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“Any suggestions for next steps?” Demetrius repeated.
“Oh. Well, not off the top of my head, no.”
Oliver grinned and looked away to hide it from Cody. Demetrius knew how to defuse Cody without calling him out about his behavior. He’d just distracted him out of his rant by encouraging him to think of next steps. The two of them really did work well as a couple. He hoped people thought the same of him and Dave.
“We could still go out and look for him,” Cody said. “It’s just rain.”
His suggestion was punctuated by a brilliant flash of lightning followed quickly by a boom of thunder that made them all jump. He made a face. “Or we could talk through next steps and lock down the room here for the night.”
“That’s probably the best idea,” Demetrius said, switching on the battery-powered lantern. “Let’s get to work.”
They closed the door and poured salt along the bottom, then added salt to both windowsills, and used the last of one container in a line across the floor in front of the bathroom door. With that done, they paced the room, holding up their phones in an effort to find any kind of signal. Cody got a weak connection in the corner by the front window, and Demetrius and Oliver crowded in close to him. They looked at slow loading satellite maps of the area in an effort to get some insight into possible locations they might find Dave, but with no luck.
“I don’t see any weird little hunting cabins like where I was held by Nicolae,” Demetrius said, referring to the alpha werewolf that had tried to take over Parson’s Hollow. He moved a finger around the screen of Cody’s phone, shifting the map. “Of course, something that small might not show up. There’s no rocky ground that could be a cave like where we found the Pinesville Devil.”
“The Devil of Pinesville,” Oliver and Cody corrected simultaneously, then glared at each other.
Demetrius smirked and kept his eyes on the phone. Oliver had the sneaking suspicion he’d said it wrong on purpose just to get them both to correct him. Probably some wicked little game he played to amuse himself. The quiet ones were always the most evil.
With no luck on the satellite images, they sat in different spots around the room and finished the leftovers from the diner, leaving the full meal Oliver had ordered for Dave in the cooler. Cody stomped to the bathroom and peered in the door, then huffed and looked at Oliver.
“How’d you and Dave go to the bathroom?”
“If we had to pee, we just went in that bucket in there and dumped it out in the morning.”
“Gross,” Cody muttered, wrinkling his nose. “And if you had to do more than pee?”
Oliver smiled. “Cody, do you need to go number two?”
“Ollie, I’m seriously not in the mood for your teasing.”
“Okay, okay.”
Oliver held up a hand for peace and stood. He grabbed the small camping shovel Dave had brought with them and the roll of toilet paper and handed both over before returning to his chair. Cody accepted the items and looked at the shovel with a frown. He looked at Demetrius, then at Oliver. Understanding hit him, and his face was a perfect combination of disgust and fury.
“Are you kidding me?” Cody exclaimed, brandishing the shovel like a sword.
“Nope,” Oliver said. “It was your brother’s brilliant idea.” He gestured toward the door to the room and off to the left. “We had an area out there specifically set aside as a latrine. We’d go out, dig a hole, shit in it, then bury it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I am not.” Oliver held up his phone. “Tell you what, squatting over a hole in the woods really kills the temptation to sit and look at your phone, so you should finish up pretty quick.”
Cody curled his lip in distaste. “Gross. Don’t put that image in my head.”
“I’ve sent you texts while I’ve been pooping,” Oliver said.
“Goddammit, Ollie.” Cody stormed across the room and yanked the door open. He turned to glare at Oliver, then grabbed the lantern and, with the small shovel tucked under one arm and a strip of toilet paper waving behind him like a banner, strode out into the rain.
“You enjoyed that way too much,” Demetrius said, going to the door. “I’ll just stand here and make sure he’s not interrupted.”
“You guys are into that?” Oliver said with a grin.
Demetrius shot him a look over his shoulder. “I’ll let that one go because you’re worried about Dave.”
Oliver put his head back and closed his eyes, wondering how Dave was doing and if he might be in a shelter of any kind. He hated to think that Dave would spend a full night out in the woods somewhere, powerless under the ghost’s spell. He heard the steady fall of rain, and as much as he enjoyed the idea of Cody getting rained on while he squatted over a hole in the ground, he hated the thought of Dave out there alone and in danger.
Demetrius moved back from the door, and Cody marched through a moment later. The rain had soaked his clothes, and his hair lay flat on his head. The toilet paper roll was wet and misshapen from the tight clutch of his fingers. His boots were caked with mud and the bottom half of his jeans was splattered with it.
