Young Writers Society

Last Line(s): He grabbed the top two stapled packets.

“...Which is more than I can say about many,” he added, an almost bitter tone to his voice.

Quinn wiped the tears away with the palms of her hands.

He held one of the packets out to Quinn. After a moment, she took it. Her hands were still shaking a little, but she felt better than when this conversation had started. She tried looking down at the paper. She only got as far as Adam's name; she couldn't focus on reading anything past that. She kept sneaking glances up at Issac as he looked at Gabriel's papers.

He finally caught her looking at him.

“Is something bothering you?” he asked.

She took a deep breath.

“...Yes,” she admitted. “Something is. I...I want to tell you something.”

Issac gave her a tiny nod.

For a moment, she couldn't speak. It was like she had gone mute. She knew the words that she wanted to say – she thought of saving them so many times – but she couldn't force her vocal chords to get them out. It was only when she saw the soft look on Issac's face that some control over them returned to her.

“I'm not straight,” she whispered. “I like girls.”

For a reason she couldn't understand, Issac smiled.

“...I had my suspicions,” he said. He set the file aside when he saw Quinn's eyes widened. She wasn't sure if that revelation made her feel relieved or not. Wasn't it bad if something like that was so obvious? She had thought she had done a better job hiding it. She had tried her best to explain sudden blushes as being too hot. Staring at another girl was just daydreaming taken too far. And the reason she hadn't ever mentioned a crush was because it was hard to get crushes while traveling all the time.

But it was...good, at the same time. It felt like some of the work had been done for her already. She didn't need to explain why she knew she wasn't straight to Issac if he had already picked up on the signs. And after having such an intimate conversation about love, she knew he would be alright with that.

“I saw you looking at Bell's pin,” Issac explained. “And her, in general. The expression on your face was familiar. It was as if you were seeing a potential future for yourself for the first time. You saw someone older than you be much comfortable in their identity and about who they love.”

She stared at him.

Adam's papers were forgotten beside her.

“You sound like you're talking from experience,” she realized. She scooted a little closer to him, green eyes alight. “Are you-Can I even ask...?”

His smile grew.

“I'm also not straight,” he confirmed. Quinn couldn't help but grin. He was like her! Her best friend wasn't straight, either. Her voice wasn't muted anymore. She felt like she could sing or shout or say anything that her heart desired. “I think the best word to describe me would be biromantic. Panromantic also works, if you prefer that.”

“I've seen those words online,” she said. She wasn't entirely sure she had the perfect grasp on them, but she could look them up later. It seemed silly to quiz Issac on his sexuality right now. The room had suddenly came back into focus around her: the beds, the desk, the papers, and the mystery that they were trying to solve. And even though it felt like a gentle but warm flame was burning in her chest now, Quinn knew that she needed to put her attention towards finding the eight.

Terry. Sylvia. Kaia. Percy. Suzanna. Emile. Logan. Adam.

She was going to find them.

She glanced over at Issac.

They were going to find them.

She picked up the papers on Adam again. Even though the packet had several pages, a quick flip through it revealed that there really wasn't much on Adam. He had no living family. He had grown up in a presumably small town in Arizona that Quinn hadn't ever heard of, and had come to this one because he had nowhere else to go. Nolan had made a note in the corner of one of the pages that Adam was happy to work any hours he had available. He didn't even seem to want that much vacation time. With no family commitments and a strong dedication to his work, Adam was the perfect employee.

But Quinn couldn't understand why anyone would ever want a life like his.

It sounded like a miserable existence. She doubted the haunted house paid its employees above the minimum wage. She couldn't understand why someone would be so drawn to it.

“Adam's life seems so...sad,” she finally said.

A flicker of something Quinn couldn't place appeared on Issac's face.

“...Is that so?” he said, in a distant kind of voice that Quinn had never heard him use before. She waited for him to admit what was bothering him – something had to be bothering him if he was using that tone – but he said nothing.

He just handed her the files on Gabriel.

“You should look through this one,” he suggested. He took Adam's files from her. But his eyes were looking somewhere else as he slowly flipped through the pages. She doubted he was taking in a single word on the paper.

She looked down at Gabriel's.

A face that had been hidden underneath Adam's papers stared back at her in the very corner of the page. It was the face belonging to the man from the graveyard and the bus. His smile looked forced; it barely reached his eyes. He hadn't mastered the art of faking happiness in front of a camera. Gabriel was dangerous. She knew that. But the forced smile just made a pit grow in the depths of her stomach. He had seemed so happy talking to his coworkers. Was he really happy back then? Or was it just an act like everything else?

She looked through the papers.

He had twenty-six years instead of Adam's twenty-seven, but their information was almost identical. Instead of a small town in Arizona, he had said during his interview that he had grown up in a small town on the East Coast. He had tried living in the suburbs up north for a few years on his own, but it hadn't worked out. He eventually found his way to this town and the haunted house. He had no living family. He was willing to take as many hours as Nolan wanted him to. And he said that he didn't need vacation time because the haunted house job only last a little over two months.

“Gabriel and Adam's papers are almost identical,” she pointed out. She handed the files over to Issac. “If you look through them both, there's barely any information on either one of them. Is that...Is that normal?”

Issac studied the papers.

Then he let out a sigh.

“There is something I haven't told you about demons,” he admitted.

“...Is it bad?”

He let out another sigh.

“It depends on how you look at it.” He got to his feet. “But I would say that it is. You should grab your hoodie again. If I'm going to tell you about this, we need to be in a place that will help you understand the gravity of it.”