Chapter 27
When I roll over on my small bed into the space where Kayde had pulled me against him and I’d fallen asleep, I expect…something.
But what I get is a whole lot of nothing.
That brings me to wakefulness in an unfortunate way, and I hate the way my stomach sinks, my heart tanking along with it. I should’ve expected him to be gone. He never stays the night, really. And why would he? For all his talk last night about ruining me for anyone else and fucking me like he’s my boyfriend…he isn’t.
And our game is done now. So why in the world should I have expected him to stay? Still, in the dim morning light, there’s no one to see me press my face into the pillow he used and inhale the traces of his cologne and the scent that’s uniquely his.
God,I am so fucked up for this man. I suppose in a way he has ruined me, and that’s a real shame, given what Kayde is.
And the fact he’s making it pretty clear this was just a game for him. Just something to pass the time and give him some amusement while we waited out the week.
My heart shouldn’t ache.
I shouldn’t want to cry.
Because Kayde doesn’t, and will never, love me. So I won’t let myself have any kind of feelings for a fucking murderer who was intent on slaughtering the kids of Camp Crestview for fun.
He wanted to kill Kinsley.
But not you,that unhelpful little voice in my brain whispers wickedly. He was never going to kill you. He wanted to keep you.
That really shouldn’t make it better whatsoever. And it shouldn’t make my heart twist even more in my chest as I shove myself upright to blink at the room around me.
Only to find, like I thought, that Kayde isn’t here.
He never is,I chastise myself, dragging my body out of bed and changing into shorts and a tee. I’m sore, I realize with a wince, and my teeth grit together as I press my palm to my lower stomach. Yeah, okay, I did not expect to be this sore today.
But I can’t really hate it. Will Kayde notice? Will he care?
Part of me thinks he might be thrilled at that fact. Like a little parting gift as he leaves; to know he’s made me so sore I’ll feel this for days.
I can hear the kids in the cabin next to me by the time I’m toeing on my shoes, and as I open my door to my little deck, I see Melody push open the main door and start toward Otter Hall.
“So cruel to leave your devoted counselor behind,” I call, catching up to her easily with long strides. I bet they’re all packed by now. And I’m sure half of them are counting down the minutes until their parents start showing up.
But I find I’m a little sad. This has been my favorite group of campers all summer, and I’ll miss Melody most of all. Even if she is a little sociopath like Kayde had labeled her.
When she smiles slyly up at me, I can’t help but wonder what it is about her that makes him so sure. Unless he’d been joking with me, Kayde had said with confidence that Melody is a sociopath like him.
Takes one to know one, had essentially been his words. As Melody looks at me with eyes clearer and more mature than most twelve-year-olds I’ve ever met, I can only say for certain that she’s different from the other kids. I’m not one to guess further than that, though, and I only smile back at my favorite problematic twelve-year-old. “You excited to go home?” I ask her, surprised when she shakes her head.
“Not this year,” Melody sighs, world-weary and disappointed. “I’m not looking forward to school starting. We moved,” she adds, explaining her reasoning before I can ask. “I don’t like being the new kid.”
“Really?” I tilt my head to the side, my hands shoved in my pockets. The closer we get to the already full dining hall, the more my heart flutters in my chest. I hadn’t expected Kayde to stay the night, sure, but I also can’t help but wonder what his expression will be when he sees me.
I wonder what he’ll say.
“Really,” Melody repeats, hopping onto the small path that leads up to the double doors. “I have to make new friends, navigate social circles. Figure out who’s in charge…” She shakes her head, lamenting the amount of ‘work’ she’ll be doing. “But it’ll be fine. It always is.”
Oh,my brain helpfully kicks in before I ask what she means. Melody’s mom is in the army. From what I’ve heard, she’s pretty used to being moved around. And yet every year, her mom still makes sure to send her back here, no matter where she’s stationed in the States. With how much Melody loves camp, I’m happy her mom does that much for her. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to move around enough to not have a concrete set of friends, or have to get used to leaving them behind.
I’d give her a hug if I didn’t think she might stab me with a fork.
Holding the door open for my girls gives me a chance to scan Otter Hall, and my eyes find the boys of Coyote Cabin quickly. They look…glum, in a way, even though they’re mixed with Daniel’s boys. To me, that should mean that they’re happy. Both cabins are problems, and they love getting together to make things worse.
Daniel looks just as put out, though that might be because he hasn’t had his morning cups of coffee yet. He’s sitting with Darcy and Shawn, who I rarely talk to and never seem to be in the same ‘cabin group’ as me.
After two years of it, I’ve started to think that Shawn Torres—counselor extraordinaire—doesn’t like me very much. His eyes find mine and he leans over to whisper something to Darcy, who also turns to look at me with something strange on her face I can’t read.
Then she gets up, and before I can get to the small window to pick up my plate of breakfast, she’s in front of me and walking into my space quickly enough that I step back, effectively waylaid from my goal.
“It’s a bit early for whatever this is,” I point out, eyes narrowed as I cross my arms loosely over my chest. Nothing in me wants to deal with Darcy this morning. Especially when she looks almost happy about…something.
Again, I cast a quick look around the dining hall, knowing that if Kayde sees her, he’s probably going to start something that might not end well. But he isn’t here. Not near his kids, or Daniel, or even Kinsley and Liza when I spot them with Kinsley’s cabin against the other wall.
“I just wanted to see your face when I asked what happened.” Yeah, Darcy is definitely thrilled about this, though I can’t tell why. Still, my attention drifts back to her, and I tilt my head just enough to be curious, one brow raised.
“What happened…?” There’s no way that she’d heard Kayde and me in my cabin last night. No way in hell. But the thought that she could’ve sends a rush of embarrassment through me that I fight to push down. “You’re going to have to be more specific. This has been a long week, and I haven’t eaten yet.”
“He left.”
The words don’t quite make sense to me as I stand there, blinking at Darcy and trying to figure out what in the world she means. He left? Who the hell is he? It’s certainly not a child, or we’d have search parties out. Camp Crestview does frown on kids just taking off into the wilderness, after all. “He?” I ask, and Darcy’s eyes widen.
So does her fucking grin.
“Oh, you don’t know,” she asserts, stepping even closer. “Poor thing. You really—” She looks around the dining hall in the same way I had. “You were looking for him.” The glee in her voice is undeniable, and my heart suddenly plummets.
She means Kayde, I realize, and I can’t help the expression on my face, or the hurt I’m sure is there.
He left.
Kaydeleft. That’s what she means.
Schooling my features into disinterest proves to be impossible, so I just shrug my shoulders. “Okay, yeah, I didn’t know. When did he leave?”
“Early,” Darcy tells me happily, like I’m making her day by asking for details. “Before sunrise. He asked Daniel to watch his kids until they’re picked up, and was on the phone with Fink, apparently. Said he had to go in a hurry. God, Summer.” She rocks back on her heels, smile turning vicious. “You’re really something. How the hell’d you fuck that up, huh? Did you tell him some sad sob story about your past?”
The accusation twists something in my stomach, and I fight hard not to give her a reaction. I don’t want to do more for her than I already am, so I shrug again. “What sad sob story are you talking about, weirdo?”
“Come on,” Darcy scoffs. “I’ve heard you talk to Kinsley about the scar your daddy gave you. Did you unload all that on him? Did you want him to make it all better, and he freaked out from how needy you are?” She couldn’t be any further from the truth, but she’s hit on enough of it, and on my self-consciousness about the scar, that I can’t really bring myself to say anything.
“Don’t talk about stupid shit, Darcy,” I finally mumble, rolling my eyes at her and leaning back on the table behind me. “And I don’t know what this is?” I gesture between us. “But if you’re coming onto me, you can, like, stop. I’m not into girls. But even if I was, and you were the absolute last living creature on earth, I’d rather chew my own arm off.”
With her malicious grin only widening, Darcy steps closer, crowding me against the table. “Seriously,” she murmurs under her breath. “Can’t you just tell me? It doesn’t matter anyway since he’s gone. What the hell am I going to do about it?”
Make my life miserable, probably.
“What did you do to fuck it all up, Summer? Are you just that bad in bed…or is being a shitty partner just bad genetics?”
For a moment, my vision seems to blur. I forget where we are as I lunge forward, hand coming up to backhand her for the words that now repeat themselves over and over in my head.
What did you do to fuck it all up, Summer?
All I want is to wipe the grin off of her fucking face, but the moment before I can hit her, my hand is caught and wrestled down hard. Darcy’s face falls open in shock a second before Liza slips between us, pushing her back gently but firmly.
“Stop,” our glorious camp nurse says flatly. “Stop being a bitch, Darcy. The kids can see all of this, and you’re making a scene.”
My face reddens at that, even if the words hadn’t been directed at me. My hands flex, then relax, and I turn to see that Kinsley is still holding my hand in her grip, looking worried. And beyond her, the girls from my cabin are starting to look a little murderous, like they’d be willing to dogpile onto Darcy just to show some solidarity for their cabin counselor.
But I won’t let them start a fight in Otter Hall, an hour before they get picked up. I allow Kinsley to tug me back to a table where I bury my face in my hands and wonder why I want to cry.
“Sorry,” I whisper, hating how shaky I feel and sound. But more than that, hating that Kayde has done this to me.
I should be relieved, not sad.
I should be laughing and toasting Darcy, telling her I’d absolutely made him leave, instead of getting so upset at the accusation that I’m ready to throw her in the lake with concrete boots on.
“Don’t be.” Kinsley wraps her arms around me and pulls me in for a hug. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Burying my face in her shoulder, I shake my head and refuse to let her see me cry.
Because I refuse, above all else, to cry for Kayde Lane.
“Don’t kill anyone.” My eyes still burn from this morning, and I know I look like a mess with the fading black eyes and tearstained face. But Melody, bless her, ignores all of that and slams into me hard with a hug around my waist. I return it instantly, knowing I’ll miss her more than all my other campers combined.
“No promises,” she tells me softly, smiling up at me toothily before stepping away. My heart twists in my chest, and I feel too sensitive after…everything. The pleasurable soreness low in my body is no longer a wickedly hot reminder of last night, but is instead a reminder that Kayde really, absolutely never gave a damn.
So I suppose, in the end, he won. He broke me enough for me to care about him leaving, and now here I am, feeling like crap.
There’s no way he should’ve been able to do this to me.
“You’ll be okay, right?” Melody asks cautiously, reaching out to take my hand. “Without me?”
My grin widens, and I can’t help the small, surprised laugh that slips free from my lips. “I will miss you all the time, Mel. But yeah. I’m fine. And last time I checked, I’m the adult here. I’m the one taking care of you.”
The withering look she gives me clearly proves what she thinks of that. But instead of saying anything, she only hugs me again before picking up her duffel bag and heading for her mom, who stands waiting patiently outside the rental car that will take them to the airport.
She waves at me, and I wave back, smiling hard as the last few campers get picked up and leave Crestview as quiet as it ever is.
Footsteps on the gravel make me tense until Kinsley rests her head on my shoulder with a sigh. “I’m exhausted,” she murmurs, eyes slipping closed. “I’m dying, in fact. Literally dying of exhaustion. We should get high.”
“We should clean,” I remind her. “Unless you want to be cleaning Otter Hall at three am.” She groans at my words, telling me what she thinks of that, and I force a soft snort in reply.
“Okay, but we could go get high for a bit. Go to the infirmary and sleep on the nice, comfy medical beds. Doesn’t that sound nice? Just for a couple of hours? I bet we could make puppy eyes at Liza sp she’ll help us with the dining hall later.”
It does sound…nice. Especially the getting high part. Anything to make me feel not so raw today. And anything to make me stop imagining throwing Darcy into the lake. “Okay,” I whisper finally, closing my eyes as well. “You’re right. Edibles now, clean later.” It’s unlike me, but Kinsley doesn’t remark on it. Nor does she ask more than she had this morning, when I’d cried against her chest and told her what Darcy said.
I’ll let myself have this, just this once. And just for now. It’s not just Kayde, I think. It’s Melody, it’s Darcy. It’s me.
It’s the fact that I let him do this to me, and the fact that I have no idea how to turn this hurt in my chest to hatred.
But damn it if I’m not going to learn.