Page 159 of Silent Shadows

Ending.

As if this thing already has one. As if I’m already building toward a story instead of living inside it.

I glance back toward the RV windows.

Toward the warm twinkle lights glowing faintly through the glass.

Toward Miles asleep on the couch.

Something twists.

“What about the ending?” I ask.

“The execs are already thinking positioning. Longevity.”

My stomach sinks.

“They want… options,” Marissa says carefully.

“Meaning?”

“Well…” Paper shuffles again. “They’re not totally sold on an ending where Bigfoot is ‘real.’”

I can hear the air quotes she put around “real,” and I frown.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning they don’t want this to become too ‘true crime’. They don’t want to attract the wrong kind of audience.”

Would someone like me be considered the wrong audience? Because I was eating up any and all Bigfoot content I could get my manicured hands on before landing here? What exactly do they mean?

“Marissa, I’m on, like, ten different kinds of cold medicine right now. What do they want to see here?”

Her silence is heavy and uncomfortable.

“Ultimately, they want you to give the audience nuggets of hope, but more so, make it campy and funny. You laid down the groundwork in episode one; now they want to see the team’s quirks amped up. Characterize them like those other dudes the media loves. But younger and hotter and, you know, actually likable.”

Something in me stills.

The forest feels quieter and farther away.

“You mean…” I say slowly. “Making fun of them?”

“Not aggressively.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Well, Daisy⁠—”

“No.”

I swallow. Just then, the 4Runner and Jax on his dirt bike roll up to the campsite. The noise is so loud that I can’t hear Marissa’s protests on the other line.

“Hang on a sec,” I say to Marissa, nose sniffling.

Maya and Taylor hop out, each grabbing a bag from the backseat before heading in. They spot me as Jax hops off his bike and starts putting his gear back in its spot in the RV's outer storage.

“How are you feeling, girl?” Taylor asks.