[they can hold hands. he does grip onto her hand a little tighter than usual, letting them swing back and forth idly as he thinks of how to phrase this.]

Well...everybody came back at the end. The dead found a way back to make sure they were in the lobby by the time check-out happened. [but he also figures he has to be honest, and...it's kind of an important story.]

You remember how in the Realm people would be splintering and we would have to kill them to stop it? It was different at the hotel. Part of the contract included a clause that they were consenting to allow themselves to be possessed by shadows if the Nightman thought it would be entertaining. Clementine was the second person to be approached by shadows. Her hostage was AJ, and you know her. She'll do anything for that kid. So she killed Cloud.

[but...]

...the other you had an important job. Like Xie Lian's. I don't know if you knew that. She could pick two names to protect from death, and two names to protect from execution. She'd never know which name would go into effect each time until it happened. But she happened to pick Cloud that week. He woke up in the middle of his own murder trial and scared the heck out of everybody.

They found Clementine. Voted her out. And then to make it even more "entertaining", the hotel chose Cloud to execute her. Beheaded her, even. But they're cool with each other, everything's fine now.

[he just had to sit there and watch all of this and not do anything about it.]