The “Veil of Thorns,” as Caitlin had called it, was actually a prison in the middle of Nevada, actually named the Williamsville Bastion. The Williamsville Bastion was originally a small jail that was built in the mid 1800s as a place to hold people who were suspected of theft in the gold rush. That is where it got its brutal name - as a way to emulate the depiction of a crown of thorns, veils made of dried cactus were sometimes placed on prisoners as a punishment for their wrongdoings. The practice was stopped in the early 1900s, but the nickname stayed throughout rebuilding and reconstruction. In the 1930s, the old jail was torn down in order to add in a newer prison to accommodate for the growing population.

It was around that time that the prison had the first reported sightings of ghosts. Prisoners would often complain about cold spots in the prison, which seemed unlikely given the Nevada heat, along with the visage of a shadowman in solitary confinement. In the 1950s, a riot broke out in the prison, resulting in the deaths of eleven prisoners (nine of which died during the riot, and two of which died afterward due to complications from injuries, as well as the death of one prison guard. After the riot, reports of ghostly activity greatly increased. There were frequent reports of the sound of yelling that could not be pinned to any current prisoner. Occasionally, prisoners would report seeing the image of prisoners outside of the cells, only for them to disappear when the prisoner tried to catch their attention. Prisoners and prison guards alike also have been known to frequently hear the sound of whistling through the hallway, thought to be the spirit of the prison guard completing his nightly rounds. The prison closed in the 90s, which it was deemed more expensive to repair than it would be to create a new prison, and has been giving tours ever since. While the amount of ghost activity is not as constant as in some of the more famous places like Eastern State Penitentiary, it was constant enough to make a believer out of even the most hardened skeptic.

Or, at least, that’s what the site Liam was looking at said. I wanted to see it for myself, but it was always good to know the general history of a place before one when to explore it.

The flight that Caitlin had mentioned was a red eye to Las Vegas. It was only about an hour, so Luke and Liam didn’t have a ton of time to look into the history of the place. Luckily, as soon as we got off the plane, we booked a few hotel rooms in the first hotel we saw, so we could sleep and research until it was time to meet the owners of the place.

I was so exhausted from everything that I could barely keep my eyes open - for god’s sake, I had barely had any sleep since I first got on that plane to Orlando. I guess I knew how they managed to stay up so late for ghost hunts, I thought with a laugh - if you end up sleeping all day, you might as well stay awake all night.

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But even with the exhaustion I felt, I couldn’t force myself to go to sleep. My mind was racing - thoughts about the demon, thoughts about being a permanent member of the team, thoughts about the upcoming ghost hunt.

I tried to keep my mind from thinking about Liam, and the safety I felt being tucked against his chest. Thinking like that would do no good, because ultimately, I wasn’t planning on staying here forever. I felt like I had lost that thought sometimes within the last couple of days - I had only been planning on staying with them until I freed the spirit of the little girl who had asked for my help, who might not actually be a little girl at all. I had never planned to stay and permanently join their channel, no matter how much money I made. I had a life back home, and a cat, and a job that might not need me all the time, but when they needed me, they really needed me. I couldn’t give all that up just to galavant around the world, telling people that I see ghosts and expecting them to believe me! I’d had a lot of crazy things pass through my life, but I don’t think I’d ever had a thought that absurd before.

And yet, here I was still thinking about the possibility of staying.

Even through the haze of thoughts, I somehow must have managed to fall asleep, because the next thing I knew, there was a knock on my door from Caitlin, come to collect everyone for the ghost hunt. I pulled on the best outfit I could of the clothes that I had available (if, and this was a big if, I ended up staying here for much longer, I would for sure have to send for more of my clothes, because repeating an outfit in a video this early on just seemed awkward to me) and shuffled out to the hall to meet them. Luke and Liam looked about as tired as I did, while Caitlin looked like she had just downed a ton of coffee. “Are you ready to go hunting?” she asked.

“I’m going to need you to turn down the chipperness by like 150%” Liam complained, running his hand through his hair.

“And we’re going to stop and get coffee on the way, because some of you didn’t actually get any sleep,” she chirped.

So we sipped our coffee on the long road down to the prison. Like the Peters building, the prison was outside of the city, in the pitch black countryside. I couldn’t help but look back and forth, trying to figure out if there was going to be a little girl sitting with us again and, if so, trying to figure out if I actually would see her or if she was something other than a ghost.

“Here,” Liam said, after watching me peek over my shoulder for what must have been the 15th time. He pulled out his phone and turned it to selfie mode, then scooted as close as his seatbelt would let him. “Say cheese!” he said, snapping a few pictures of us together and then handing him the phone. “See?” he said, when he saw me switching through the pictures. “Not a single ghost in this car.”

I didn’t see any in the pictures that he shot, which made me feel a little better, but I turned the phone camera on Luke and snapped a couple as well. They were a bit blurry, but that could have just been from the bumpy road. I gave a sigh of relief, and Liam held out his hand for the phone.

Maybe we’d get lucky and catch a ghost on video at the prison tonight. And maybe we’d get even luckier and it wouldn’t be the same one.