Chapter 17
The darker-than-ever mood that had settled over dinner didn't lift so much as solidify into something quieter and more resigned. Most people stayed at the tables after they’d eaten, talking in low voices.
A few others left, presumably for showers or simply because they were tired, but no one went alone.
I was halfway through a cup of herbal tea, staring at nothing in particular, when the dining hall doors banged open again.
Garrett came in first, then Levi and Cole right behind him, and one look at their faces was enough to kill every conversation in the room.
“What’s happened now?” Jesse asked, rising to his feet.
“The bodies are gone,” Garrett said.
For a few seconds, nobody reacted. The words just hung in the air, too strange to absorb.
“What?” Caitlin said at last.
“The bodies are gone,” Garrett repeated, his voice tight. “We went back to the cellar to move Piper up to the woodshed before it got dark. Figured it made sense to keep them all together now that we don’t know when the cops are coming.” He shook his head. “She’s not there anymore.”
“We went and checked the woodshed after that,” Levi said. “Delia and Rhys are gone too.”
“What about Sloane and Reid?” Wren asked, eyes widening. “Did you check that building?”
Garrett's jaw flexed. “They’re gone too.”
“But why?” Maren said, looking around the room like someone might actually have an answer ready. “Why would the killer move them? What's the point?”
I turned the question over in my mind, trying to find the logic in it. This killer had been careful and methodical from the start. Always a step ahead. So he wouldn’t just move the bodies for no reason.
“Evidence, maybe?” I finally ventured.
Several heads turned toward me.
I sat up straighter. “At some point, the police are going to realize that something’s happened here, and when they do, they're going to go over everything,” I said. “And there could’ve been evidence on the bodies, right? Fingerprints, hair, skin cells.”
“So he’s cleaning up,” Jesse said, nodding slowly.
“Yeah. Or trying to, at least.”
Cole tilted his head. “He could’ve dumped them all in the lake.”
“That’d make sense,” Garrett replied grimly. “It’s easy enough to do, and it would wash off any traces he left behind.”
Maren’s gaze darted around the room. “So he was out there sneaking around while we were all in here. He could’ve been right outside and we didn’t even know.”
“He’s been close this whole time,” Tamsin said flatly. “That’s not new information.”
The truth of her words settled over the room, and one by one, people seemed to shrink inward again.
“So… what do we do?” Maren finally asked. Her voice had lost its earlier edge, worn down to something almost plaintive.
Jesse let out a long, slow breath and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “I don't know,” he said. “I really don't know.”
It was the most honest thing anyone had said in hours, and somehow that made it worse.
Caitlin had her elbows on the table, her face resting in her hands. Wren was turning an empty cup between her palms without seeming to notice she was doing it. Across the room, Grace was just staring at the wall.
I finally stood up, needing to do something. “It’s my turn for the dishes,” I said. “I’ll grab a tray.”
I grabbed my ax before I went, just in case, leaving it propped up against one of the kitchen cupboards. When I came back with a large plastic tray, people were already stacking plates and cups, offering faint, grateful smiles as I moved from table to table collecting everything.
Once the tray was full, I carried it into the kitchen, stepping carefully around the corner of the L-shaped room toward the industrial dishwasher. I loaded it and set it running before turning my attention to the pots in the sink, still smeared with remnants of the stew.
I filled the sink with hot water and dish soap, watching the bubbles rise, and then plunged my hands in and started scrubbing.
It was almost meditative, in a grim sort of way.
Just the heat of the water, the repetitive motion, the faint clatter of metal against the side of the sink.
My brain, which had been grinding itself raw all day, went mercifully quiet for a few minutes.
I had just set the last clean pot upside down on the rack when a dull thud echoed from around the corner.
“Hello?” I called out.
No one replied.
I waited, eyes on the corner. The dishwasher hummed steadily behind me.
Another sound followed. A scrape this time. Something dragging across the prep bench.
“Hello?” I called out again. “Jasmine, is that you?”
Once again, there was no reply.
That was weird. Too weird to ignore.
Another strange scraping sound filled the room, and suddenly my imagination turned on me, filling my mind’s eye with a horrible vision.
Everyone in the dining hall slumped over the tables, throats cut, the awful sounds of their demise swallowed by the noise of the pots banging around in the sink as I washed them.
The killer moving through the kitchen, saving me for last.
With my heart thudding painfully hard, I quietly crossed to the cupboard where I'd left my ax. My fingers closed around the handle, and I lifted it, holding it across my body as I moved toward the corner.
I stepped slowly, keeping close to the counter, placing each foot with deliberate care on the tiled floor. Then I sucked in a deep breath and rounded the corner with the ax raised high.
Knox was standing at the prep bench making a sandwich, a butter knife in one hand and a jar of peanut butter in the other. He had white earbuds in both ears.
Before I had a chance to say or do anything, he caught my movement in his peripheral vision and stumbled backward so hard he hit the bench behind him.
“What the fuck?” he yelped, one of the earbuds flying out. “Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack?”
“Sorry,” I said, quickly dropping the ax to my side. “I heard a noise, and no one answered when I called out, so I thought—”
I abruptly stopped, suddenly feeling extremely stupid.
“Thought what?” Knox was still staring at the ax.
“Honestly… I thought someone might be coming to kill me.”
Knox let out a long breath and tapped his left ear. “I didn’t hear you call out. AirPods. I’ve got some old football podcasts downloaded on my phone, so…”
He trailed off, not needing to finish the explanation.
“Sorry,” I repeated. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He sighed and waved a hand. “It’s fine. We’re all losing our minds a bit here.”
My eyes drifted over to the prep bench, and I noticed he’d already made two other sandwiches. Sitting beside them was an apple, a plum, a chia pudding cup, three protein bars, and an unzipped insulated lunch tote.
“What’s with all the food?” I asked, brows knitting.
“Oh, uhh…” Knox scratched the back of his neck.
“I've got a really big appetite, so I always wake up in the middle of the night starving.
Usually I just sneak in here or hit the Snack Shed, but obviously I'm not doing that alone in the dark anymore.” He gestured at the tote.
“So I'm just stocking up. Taking it back to the cabin to save for later.”
“Right,” I said.
He nodded and turned back to the sandwich, and I headed out of the kitchen, mind whirling.
Big appetite or not, three sandwiches, three protein bars, two pieces of fruit, and a pudding cup was a lot of food for one person to get through before sunrise. Not completely impossible. Just… weird. The kind of weird that was sitting at the back of my throat, refusing to go down.
Back in the dining hall, Wren, Tamsin, and Jesse had found a pack of cards somewhere and were deep into a game at our usual table, joined by Simon and Grayson. Jasmine was leaning back in her chair beside them, arms folded, looking like someone who’d run out of patience for the concept of existing.
“Hey, Jas,” I said, catching her eye and giving her a look. “Can you come help me with something for a sec?”
She read my expression instantly. “Sure.”
She pushed her chair back and followed me over to the stretch of wall near the kitchen entrance, far enough from the others that we wouldn't be overheard. Just as we got there, Knox emerged from the kitchen, the lunch tote swinging at his side as he headed for the dining hall doors.
“I need to follow Knox,” I said in a low voice. “Can you come with me?”
Jasmine blinked. “Why?”
“I don’t want to go alone, because—”
She cut me off with a small, impatient gesture. “No, I mean, why are we following Knox?”
“It’s just a hunch. I’ll explain later if it turns out to be nothing.” I lifted my gaze, tracking his movement across the room. “But we have to go now, before we lose him.”
“All right.” She didn't waste time questioning it further. She just turned and called back to the table. “Guys? We’re going to go shower before it gets dark. Don’t worry, we’ll stick together.”
“Okay,” Wren called back, laying down a card. “Be careful while you’re outside. And make sure you take your weapons.”
We slipped out of the dining hall just in time to see Knox walking across the gravel, the lunch tote swinging at his side. The evening light was still holding on, that long stretch of pale gold that refused to fully fade, turning the woods into a hazy blur of deep green and shadow.
“Where’s he going?” Jasmine muttered beside me.
Knox had just veered right, toward the far corner of the building. The main cabin block was to the left, which meant he wasn’t taking the bag of food back to his own quarters like he’d told me.
“No idea,” I murmured. “Let’s find out.”
We followed him at a distance, keeping to the shadows along the building’s exterior wall, our footsteps as quiet as we could make them.
When we rounded the corner of the building, we both stopped.
A wide path stretched out ahead of us, cutting away from the main grounds through a thin line of trees.
It led to the staff accommodation section; a separate cluster of individual cabins set apart from the main sleeping quarters where all the kids and counselors usually slept.
Knox was already heading down the path, so we started following him again, being careful to maintain a safe distance. A moment later, he slowed and stopped.
Then he turned around.
“Down,” I whispered.
We dropped behind a shrub at the edge of the path in the same motion, crouching low, shoulders pressed close. I held completely still, not even breathing properly, my pulse roaring in my ears.
Seconds dragged. Then Jasmine exhaled quietly beside me, and I risked a look. Knox had turned back around. He hadn’t spotted us.
We waited until he’d put more distance between us before rising and continuing after him, slower this time. The path curved slightly, and then the staff cabins came into view ahead, windows catching the last of the pale evening light with a flat, glassy blankness.
We ducked behind another shrub and watched.
Knox didn’t hesitate. He walked straight toward the cabin at the end of the row, like he already knew exactly where he was going.
“What the hell is he doing?” I muttered, head slowly shaking.
“Maybe he’s decided to stay down here,” Jasmine suggested. “These cabins all have their own private bathrooms, so it beats having to walk all the way to the bathroom block every time you want to pee, right?”
“But they only have one bed in them, don’t they?” I asked. She nodded, and I went on. “Why would anyone want to sleep alone right now?”
“Fair point.” Her eyes narrowed on Knox again. “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to.”
Knox finally stopped in front of the last cabin. Then he lifted a hand to rap on the door.
Jasmine's fingers instantly tightened around my arm. “Oh my god,” she said breathlessly. “Someone must be in there.”
A few seconds later, the door opened. Knox stepped inside, and it shut quickly behind him before we could catch a glimpse of who had let him in.
We stayed crouched there for a minute, both of us too stunned to move or speak.
Then I finally pushed to my feet. “We have to get the others,” I said.
But Jasmine was already moving, her ax lifting as she headed toward the cabin.
“Jasmine!” I hissed as I caught up to her. “We can’t just charge in there! It could be dangerous!”
“I need to know what’s going on in there right fucking now,” she shot back. “I’m not waiting.”
I grabbed her arm before she could get much further. “Stop. Please.”
“No!” She turned on me, eyes bright with something that looked a little too close to desperation. “We need to know who’s in there!”
“I know,” I said. “But we don’t know what we’re walking into. We can’t just stroll up and knock like it’s nothing.”
“I wasn't planning on knocking,” she said with a pointed look at the ax in her hand.
I tightened my grip on her arm. “Just think about it for a second. If it's the killer in there with Knox, then that means it’s the two of us against someone who’s already taken out five people.
Including people much bigger and stronger than us.
And Knox is obviously on his side. So how do you think that’ll work out for us? ”
Her jaw flexed as she chewed the inside of her cheek. “We don’t know it’s the killer. Something else could be going on.”
“Maybe, yeah, but we should go back and get the others before we check,” I said. “There's safety in numbers. So we tell them what we saw, and then we come back as a group, and—”
“And in the meantime, whoever’s in there could slip out and disappear into the woods,” Jasmine cut in flatly. “We could lose them entirely.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
Jasmine let out a sharp breath, already turning back toward the cabin. “I’m going in there right now,” she said. “With or without you.”
“Jasmine…”
“I mean it, Alissa.” She glanced back at me, eyes blazing with a kind of reckless certainty that made my stomach drop. “I’m not walking away from this.”
For a split second, I considered letting her go alone. Then I swore under my breath and followed. There was no way I was letting her walk into that cabin by herself.
The last stretch of ground disappeared beneath our feet in seconds. Jasmine reached the door first. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t knock. She grabbed the handle, found it unlocked, and shoved it open with enough force that it slammed against the wall.
We rushed in together, axes raised. Then we froze.
Knox was standing in the middle of the room, half-turned toward us, eyes wide with shock. Beside him was Rhys.
Very much alive.