Chapter 22

Night had fallen on Penny Place Amusement Park hours ago. A few minutes before midnight, the last park employee handed Georgia the keys to the main gate.

Rebel yawned, then proceeded to jump up and down.

“Time to split up,” Georgia said, handing Maverick a map.

“Why?” Lucky asked, slightly frowning.

“For the ghosts. Team B will keep them distracted so Rebel can film her night scenes safely.”

Legend had it that a couple decided to have their wedding at Penny Place because they met there as park employees. The details were fuzzy because they were fake, but somehow the couple died right after saying their vows. Now they haunted the park at night testing couples who dared to walk the wedding’s procession path. If their love was deemed worthy, they’d feel cold and get a love token from the enchanted tree stump. If not, they’d be tormented for the duration of the walk and cursed to break up in seven days.

Lucky’s palms began to sweat. “What are you talking about? There aren’t any ghosts in this park. No one died here—I checked the town records myself.”

“How did you do that?” Maverick asked.

“Most of the town’s newspaper archive have been digitized. I pretended to be a new resident, signed up for a library card online, and got access. When I didn’t find anything, I called the police department, got the contact info for the retired sheriff who would’ve handled the investigation at the time if it had happened, and told him I was a journalist working on a story about small-town urban legends. He confirmed—it’s all a lie. What?” She looked at the group, all staring at her. “I don’t go anywhere without researching the location first.”

Georgia’s scoff ended in an affectionate laugh. “Instead of doing all that, you could’ve asked me. I used ‘ghosts’ as shorthand. The legend itself isn’t real but that didn’t stop an entire town from repeating the story, passing it down for generations, testing it, keeping it alive. Our belief in the legend made it real. It’s not ghosts, but it’s definitely…something.”

“Oh, shit. I didn’t think of that. Why didn’t I think of that?” She turned to Maverick as if he had an answer.

“Not gonna lie, I assumed you did. That’s why I didn’t bring it up.”

“And you’re sure about this?” Lucky asked Georgia.

“I’ve done the walk. It’s not fake.”

Lucky gasped. “Did you pass?”

“If you must know”—Georgia pursed her lips—“no, I didn’t. They scared me so bad a patch of my hair turned white and we broke up a week later. Anyway, as long as Rebel stays off the path while a couple is walking it, they won’t mess with her.”

Lucky nodded, trying to temper her growing discomfort. “Who’s on what team?”

“Well.” Georgia dragged out the word as if she were stalling. “If it’s me and Maverick, the incest alarms will start blaring immediately. We’re practically family at this point. Lucky, you and me, we could go but it’s not the best idea. It has to be you and Maverick.”

“Even I knew that,” Rebel whispered.

“What happened to no such thing as silly questions, Shortcake? Don’t betray me like this.”

Georgia placed her hands on Lucky’s shoulders. “Be cheesy. Keep it cute. Make it sexy. It doesn’t matter as long as they believe it and you follow the rules. This isn’t like Hennessee House.” The fierce look in her eyes killed Lucky’s objections before she could even think of them.

“How so?”

“Because if you see something uncanny, no, you didn’t,” Georgia began with unquestionable authority. “If you hear something strange, no, you didn’t. Don’t listen to it, don’t look at it, don’t look back. Stay calm and please do not run unless you are positive you have to because it will chase you. Keep moving forward at a nice, steady pace. Okay?”

And with that, Georgia had stomped her way into Lucky’s heart. “Okay.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Georgia turned to Maverick. “You. Eyes forward and focused. Keep her on the path—you know how she gets.”

“On my honor.”

“Trackers on. Timers set,” Georgia commanded, looking at her watch. “One hour at my mark. We meet back here. No exceptions. Safe word: lifehouse.”

“Ready,” they all said in unison.

Maverick kneeled in front of Rebel. “Remember what we talked about? Let’s run through it. Who’s in charge?”

“Georgia,” Rebel answered.

“What do you do if you get scared?”

“Don’t move, count to ten, and if I’m still scared, I can quit.”

“What do you do if you want to quit? Do you run away?”

“No, I tell Georgia.”

“What if you get separated? What do you do?”

“We don’t get separated. I have to hold Georgia’s hand the entire time.”

“What if there’s an emergency and you have to let go of her hand?”

“I stay where I am and call everyone for help.”

“Good.” He clipped a white tag to the front of Rebel’s shirt—her tracker. They all had one. It pulsed red at steady intervals. “You know I’m proud of you, right?”

Rebel nodded and lunged at him, trapping him in a bear hug. “This is the best day ever.”

“You always say that.”

“I mean it this time.” Rebel grabbed Georgia’s hand as they walked away. “I love you, Dad! Thank you!”

“Love you too!”

Lucky’s phone buzzed in her pocket—the unknown caller never slept, giving weight to the automated marketing calls theory. “Maverick, I need a favor.”

“Anything.” She had his complete attention.

“I know we have to do this, and I’m going to, but you might have to calm me down first.”

“What do you need?”

She took a deep breath to center herself. “On the one hand, I am absolutely buzzing right now. This is incredible. The collective energy of human belief coalesced and manifested this entity. I need to be here. Hennessee House is fantastic, but this is the work I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager. This is my dream—investigating humans and our brains and the phenomena we create and the things we can do.”

“I wish you could see the way you look right now,” Maverick said, smiling.

“But on the other hand…it’s ghosts. The legend is based around the idea of ghosts haunting the park. If the community believes it’s ghosts, who’s to say the entity won’t have the same composition and functionality as one? Hell, I’m a believer and believing is half the battle. They already got my ass.”

Maverick held her face in his hands and spoke calmly. “You’re going to be fine. The legend is clear: the entity is rarely seen because it stays behind the couples and in their peripheral. It has rules to follow too.”

He was right. That made sense. As long as they all followed the rules, they’d be safe. Except. “If it decides to haunt us, you gotta keep me steady.” She pressed her lips together because she didn’t want to say the next part, but he needed to know what he might be up against. In her tiniest, hushed voice she confessed, “I might try to talk to it. I’m sorry!”

“I already know,” he said with the patience of a saint. “That’s why we need to go into this with the right state of mind. Both thinking the same thing, on the same page.”

“Which is?”

He grinned. “How amazing our first date is about to be.”

Realization suddenly clicked into place. “Maverick, I’m so stressed right now. Don’t do this to me.” But she was smiling.

“Afraid I’m gonna have to.”

“I can’t. We can’t.” But she was seconds away from giggling.

“It’s already happening. Our walk awaits.”

She narrowed her eyes as he took her hand. “You planned this, didn’t you?”

“Mmm, I plead the fifth on that,” he said as they took their first steps together. “But hypothetically speaking, if I had, would I have been right in assuming this would make you happy?”

Never in her wildest dreams did she think she’d find someone willing to test a supernatural urban legend in an amusement park as a first date, at midnight no less. Be still her heart because Maverick had hers sprung and soaring.

“Yes.” Lucky beamed. “Minus the ghostly potential, but yes. Very happy.”

He pulled a single-stem white rose out of his jacket pocket and presented it to her. “I didn’t know what kind of flowers you like.”

“I—”

“Don’t tell me. I have a plan for that. Tonight, I picked that one because allegedly the park security cameras have recorded the entity before. It appears as a large, heart-shaped white cloud.”

“That’s so precious.” Lucky laughed, shaking her head. “I love it—I love that you thought of this.” The best mixture of fantastical and cheesy—and just for her. She held it to her nose and breathed in. “No one’s ever given me flowers before. Thank you. Your only competition is a house.”

The wedding’s procession path consisted of a single loop around the park, no detours. The shutters had been drawn on the games. The generators for the food stands sat silent. Every shadow-filled roller coaster loomed in the distance. Springstop was close enough to a big city to have some light pollution but distant enough to be quiet, apart from the noisy chorus of crickets serenading them.

Eerie stillness never bothered Lucky even on her worst day. They had flashlights. They had the full moon. They had each other.

Maverick said, “You should know it’s been a while since I’ve seriously dated anyone. I didn’t tell the team. They all noticed I was being…different and figured it out.”

“What about Rebel?”

“She asked me about you, actually, and gave her blessing with some caveats around daddy-daughter days. You’re not allowed. Sorry.”

Lucky chuckled. “That’s fair and understandable.”

“For the most part, though, she’s excited to have you around more often. It probably helps that I’ve never brought anyone to meet her before. I flat out refused. Wasn’t doing it.”

“Why? I mean, was there no one at all?” Lucky shivered.

“Not really. After Rebecca and I split up for good, that was it for me.”

He didn’t provide context as to who that was, and she was too nervous to confirm her obvious guess—Rebel’s mom. “And you haven’t wanted to?”

“More like I didn’t think about it for a long time. Then Rebel started going to school and let me tell you, single dads are extremely attractive to some women. I go to PTA meetings, talent shows, book fairs, bake sales, birthday parties—all that, whatever Rebel wants—and I swear they can sense me coming.”

Wow, Georgia wasn’t kidding about him being a Super Dad. “What do they do?”

“A lot of them give me food or offer to come cook us dinner. There’s also the constant playdate invitations. It’s like they forget that Rebel should like their kids for us to go, which rarely happens. At first, I naively thought they were being neighborly, but no. Because when trying to be helpful didn’t work, some got bolder. They’d get my number and start texting me things I’d rather not read. Or see.”

“Suburban sexual harassment? Yikes. How do you get them to stop?”

“The truth. Some are more persistent than others, but usually when I tell them I’m flattered but not interested they back off. There were a few here and there, though. Kind of low-key, casual stuff. Nothing serious. And then, I met you.”

“And then, you met me.” Lucky shivered again, noting their position—in between the corn dog food truck and a ring toss game. “Ooh, it’s cold.”

“You were all I could think about. Every moment of every day. Rebel and you.”

“I see,” she said, feigning seriousness. “So, you’re obsessed with me?”

“Unfortunately.”

“How terrible for you.”

“I’ve made my peace with it.”

Lucky sneezed and shivered again. “Oh, I’m really cold. How are you feeling?”

Wordlessly, Maverick shrugged off his jacket, placing it on her shoulders.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. I meant like suddenly cold.” She tried communicating with her eyes, resisting the urge to turn around.

“Oh, that kind of cold.” He took her hand again and squeezed it twice as if to say I got you. “I don’t feel anything.”

She moved to take off his jacket, planning to hand it back to him, but he stopped her.

“No, you keep it. I feel fine.”

“Well, now it looks like I said that in hopes you’d give it to me.”

“Once again, doing the most when all you needed to do was ask,” he teased. “Besides, this way if something is making you cold, I’m more likely to feel it now too.”

Lucky pulled it around her, holding it closed at the collar. Still warm and smelled like him. “I guess it’s my turn now?”

He laughed. “Only if you feel like it. We can do whatever you want as long as we stay on the path.”

“Funny you should say that. Georgia is the expert here—I’m deferring to her in terms of what we can and cannot do. Leaving the path is out, but what if we pretended like we were going to?”

“You want to see what happens.”

She smiled as sweetly as she could manage. “Yes, please.”

Maverick’s jaw tightened as he considered, exhaling a sigh through his nose. “All right, but we do it my way. I’ll lead.”

She nodded in agreement, careful to keep her excitement in check.

“Sometimes, I can’t believe how much you actually like stuff like this.”

“You don’t?”

“It’s definitely not my first choice.” Both his gaze and tone were soft, non-judgmental.

“I know a job is a job, but you could help people tell their stories in other fields. Another company would hire you in a heartbeat.”

“I like my company—there’s other non-paranormal positions I could apply for. I’m tired of traveling, hosting, and being on camera in general, but the team will fight me if I try to retire.”

“They seem more supportive than that,” she said. “Georgia knows, right?”

“She’s the only one.”

He tugged on Lucky’s hand as they subtly began walking at an angle toward the edge of the path. With their current pace in mind, she suspected he was aiming for the bumper cars on their left. The cars themselves had been lined up in a neat row next to the operator console in the darkened arena.

“I think you should tell them,” Lucky said, softly. “Plan your exit and tell them what you want to do instead. They’ll listen.”

He grinned. “Is that some extrasensory advice?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I could tell you more but I think that’s enough.” She had a feeling he only needed encouragement, not a firm answer like Xander searched for you specifically and he still believes in you or Stephen would follow you anywhere because you earned his trust. Some translations were better left unspoken—a lesson in balance she’d been steadily learning as of late.

Maverick continued leading the way to finish Lucky’s experiment. “Act like we’re about to get in line for the bumper cars.”

Lucky nodded, catching his drift. They were so close to the ride now, she spotted the cracked paint on the sign.

“We’re not leaving the path,” he reminded her. “Just pretend like we are.”

“Together.” She squeezed his hand while holding his arm.

“Oh, shit,” they said in unison.

The moment they swerved close to the closed gate one of the bumper cars broke formation, swiftly gliding across the metal floor and skidding to an audible stop in the center. Its paint glittered in the moonlight as if dozens of eyes were watching them.