Chapter 15
Two hours pass both incredibly quickly, and agonizingly slow. It shouldn’t be possible for both those things to occur at once, but somehow it happens. I shower while time ticks by, the water warming me up and sinking deep into my muscles to finally chase away the cold from the river.
I’m tired, though I shouldn’t be. I haven’t done more today than any other day, except for my accidental and unfortunate dunk in the river. But by the time the hour rolls around for me to meet Kayde, I find I’m yawning less, and the chill is back in my bones in a way that I don’t think I can chase off with a shower or blankets.
Instead of my usual camp counselor tee and shorts, I opt instead for leggings, sneakers, and a long-sleeved henley that I push up to my elbows automatically. It’s probably too warm for all of this, especially given it’s mid July in Tennessee. But something in me craves the warmth, even if it’s too much, too hot, or too oppressive.
Because it’s also strangely comforting to be this warm, like I can convince my brain the chill isn’t real and this night won’t be that big of a deal. I’m just too tired to play Kayde’s game tonight, and the river’s lasting chill isn’t going to make that any better.
At the embers of the campfire I sink down onto one of the large logs, head in my hands and a low sigh leaving my lips. This far away from the cabins, the camp is devoid of any human noise. Instead I can hear the crickets and the frogs near the lake when I close my eyes.
I’ve always loved how things feel out here.
The log shifts just slightly, and I open my eyes to slits to see the figure beside me, sitting with one knee drawn up and the other stretched out to the empty fire pit.
Tonight, Kayde hasn’t bothered to put up his hair. It hangs in damp ringlets to his shoulders, still managing to shine like gold in the dim light from the further away buildings. I can’t see the warm honey of his eyes, but I can see him gazing towards the fire, as if remembering the blaze from earlier.
“Hi,” I greet, hating that I can hear the tiredness in my voice even with that one word. “Long time no see. You enjoying the night air too?” The usual edge of sarcasm and taunting is absent, and I pretend that I don’t see the way he turns just enough to look at me, just enough to survey my face if he wants to.
I know he’s staring at me, though I don’t know what he’s looking for.
“Yeah,” Kayde murmurs at last, shifting just a touch closer to me so our legs press together at the thigh. “It really is nice here. And a nice night. You look cold.” The accusation is casual, inoffensive, and light-hearted coming from him.
“I am cold.” Hesitating before I reply, and I speak quietly like it is a secret. “I’ve been cold all damn day. It’s ridiculous.”
He scoffs softly at that and gets to his feet with one hand outstretched toward me. “We have a bit of a walk, so it might warm you up.”
I frown, nose scrunched in disgust as I get to my feet without his help. “I really hate exercise,” I gripe, eyes on his face. “Where are we going? Up a tree? It would be a shame if you fell out of it and, like, died or something.”
“Thought you’d be a little more grateful to me after today.” He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and for the first time I notice he’s not dressed like a camp counselor either, though I have no idea why. There’s also a backpack over his shoulder, though it’s empty enough that it sits flush against his body, which made it harder for me to notice.
My steps drag as worry flickers through my chest. He doesn’t look like Kayde the Camp Counselor tonight.
He looks much more like Kayde the Ax Murderer.
Kayde only notices when the distance between us yawns wider, becoming feet instead of inches as I reluctantly follow him into the thicker trees. I can’t run away from him. I can’t tell him no. But I sure as hell don’t have to march happily along to what I’m terrified is going to be my doom.
He stops and twists to the side, looking at me over his shoulder in the dark, lit only by the moon and stars in the clear sky above us. “Are you sore from the river?” he asks, like that could possibly be the reason that I’m lagging behind.
“No.” I rub my arms, gooseflesh breaking out even under my long-sleeved shirt. “I’m fine.”
“You’re quiet.” He doesn’t move, and I stop as far from him as I can while still able to see the sharp line of his cheekbone. I’m not out of following range; he doesn’t need me to walk beside him like a dog.
“I’m tired,” I admit, sighing out a breath along with the words.
“You’re afraid of me.” I hate that he’s right. I hate that I have no idea how to refute the claim when I’m standing here with a distance between us wondering if he’s going to go back on his word and kill me like he wanted to kill my campers.
“You’re not exactly trustworthy.” I rub my arms harder, dragging my sleeves down to my wrists. “And God, I’m so cold. Tell me this won’t take long so I can find a blanket or twenty.”
He doesn’t answer right away. To my horror, he backtracks, moving until he’s standing right beside me, close enough that I could reach up and choke the shit out of him if I wasn’t so nervous about this whole thing.
“Would you feel better if I told you where we’re going?” he asks finally, reaching up to gently curl his fingers around the base of my throat in a move that’s not so much threatening as it is possessive.
Though I still can’t figure out what there is to prove here to me. If he’s telling the truth, then this will last another few nights. That’s all. Then he’ll be gone, and then I’ll hopefully be able to get high enough to chalk this up to a nightmare or continuous hallucinations.
“Maybe,” I allow, meeting his gaze in the darkness. I can’t really tell much about his face. He’s looking at me, I know that, but anything else is lost in shadow. I can’t read him anyway, so it’s not like the lack of seeing his expression is a big loss for me here.
“The night you stopped me, I had to come up with a solution of what to do with my gear. So I hid it in the woods,” Kayde explains smoothly, easily, like he’s just telling me about running errands. “Probably a bad idea if any of the kids find it on tomorrow’s big hike, don’t you think?”
Yeah. Yeah that would be bad. I know for certain he’d had an ax, and none of the kids, especially Melody, needs that in their hands.
“That’s all?” The words come out before I can stop them, and I wish I could shove them all back into my mouth and swallow them down where Kayde can’t remember them, like they never existed in the first place.
“Yeah, eager little sweetheart. That’s all for tonight. Contrary to what you obviously think about me, playing with you when you’ve had a rough day and you’re clearly worn out isn’t really something I’m into. I like it when you’re feisty. Not when you’re shivering.” At that, he runs his hands down my arms, palms warm even through the fabric of my shirt as he moves them back up. “So we clean this up, and then you can curl up in all the blankets you can find. Deal?”
I open my mouth with the intention of agreeing. That’s what he’s asking for anyway, and it’s not like I’m really giving him anything. Instead, what comes out is, “You’re not dragging me out into the woods to kill me?”
Kayde doesn’t move. He’s quiet for long enough that my stomach starts knotting nervously, and my hands clench at my sides as his still on my shoulders. “You think I’d bring you all the way out here to kill you, Summer?” he asks finally, disbelief in his voice. “Why would I do that?”
“So you don’t get caught?” God, I wish I knew how to shut up.
A derisive scoff is the answer I get first, and I see Kayde shaking his head in bemusement. “Really? You think I care about that? You think I hide my kills? I wasn’t going to hide any of those kids’ bodies, remember? It would’ve been all over the news and everyone who showed up here would’ve been able to see what I’d done. No, I don’t need to hide anything. Not your body, not anyone else’s.”
“That feels reckless.” Isn’t that a quicker way to get caught?
But if he doesn’t care, then there’s certainly no reason for me to, either. He just shrugs his muscular shoulders and strokes his palms down my arms again. “Not gonna kill you,” he purrs in a voice that shouldn’t be so fucking hot that my fingers clench tighter against my palms. “You’re fine, baby girl.”
I should definitely hate it when he calls me that. It should not be growing on me in any capacity, and I groan under my breath in what I hope he thinks is irritation. Though, judging by the way he leans forward to press his lips to my forehead, I might be overestimating that. Without another word, he tugs on my wrist, apparently tired of me trailing behind him as he leads me through the dark woods to some unspecified location.
Even when he stops, I have no idea what I’m looking at. It’s a clearing, barely, with a couple of stout, old trees taking up most of the space. It’s far enough from camp that no one would be out here, but definitely not far enough that we won’t end up passing it when we hike tomorrow.
“My stuff’s under the trees here,” he tells me, nodding toward the two trees with their exposed, arching roots. “Grab what you find from that one.” With a quick flick of a gesture at the left-most tree, he sets off to the one on the right, dropping to his knees in the dirt and digging at the soft earth with his hands.
“Should’ve brought a shovel,” I gripe, heart sputtering nervously in my throat. But I go where he’d directed, finding the spot in the dirt that looks a little different from the rest in the moonlight.
I don’t really have to dig. Just a few swipes from my palm has me uncovering a small, jacket-wrapped bundle from near one of the large, exposed roots. Curiously, and after making sure Kayde is still wrestling with his larger bundle, I unwrap the jacket from the items, unable to stop myself.
A flashlight.
A lighter.
A knife.
Only three items, but my hands tremble as I get to my feet with my prizes, reaching into the bundle that I cradle in my other arm. I mean to grab the flashlight. I really do, since it’ll be useful when navigating to wherever the hell he wants to take all of this stuff.
But instead, my fingers curl around the hilt of the hunting knife, and I bring the unsheathed blade up and out of the jacket so the moonlight shines on the ghostly gray blade.
I’ve never seen a knife like it. Not even the one Kayde ran along my skin last night. One side is deadly sharp and wickedly curved at the end. The other, which should be the safer, duller side, is serrated near the hilt, and the sharp curves march up to the middle of the blade before they stop.
Even the top edge looks sharp, and I turn the blade over in my hands without immediately realizing Kayde has gotten to his feet, his backpack no longer flat and the handle of his ax sticking up past the zipper.
“You can give me those, Summer,” he invites, standing in the middle of the small clearing between the two trees. He stretches one hand out to me, his tone completely friendly and not an ounce of worry in his posture.
“Aren’t you worried?” I ask, turning more to him with eyes wide enough I’m sure he can see the whites of them in the moonlight.
“Of what?”
“Of what I could do? You’re not holding the ax, and I don’t have to be good at this to…” I trail off, still cradling the other objects as I survey the perfectly spotless knife. The handle is heavy in my hand, and warming to the temperature of my skin quickly.
I could kill him with this.
“To…?” I can almost imagine the smug arrogance on his face. Even when I step closer and offer him the other items in his jacket, though I keep the knife in my hand and pulled away from him. To my surprise, Kayde takes the flashlight and the lighter, shoving them in his backpack along with the slick jacket, before straightening to look at me once more. “Whatever it is you think you’re going to do, you won’t. Give me the knife, baby.”
I really need to give him the knife before his amusement turns to something else. He’s probably right; I don’t think I could kill him, even if he wasn’t most likely just as dangerous without a weapon in his hands as he is with a knife or ax.
And yet my fingers tighten on the hilt, and I find myself taking a step back. “You were going to kill everyone here,” I remind him, as if he’s forgotten. It’s so stupid of me, but with the rush of blood in my ears and the pounding of my heart in my chest, I can’t stop myself. I can’t stop this strange, emerging part of me that wants to hold some kind of power in this game between us.
Even if it’s ephemeral and fleeting; given to me only by the knife in my hand.
“We’ve established that,” Kayde murmurs. “You’re going to hurt yourself, you know.”
“Maybe I want to hurt you.” I throw the words at him like a challenge and regret it the moment he tilts his head to the side, like a curious predator observing the stupidest rabbit ever born.
“Do you?” He strides toward me gracefully, unerringly, and doesn’t hesitate until my hand is up and the point of the blade is just pressed against his t-shirt. “Do you want to hurt me, Summer? How badly?” He doesn’t make a move to stop me, or to grab for the blade.
“I don’t…” I hate that my confidence falters, and it’s hard to meet his gaze, even in the mostly dark clearing. “I don’t know.”
“Give me the knife.” His voice is soft, but not quite so gentle. There’s a dangerous, silky undertone in his words, that promises me I’d rather give him the knife than have him take it. “Give me the knife, before you get hurt or I have to do something not very nice.”
“You’re never that nice.”
“Baby girl, I’ve been so nice. But if you’d rather that change, if you’d rather me show you something different, then I invite you with every ounce of my being to not give me the knife. Take a swing at me. Try to cut my throat.” He mimes the action with his own fingers, then taps a spot on his chest. “Stab me. Slide that blade between my ribs and find my fucking heart.”
“I don’t think you have one.”
“I think you might be right. You gonna give me that knife?”
Though I open my mouth to say something, no words come out. Instead, my grip on the knife shifts, tightens, and I shift my feet in the dirt to something I feel is more balanced.
“Oh, that’s such a bad girl. I didn’t think you wanted me to be mean, baby.” Before I can react, he grabs my wrist, quick as a snake, and his finger presses into a spot just under my palm. It makes me yelp in surprise and pain, and my grip goes lax against my will.
He doesn’t let the knife hit the ground. He grabs it in midair, yanking me to him in the next moment until we’re pressed almost together and somehow, the tip of the knife has found its way up and under my chin, the point digging into my skin as I pant open-mouthed in fear.
“Bad girl,” he growls again, not moving the knife away. “You could’ve hurt yourself with this. I thought you didn’t like a blade on your skin, hmm? You were certainly against it last night.”
For the first time since all of this began, I can’t speak. I’m too afraid to do more than breathe as I stare up at him, my fingers knotted in his shirt as I stand stock-still and try not to shake.
“Don’t you have something to say to me?”
It clicks after a few seconds. He wants me to apologize. To eat my pride and say I’m sorry. He knows I’m terrified, and wants me to do what I can to writhe out of his trap, even if it means chewing off my own arm. My fingers dig deeper into the thin fabric, until I’m sure I’m stretching it, and I can only stare sullenly at him, words dead in my throat.
“You don’t?” There’s genuine surprise in his voice, and something else that I don’t like. Something that sounds pleased. “You won’t beg me to forgive you, baby?—”
“No.” I don’t know where that flash of defiance comes from, but the blade stroking down to my sternum makes me regret it almost instantly.
“Fine. Then I don’t forgive you.” He twists the blade before pulling it away, though the lasting sting that pulls a gasp from me is enough for me to know he’s actually nicked me with the knife. “I don’t forgive you at all.” He sounds almost feral as he says it, even though his calm and collected movements as he puts the knife in a sheath at his belt read as anything but.
“Does that mean our deal is off?” I can’t help the tremor in my voice, or the way I pull him closer, like I’m afraid he’ll sprint back to camp and murder everyone on principle.
“No.” Kayde reaches up, his now-free hand gripping my jaw and keeping my face turned up to his. “It just means I’m going to make you regret not slitting my throat when you had the chance, Summer.”
Before I can say anything. Before I can come up with something to tell him or force an apology from my lips, Kayde releases me and brushes past, heading back toward Camp Crestview with no interest in whether I’m following or not.
And I’ve never wanted to run away from here more than I do in this moment, knowing that Kayde is nothing if not true to his word.