Chapter 5: The Burn

Friday night, Den declared Mandatory Crew Bonding. Cards. Bad whiskey. Worse decisions. I played because the alternative was sitting upstairs alone listening to a house that never stopped creaking, and because I'd stopped sleeping without a chair under the doorknob and a knife in the nightstand. Aiden got dared to eat a spoonful of habanero paste and briefly saw God. Tuck admitted he'd cried at a commercial about a dog waiting at a window. Den took a dare involving the neighbor's mailbox and...