Page 160 of Silent Shadows

I shrug. “Hanging in there! I want to see what you got. I’m on the phone, though. I’ll be in in a sec. I think Miles is still asleep in there.”

Taylor and Maya nod, and Jax follows them up into the RV.

“Okay, I’m back. You know I love you, but I can’t do that. I tried with the first episode and had to restart. That’s not me.”

“I know, but what comes after this?”

I pause, hearing the crew stepping inside.

“I don’t know, Riss. I don’t know what I want anymore.”

I stare toward the trees. Toward mist still lingering between the trunks. Toward the place that feels dangerous, impossible, and alive. Toward the place where I heard something I still can’t explain. Where I saw the look on Miles’s face as he knelt over that track.

Marissa’s quiet for a beat. “What do you mean, babe? Like, for this podcast, or in life?”

“I… I don’t know,” I admit quietly.

“You don’t know what?”

“What I believe yet.”

chapter

twenty-one

MILES

I wake up cold. Freezing cold.

The kind that settles in your bones after a soggy hike and feverish sleep and delirium-inducing cold medicine.

For one blurry second, I don’t know where I am. Leather against my cheek. Low humming electronics. The Mystery Machine. Right.

My glasses are crooked. My neck hurts. My eyelids are heavy from whatever sleep-inducing syrup I took.

And Daisy⁠—

I sit up too fast.

Bad choice. The room tilts immediately.

“This is really great,” I mutter hoarsely to nobody.

The blanket slips off my shoulders.

Daisy’s side of the couch is empty.

Her laptop sits open, comment notifications glowing across the screen. A mug of tea, gone cold, rests beside it.

The RV feels weirdly quiet. I scrub one hand over my face and squint toward the front windows—dusk has settled.

Gray light. Wet trees. No Daisy.

Something uncomfortable nudges low in my stomach.

Not panic, just awareness. Absence. Like my body already registered her being gone before my brain caught up.

I stand up and regret it.