“What about that big rubber band ball?” Alejo cut in, clapping dust from his hands. He closed the back of the minivan and strode back into the motel room, yellow sun bouncing from the aviators perched at his hairline.
“Do I look like a tourist?” Logan scoffed.
Brandon and Alejo made eye contact and said nothing.
“You guys are rude.”
“I like that tree you can drive through,” Alejo suggested.
Brandon grimaced. “Yeah, but it fell down in that storm.”
“There’s other ones.”
“But it’s not the same.”
“You are such a downer.”
Brandon shook his head. His lips hinted at a smile. It was a frequent expression now, but something in Logan still sank each time she saw it. How many smiles had the Dark swallowed whole? How many years had he lived in a blur of gray, waiting for the end? Even now, they were making up for lost time. She could spend every day with her fathers for the rest of her life, but it would never fill the hole the Dark had left. There was no fixing things; they could only move on.
Alejo and Brandon were packing to take off back to LA. They’d decided not to expose Snakebite to the ParaSpectors canon, but that didn’t stop news cycles from associating them with the mystery. Even after police cleared them of any involvement in the deaths, Brandon and Alejo were inextricably linked to the crime. Clickbait news sites screamed headlines like:
KILLER IN RURAL OREGON: WHAT TV GHOSTHUNTERS HAVE TO DO WITH THE INVESTIGATION!
PARASPECTORS COUPLE SOLVE MURDERS?
BRANDON WOODLEY AND ALEJO ORTIZ HELP POLICE SOLVE COLD CASES IN OREGON
The sudden publicity meant there was damage control to do. There was another season of ParaSpectors to film, and they had to come up with locations to fill it. There was a life to live—something they hadn’t thought possible with the Dark always looming over them. Despite everything that’d happened, Brandon and Alejo were going to move on.
They were going to move on alone.
Logan had dreamed of cruising the US on her own for years, but now that it was the next thing on the horizon, it felt empty. She was going to be alone again. At the end of all of this, she was still going to be alone. She was going to have to meet new people. She was going to carry this darkness in her chest—the truth about Snakebite, about Brandon, about herself—and no one would know.
“Once we figure out filming locations, maybe we can meet up for a few episodes,” Alejo suggested. He tucked the beige motel comforter under his chin and folded it. “You could be a guest investigator. An in-guest-igator.”
He laughed at his own joke.
“Maybe,” Logan said. And maybe she would meet up with them and film a few episodes. Maybe she would roll into a town a few months down the road and realize it was perfect. Maybe she would lay down roots somewhere and figure out how to build a life from the ground up. It all felt impossibly far away.
Her phone rang.
Logan rolled off the bed and wandered to her motel room. She and Ashley had spoken a few times since everything went down, but the world had fallen apart from under them. Whatever plans they’d made, whatever promises they’d exchanged, it was all in the wind now.
Ashley deserved to be happy again, whatever that looked like.
Logan would learn to be okay with that.
“Hey,” Logan said, shutting the dividing door behind her.
“Hey,” Ashley said on the other end of the line. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Yeah, sure.” Logan lay back on her bed. She and Ashley had lain here one night, hours before the world fell to pieces. “What’s up? Where are you?”