Page 54 of Delirium

He fell back onto his heels, frowning. “You’re right. I’m an idiot. Here I am, thinking about myself and my wants instead of worrying about Clancy. I told you I was a selfish fool.”

“I don’t think you’re selfish.” I leaned forward, tracing the outline of his lips with my fingertips. He pushed into the touch, raising his eyebrows at me. “Okay, so you’re a little selfish. But that’s not why I stopped you. I don’t want you to use me as an alternative to the emotions you’re feeling, James. I want you to be with me because I’m all you can think about. Because the thought of me keeps you up at night.”

“If you only knew what kept me up at night.” He sighed, blue eyes somber. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Scarlett. Whatever you need from me to prove to you that I want this, I’ll do it. Just tell me who you want me to be, and I’ll be it.”

I smiled, small tendrils of contentment overlaying the discomfort that still threaded through my veins. Despite the small reprieve, I was all too aware we were still in a ghost town filled with the worst kind of premonitions, and James had some important decisions to make that were better made outside of this space.

“James, I’ve only ever wanted you to be yourself. I’ll take you, what you perceive to be your flaws and all. I just want you to embrace them for what they really are.”

He pressed his cheek into my hand. We stayed like that for a moment, neither of us wanting to break the quiet bubble we found ourselves in. Was this a treaty? A truce? Something more?

In a way, it was up to James. I had no idea how he would react when the dramatic emotions left his bloodstream, and he could cool off to ice me out completely.

Nash poked his head into the tent, and if he was surprised to see James and me this close, his face cradled in my hand, he didn’t show it. “I don’t want to interrupt. I don’t know about y’all, but I really don’t want to be here after dark if we can help it. I’m going to do one last loop of this city and make sure we haven’t missed anything imperative, and then I think we should head back to theCarpe Diemand regroup there.”

I nodded. “I agree. I don’t know what it is about this place, but I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be.” I glanced over at James with a wince. “No offense.”

“None taken.” James got to his feet, brushing imperceptible dust off the knees of his pants. How he managed to keep himself so clean while the rest of us struggled was a complete mystery to me. “I don’t disagree. I don’t believe in the heebie-jeebie stuff the locals told me about the ‘lost city’ but when it’s this empty, it puts me on edge.”

We stepped out of the tent, and I looked toward Camp. “We’re going to do one last loop of the city to see if we missed anything. Want to join?”

Camp hesitated, shutting down for a brief moment, and then nodded, making his way down the hill slowly. If I didn’t know any better, he looked like a man walking to the gallows.

I looked between the three men, realizing their faces all reflected how I felt. Uneasy. Unstable. Unsure.

“Right.” Nash stepped forward. “Camp, you and James can go through the middle of the city. Scarlett and I will take the perimeter. We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes, unless someone finds something.”

I expected Camp to argue with the groupings, but he barely even reacted, giving a quick nod of his shaggy head. With one last look, he entered the city streets with James.

Nash offered me his hand. “Shall we?”

I took his hand, falling into step with him as we turned into the small gathering of tents first. “It’s weird, right? Like, it’s not just me?”

“No. It’s definitely weird. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard of illnesses whipping through small communities before, especially during this season, but I can’t imagine any kind of disease that would decimate this many people.” He winced, looking down at me. “The lack of bodies is also a little hard to explain.”

“Animals?” I offered, sticking my head into another perfectly made-up tent. Just like the one I’d explored earlier, there was nothing out of the ordinary to say that they weren’t coming back to go to bed. “You said yourself how dangerous the jaguars and the like could be.”

“Sure, it’s a possibility.” Nash cocked his head, leading us further into the tents. “Without getting too gory…where’s the blood? Animals aren’t exactly the tidiest eaters. There’d be evidence of a struggle at the very least. Or bones. Hair.Something.But everything here just seems…”

“Clean,” I finished. “It’s all clean.”

“Exactly. Everything is tidy. Everything is in its place. Whatever happened here, it wasn’t an animal attack or an illness. They left quickly, which means they left afraid.” Nash’s gaze darted around the campsite, nervous.

I almost didn’t want to vocalize what I was thinking, because it was absurd. I licked my lips, weighing up my options.

At the end of the day, even if I didn’t say anything, it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. “If it was nothing tangible, like animals or illness, then you’re talking about something more…supernatural. I didn’t peg you for the kind of person who believed in ghost stories.”

Nash stumbled over a rock, half buried in the dirt, righting himself with a cool stare in my direction. “If you live here long enough, you start to believe all sorts of things you never thought you would. The people here, Scarlett, they’ve lived a different life than you or I have. And as much as it’s easier to chalk things up to ghost stories meant to scare kids, some of the tales about the things that go bump in the night are based in truth.”

I fell silent, unsure how I could even respond. I didn’t disagree with him. As much as science taught us to look at logic, to think deeper, to understand what was really going on, I was sure everyone had an experience they couldn’t readily explain.

I just didn’t think I’d seen one on this large of a scale before. While we were alone. In a rainforest that would kill us and consume us whole if given half the chance.

I cleared my throat. “Well, um, I’m not seeing anything that would tell me what happened here. Should we do a quick loop of the city and meet up with the other two?”

Nash nodded. “Yeah. Let’s just check out this last tent quickly, and then we’ll loop.”

The final tent looked the same as the rest. A bed, tidily made. A water bottle untouched on the bedside table. A bag of clothes. Nothing out of the ordinary.

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