Chapter 5 CHAPTER 5
Chapter 5
Kai POV
The whisper on the recorder remained in the stale air of the choir loft like smoke after a gunshot. Elias. Not some random name, his name. The group went dead silent, flashlights casting long, jittery shadows across the peeling walls of St. Agnes. Freddy’s usual sarcasm died on his lips, Wren’s rings clicked together as they gripped their camera tighter, Marcus looked like he’d swallowed a bug. And Elias, standing a few feet away, hood half-pulled up, black curls messy from the damp night, went pale under the beam of my light.
“No way,” I breathed, breaking the silence first. My voice came out steadier than I felt. “Play it back.”
Marcus rewound the EVP device with shaking fingers. The static crackled again, and there it was, clearer this time, a low, mournful tone that didn’t sound quite human. “Elias...forbidden...”
Elias shifted, his dry wit from earlier texts completely disappeared. “Okay, that’s... creepy as hell. Coincidence, right? Common name?”
But his eyes flicked to mine, and something passed between us. Not fear exactly, but recognition. Like the building had reached out and plucked a string connecting us both. My skin prickled, not just from the sudden chill that had dropped the temperature ten degrees. I’d researched St. Agnes for months, the 19th-century scandal, the groundskeeper and the young man from a prominent family, the whispers of a love that got one of them killed. Forbidden love, the kind this town still chewed up and spit out.
“Could be,” I said, forcing a grin to cut the tension. “Or the place knows we brought fresh meat.” I nudged Elias’s shoulder lightly, trying to keep it playful. He didn’t pull away, and that small point of contact was warm against the cold.
Wren snorted, breaking the spell. “Or it’s picking up radio waves from someone’s truck. Let’s not freak out yet. Spread out, document everything. Pairs, okay? No one stays alone in this dump.”
We split up. Marcus and Elise took the main sanctuary, Oliver and Freddy the basement stairs (if you could call the crumbling hole that). Wren claimed the bell tower access with their night-vision gear. That left me and Elias heading toward the side chapel where old records and debris were piled. Perfect. Or terrifying. My pulse hadn’t settled since that whisper.
The narrow hallway smelled of mildew and old wood rot. Our flashlights cut narrow paths through the dark, catching glimpses of faded murals, saints with chipped faces, angels that looked like they were weeping dust. Elias walked close, his high-tops quiet on the floorboards.
“You okay?” I asked softly, voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “That was your name. Not exactly standard ghost fare.”
He let out a short, dry laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Peachy. Just thinking about how I’m going to explain this to my dad if we get busted. ‘Sorry, Pastor Whitaker, the haunted church knew my name so that must be a sign.’”
I chuckled, but it faded quickly. “Pastor Whitaker? As in Eternal Light? Damn. That’s... heavy.” I’d heard the name around town, the rigid evangelical powerhouse. The kind of place that preached purity and God’s design like it was law. No wonder Elias carried himself like he was balancing plates on his head all the time.
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his curls tiredly. “Golden child duties. Church every Sunday, work, keep the peace. Harper bailed, so I’m the one holding the line.” He paused at a fallen beam, shining his light on a pile of old hymnals. “What about you? Mom’s a lawyer, right? Seems less... scripted.”
We kept moving, but the conversation flowed more easily than it should have in a place that felt like it was listening. I told him about Mom’s late nights with case files, Mira’s divorce horror stories, Dad’s filmmaking absences that left gaps I filled with ghost hunts and bad decisions. “It’s freedom on paper,” I said, kicking aside some rubble. “But Willow Creek still bites back. Small towns don’t forget you’re the gay kid who talks to spirits instead of going to youth group.”
Elias nodded, thoughtful. “Must be nice, though. Not hiding.”
I stopped, turning to face him fully. Our lights crossed, illuminating the sharp line of his jaw, the uncertainty in his dark eyes. Up close like this, in the ruins, he looked like one of those faded saints, beautiful in a quiet and burdened way. My chest tightened with that familiar ache, the one I usually buried under sarcasm and hopeless crushes like Logan.
“Sometimes hiding feels safer,” I admitted. “But yeah. Being out means I get to want what I want without pretending. Even if it’s terrifying.”
He held my gaze longer than necessary and the air between us grew thick and charged like the static on the EVP. Then a distant crash echoed from somewhere deeper in the church, probably the others knocking something over. We both jumped, and the moment was over.
“Shit,” Elias muttered. “We should..”
Another sound cut him off. Not a crash this time. A whisper, soft and close, like breath against my ear. “...Rivera... truth...”
I spun around, my light sweeping the empty chapel. Nothing. But the locket caught my eye then, a small, tarnished silver thing half-buried in dust near the base of an old confessional. I crouched, picking it up carefully. Engraved initials: E.W. and A.R. Elias Whitaker? No. Too on the nose, but close enough to send ice down my spine.
“Look at this.” I held it out. Elias took it, his fingers brushing mine. Electric again. He turned it over, and furrowed his brow.
“E.W.,” he whispered. “That’s... my family's initials. Whitaker. This can’t be real.”
Before I could respond, the temperature dropped further. Shadows seemed to lengthen at the edges of our lights. Elias’s breath hitched, and suddenly his eyes went distant, unfocused. He swayed.
“Elias?” I grabbed his arm, steadying him. His skin was unpleasantly damp and sticky.
“I... I see him,” he murmured, voice distant like he was half-dreaming. “Young guy. Looks like me. And another man, groundskeeper? They’re arguing, kissing. Then... blood. Betrayal.”
A vision. Actual, full-on haunting shit. My paranormal nerd heart soared even as protectiveness kicked in. I guided him to sit on a relatively stable pew remnant, keeping hold of his shoulder. “Breathe. You’re here with me. St. Agnes likes to show its scars, I guess.”
He blinked back to the present, eyes wide. The dry wit was gone; this was raw Elias, cracks showing in the golden-child armor. “What the hell is this place? It feels like it knows me. Us.”
Us. The word sent a spark through me I tried to ignore. Slow, Kai. This boy was drowning in faith and family expectations. Pushing would only scare him off.
“It’s not just ghosts,” I said quietly, sitting beside him. Our knees brushed in the dark. “Old places hold energy, pain, love that got buried. My research says there was a scandal here, a Whitaker ancestor maybe, mixed up with a Catholic guy. Town covered it up to protect its ‘morals.’ Sound familiar?”
He stared at the locket, thumb tracing the engraving. “My dad... he has this old family Bible with weird notes. Never lets me look close. Guess small-town secrets run deep.”
We sat there longer than we should have. The others called out occasionally, their voices distant. For a few stolen minutes, it felt like the world outside, Eternal Light, Sophia’s texts, the pressure, didn’t exist. Just two guys in the ruins, chasing truth and maybe something more.
My phone buzzed, it was Wren checking in. Time to regroup. But as we stood, Elias pocketed the locket. “Don’t tell the others yet. About the vision. I need to... process.”
“Secret’s safe,” I promised. Our eyes met again, and this time the pull was undeniable. Slow burn, yeah. But the fire was catching.
We rejoined the group near the entrance as distant sirens wailed faintly from the town side, probably nothing, but enough to spook us into packing up. The trek back to the cars was tense, everyone buzzing with the EVP and the chill. Elias rode with Marcus, but not before shooting me a quick text.
ELIAS: Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy. Tonight was... a lot.
KAI: You’re not crazy. And it was. Let’s decode that locket sometime. Secretly, no scripts.
His reply came as I climbed into Wren’s car: a simple thumbs-up emoji, followed by Deal.
Back home, the house was dark except for Mom’s office light. I crashed on my bed, remembering the night. The whisper, the vision, Elias’s quiet courage cracking open. St. Agnes wasn’t done with us. I could feel it in my bones, the pull, the danger, the spark of something real right there in the ruins.
Sleep came slowly, haunted by dreams of shadowed churches and a boy with black curls reaching out across time.
