Chapter 18
“What the fuck?” Jasmine’s voice cracked through the cabin, sharp and loud. Her ax was still raised in both hands like she was seconds away from swinging it.
Knox’s hands shot up instantly. “This isn’t what it looks like, I swear!”
I barely heard him. I was still staring at Rhys.
My brain was simply refusing to catch up with what I was seeing, like it had hit some kind of wall and just… stopped. Rhys was here, solid and real and clean. Not bloodied, not broken.
Alive.
A strange, dizzying rush of relief hit me all at once, almost hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs. He was alive. He wasn’t lying in a woodshed. He hadn’t been dragged off and dumped somewhere to rot.
But the relief didn’t settle. Instead it twisted into confusion and fury. Why the hell had he let us believe he was dead?
“Oh yeah?” Jasmine snarled, her focus still locked on Knox. “Because what it looks like is you helped Rhys fake his own death so he can throw everyone off the fact that he’s the fucking killer!”
Rhys took a step forward, hands lifting slightly. “That’s only half true,” he said. “Knox did help me fake it. Obviously. But it’s not because I’m out here killing people. I swear.”
“What other possible reason could there be to do this shit?” Jasmine fired back, angling the ax toward him now. She flicked me a quick glance. “Alissa, run and get the others. I’ll stop these two from going after you as long as I can.”
“Wait. Please.” Rhys raised his hands properly now, mirroring Knox. “Just give us five minutes to explain. Neither of us are armed, and you can hold onto your weapons the whole time. And if you aren’t convinced when we’re done talking… well, then you can go and tell everyone.”
Knox’s head whipped toward him. “Dude, that’ll wreck the plan!”
Rhys ignored him, his gaze fixed on us. “Deal?”
Jasmine hesitated, jaw tight. “Fine,” she finally said. “Five minutes. Start talking. And I want every single detail. Because we all saw you dead, Rhys. You weren’t breathing.”
Rhys dipped his chin in a short nod. “Yeah. That part took some work. I couldn’t have pulled it off without him,” he said, glancing over at Knox. “Want to start, man?”
“Okay.” Knox dragged a hand over his neck. “Jasmine, do you remember that Juilliard girl I dated for a while?”
“You mean the one you wouldn’t shut up about all last summer?” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. “The actress.”
“Yeah. Her. She taught me a few things. I can’t cry on command or anything, but I can fake shock pretty convincingly. Like… finding my best friend dead, for example.”
“I wouldn’t be bragging about that,” Jasmine said snidely. “It was a real dick move.”
“I’m not bragging,” he replied. “Just explaining how I sold it. And the blood was fake too, obviously. It was a mix of stuff Rhys and I found in the arts and crafts center.”
Jasmine’s attention snapped back to Rhys. “You weren’t breathing,” she said, voice low and tight. “How the hell can you fake something like that?”
“I was breathing. Just slowly and shallow enough that no one noticed,” he said.
He shifted his weight slightly before going on.
“We used a bunch of tricks to make sure no one noticed. For one, we staged it all in the shed where Delia’s body was being kept, because we knew that way no one would bother trying to move me. ”
Knox nodded. “If anyone had touched him, they would’ve realized pretty fast that he wasn’t stiff or cold, and that he still had a pulse.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Jasmine snapped at him before looking back at Rhys. “Go on.”
“I wore a thick jacket,” he continued. “Gave me enough room to breathe without it being obvious.”
I nodded slowly. I’d noticed the jacket at the time; the way it seemed a little out of place after he’d shown up to our ax throwing session that morning in just a t-shirt and jeans. It had registered as odd, but not enough to question. Not then.
“I also stole some beta blockers out of the nurse’s office,” he went on. “Those things slow down your heart and respiration, and that makes it easier to stay calm and take really slow breaths.”
Jasmine’s eyes narrowed. “And you just happened to know that?”
“I read it in a waiting room magazine a few years ago, and it stuck in my head. You know what I’m like at memorizing stuff.”
Jasmine’s lips pursed for a second. Then she let out a faint grunt of acknowledgement, chin dipping in a small, reluctant nod.
“We also never let anyone get close to the body,” Knox said, putting the word ‘body’ in air quotes.
“At least not for long. It was like… a reverse psychology kind of thing. I acted like I didn’t want anyone to cover him up, and you saw what happened then.
They couldn’t have thrown that sheet over him fast enough. ”
“Only three people ever got close enough to be able to tell I was breathing if they looked properly,” Rhys added. “Jesse, Caitlin, and Zach. And like Knox just said, Caitlin and Zach wanted to get that sheet over me as quick as they could. And Jesse was—”
“Comforting you,” Jasmine said coldly, glaring at Knox again. “While you lied right to all our faces.”
Knox swallowed. “I’m sorry. It had to be done.”
“Did it?” Jasmine tilted her head and waved the ax at him again, making him flinch. “Why, exactly, did it have to be done?”
Rhys took another short step forward. “It was my idea, so if you’re going to be pissed, be pissed at me. Not him.”
“Trust me, I am pissed at you,” Jasmine said, turning her attention back to him. “Why the fuck did you fake your death?”
“I wanted to rattle the killer,” he said. “I figured if a second killer suddenly showed up, or at least seemed to, then the real killer might get nervous. Then he might start getting sloppy. Make enough mistakes to reveal himself.”
Jasmine scoffed. “You really thought that would work?”
“I think it’s already working,” he said evenly. “Before you two showed up, Knox told me that the killer moved all the bodies. Probably dumped them in the lake. So he’s obviously rattled. Scrambling to cover himself.”
Jasmine hesitated. “That’s… actually not a terrible point,” she muttered.
Rhys nodded. “He might slip up soon. Badly enough that we can catch him out. At least that’s what we’re hoping.”
I finally found my voice. “Why hide it?” I asked. “Why did you let all of us believe you were dead?”
Rhys and Knox exchanged glances. Then Knox let out a short sigh.
“We don’t know for sure that the killer’s an outsider,” he said.
“We thought there was still a chance it might be one of the other counselors. Or even two of them working together. So if we told the entire group about the scheme, then they’d all know Rhys wasn’t really dead, and that would defeat the entire purpose of it, wouldn’t it? ”
“Right. But it’s not one of us,” Jasmine said flatly. She looked back at Rhys. “We talked about it after you ‘died’, and everyone has an alibi for when Sloane and Reid were killed. Except for you, actually.”
Knox lifted one of his palms higher, head tipping slightly. “That might not be true.”
“How so?” I asked, frowning.
“In that conversation, a lot of people gave each other alibis, right?”
Jasmine and I nodded in unison.
“Well, if it’s like we suspect, and it’s actually two people working together—”
“Then they could’ve covered for each other during the alibi chat,” Jasmine cut in, finishing his sentence for him. She let out a short sigh, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. “Shit. I didn’t even think of that.”
“Me neither,” I mumbled, feeling foolish.
Jasmine bristled, shoulders squaring again. “So how do you know it’s not one of us?” she asked, motioning between us. “Or even both of us?”
Rhys slowly shook his head, eyes fixed on me. “We don’t,” he said. “We just have to hope like hell it’s not. Because if it is, our plan’s dead in the water, and you’ll probably decide to make us your next victims.”
“It’s not us,” I muttered, pointedly avoiding his gaze.
I was still furious at him for what he’d done. And not just that, but at the fact that he hadn’t told me about it. Instead, he’d slotted me in the same category as everyone else. No one special. Just another person to hide the truth from.
Logically, I knew my anger in that regard was ridiculous.
After all, we weren’t in a relationship. We weren’t even casually dating. We’d hooked up once in a shed, and that didn’t entitle me to anything. Not explanations or trust. Not some special exemption from whatever plans he’d decided to cook up with a lifelong friend he actually trusted.
I knew all of that. Knew that I didn’t really have the right to feel hurt. But it didn’t stop it from stinging anyway, because somehow, it still felt like a major betrayal.
“How long were you two planning to keep this up?” Jasmine asked, gaze skating between the two guys. “I mean, you know you have to come out and tell everyone you’re actually alive at some point, right?”
Rhys nodded. “We hoped we wouldn’t have to do it for long.
Just long enough to throw the killer off his game, which would hopefully stop him from going after anyone else until Brad and Olivia brought the cops here.
Or Piper. But…” He paused and let out a sigh, rubbing his jaw.
“Knox also told me that some of the guys found Piper’s body earlier.
And apparently everyone thinks Brad and Olivia are dead too.
So there’s no help coming anytime soon.”
“That means we might have to keep things going for a couple more days,” Knox added. He glanced between us, a little sheepish now. “We hadn’t really worked out the details yet. You kind of interrupted that part when you busted in here with those axes.”
“Which was pretty fucking stupid of you, by the way.” Rhys folded his arms, eyes narrowing slightly. “What if we actually were psychopathic murderers? How do you think this would’ve gone for you then?”
It was Jasmine’s turn to look sheepish. “That’s my bad,” she said. She jerked her thumb in my direction. “She wanted to go and tell the others, but I basically forced her to come in here with me.”