mad over nothing—if I talked to another guy—if I didn’t answer his texts fast enough. At first, it was just yelling, but then—” She runs her hands down her face, shaking her head like she can’t say the words. “I needed to end things, but he was so sorry every time, and I thought—I was being dramatic, you know? One night, he took me to this lake I used to go swimming in as a kid with my brothers. He’d planned this whole big thing, and wanted to go all the way—I got scared—he got mad—dragged me to the water and held my head underwater. I remember fighting—trying to get away—but he was stronger and I couldn’t… I thought I was a goner.”
It’s as if gravity gets stronger, dragging my entire body harder down toward the ground.
“DJ,” I say, but she keeps going.
“My big brother Aaron had this bad feeling that night,” DJ says. “He couldn’t explain it—just knew something was wrong—so he came looking for me. Pulled me out of the water and did CPR until I came back.”
The whiskey in my stomach suddenly feels like acid. I remember what it felt like when the plastic bag suctioned to my face, when I thought I was going to die, and the two people who had always protected me weren’t coming.
“Cody said he didn’t know what happened, but Aaron saw through it and killed him,” DJ continues. “Aaron’s still in prison. Has been for seven years, and has another three to go. The system said Aaron was a murderer, but if he hadn’t come for me that night, I’d be dead.”
DJ looks up at me. Her eyes are shining.
“I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me,” DJ says. “Helping people the system can’t reach is the only way I know how to honor what Aaron did for me. Nico’s struggling right now, but this job is bigger than him, and you need to find a way to still do it regardless of how he’s acting. Plus, I want you to know I’m really glad you’re here. I was starting to drown in a house full of men. I’m happy to have another girl in the house who actually likes me.”
I reach out and put my hand over hers. She grips my fingers so tightly they hurt.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, “I think your brother’s a hero.”
“Me too.” DJ chugs the rest of her beer and slams the empty bottle on the bar. “Okay, enough heavy shit. Let’s get drunk.”
“The best words in the English language,” I say.
Three shots later, the bartender is starting to look too much like he jumped off the front of a box of Lucky Charms for me to keep a straight face, and DJ’s laughing so hard she’s folded over the bar.
I should stop. I know I should stop, but I’ve never been good at knowing when enough is enough, so I order another whiskey to sip because if five drinks make things bearable, maybe six will make them disappear.
Except they never disappear. Drinking until I can’t feel anything just means I wake up the next morning feeling everything twice as hard, but I never seem to learn that lesson.
I’m raising the bar glass to my mouth when cold blooms at the base of my neck.
CHAPTER 23
My team uses the terms ‘ghost’ and ‘entity’ interchangeably. I prefer ‘entity’ because it strips away all supernatural romanticism. The manifestations we work with are not Casper or Patrick Swayze. They’re dangerous, they’re real, and the terminology should reflect that.
—Journal of Donald Dellman, April 2024
I spin on my stool so fast I almost fall off it. There’s nothing unusual about the bar. Same tired people nursing their drinks, same sports game playing on the TV in the corner, same bartender wiping down glasses.
“Eden?” DJ’s voice sounds far away even though she’s right next to me. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to leave.” I dig through my jacket pocket for my wallet.
“What?” DJ asks. “Why?”
I throw cash on the bar—more than I probably owe—and grab DJ’s arm.
DJ slides off her stool, and I shuffle toward the door. The whiskey’s made everything soft around the edges, which was exactly what I wanted ten minutes ago, but now I’m cursing myself for it.
The winter air hits like a stinging slap when we get outside, but at least it’s the normal kind of cold, not the paranormal kind.
“Did you feel that?” I scan the parking lot. The streetlights cast weird shadows between the cars, and every one of them looks like it could be hiding something.
“Feel what?” DJ asks, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering.
“The ghost cold.”
