Chapter 21 #2
The toilet flushed a second later, and Jasmine finally emerged, wiping her wet hands on her jeans.
“Thanks for that,” she said, flashing Rhys a faint smile. “We should head back now, but we’ll come by with more food later this afternoon. It’ll be way easier for us to slip away then, because everyone will be so distracted with the raft-building.”
Rhys lifted a brow. “Raft-building?”
“Oh, right. We didn’t tell you that part yet.” Jasmine snapped her fingers. “Logan had a brainwave this morning, and it might actually work.”
“Oh. What is it?”
“You know how all the kayaks were destroyed?” she said. “So we couldn’t send someone down the river?”
Rhys nodded, and she went on.
“We’re going to gather up a whole bunch of stuff and build a raft. Or at least… an attempt at one. Then we’re going to send Logan down the river on it. He should be fine, because he’s a qualified kayaking and rafting instructor. He’s even done white-water rafting a few times.”
Rhys nodded slowly. “That’s a good idea. The killer can’t sabotage something like that.”
“Exactly. The whole group will be there from start to finish, so he won’t be able to sneak up and poke holes in the raft, or whatever. Because there’ll always be multiple people watching.”
“Right.” Rhys looked back at me, frowning slightly. “I thought you said there was no plan for the day.”
Shit.
“I, uhh… I completely forgot about the raft thing until now,” I said, rubbing the side of my head. “I guess all this stress is affecting my brain. Or maybe it’s the exhaustion.”
“Yeah, must be that,” he said, though I could’ve sworn there was still a flicker of suspicion in his eyes.
“Anyway,” Jasmine cut in. “I have no idea how long the building process will take, because obviously none of us are professionals, and we have to try and find all the materials first. So… we could be here with lunch for you anywhere between twelve and three. Maybe even a little earlier or later. It’s all kind of up in the air right now.
But we’ll bring you a lot of extra stuff in case we can’t sneak out again for dinner. ”
“No problem.” Rhys tipped his head slightly. “I’ll be right here.”
Jasmine nodded. “We’ll see you later, then.”
“Yeah,” I added, forcing a small smile. “Take care.”
His gaze lingered on me for a beat longer than necessary. “You too.”
Once Jasmine and I were halfway down the path and well out of earshot, she shot me a sharp side-eye. “If we survive this, the first thing I’m doing is signing you up for an acting class.”
“Why?”
“You really need to learn to act cool, for your own benefit,” she said. “You were visibly freaking out back there. So jittery and stuttering constantly. You might as well have worn a neon sign that said, ‘Hey, Rhys, we totally suspect you!’.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was a bit thrown by the raft thing.”
“Why?”
“I figured it would be better if we didn’t tell him about it, just in case. So I outright told him we had no plans for today, and then he totally caught me in the lie.”
“Oh, right.” Jasmine winced slightly. “Sorry. I just needed an excuse to make it clear that we could come back to the cabin whenever. So if he was planning to sneak off and mess with us today, that just made it a hell of a lot harder. Because he has absolutely no idea when we’ll show up.”
“That makes sense.” I hesitated, brows furrowing. “I’m guessing you took a look around the bathroom while you were in there?”
“Yup. But there was nothing suspicious. No bloodstained clothes or bloody smears in the sink.”
“Damn.” I exhaled. “What did you think overall?”
She shrugged, gaze drifting ahead as we walked.
“It’s hard to say. He seemed surprised by everything we said, but at the same time, it was almost too good.
Like he’d rehearsed it all.” She paused, then tilted her head slightly.
“Then again, maybe we’re just looking for something that isn’t there because we already have it in our heads that it could be him. ”
I chewed on that, my stomach twisting. Then I sighed. “So basically, we still have nothing on him.”
“Pretty much.” She gave me a small, humorless smile. “Love that for us.”
The rest of the morning blurred into restless, messy activity as the group split off into smaller teams, combing through the storage sheds and maintenance areas for anything remotely usable.
Planks of wood, broken oars, lengths of rope, old tarps, even a couple of dented barrels that someone insisted might help with buoyancy.
Everything got dragged down to the main clearing in uneven armfuls and dumped into a growing pile.
Logan took the lead once it was all there, talking people through the building process with a kind of forced confidence that didn’t quite hide the strain in his voice.
People argued over what should go where, whether something would hold, and whether the whole thing was even worth attempting.
Hands got scraped, tempers flared, and more than once someone snapped at someone else for doing something ‘wrong’ like any of us really had any idea what the hell we were doing.
Still, piece by piece, it eventually started to resemble a real raft.
Just after three, we finally decided to take a break, and people peeled away in small groups, heading for the kitchen and dining hall. Jasmine and I didn’t linger. We packed up what we could carry and slipped back outside before anyone thought to question it.
By the time we reached the groundskeeper’s cabin again, my nerves were already starting to creep back in. Jasmine knocked, and Rhys opened the door a few seconds later, gaze flicking between us before settling on me. “Hey,” he said. “How’s the raft going?”
“It’s okay,” Jasmine replied, stepping inside without waiting. “But we’re not quite there yet.”
I followed her inside, doing my utmost to maintain a neutral expression as I handed the food to Rhys. He accepted it with a small, grateful smile, thumb briefly rubbing the side of my hand.
Jasmine turned to look at him. “Can I use your bathroom again?”
He raised a brow, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. “You like the décor in there or something?”
“I think I just got my period, if you really must know,” she snapped.
“Shit, sorry,” he said, the smirk vanishing. “Of course you can use it. Take your time.”
She brushed past him without another word and disappeared into the bathroom, the door shutting a little harder than necessary.
I stayed near the cabin doorway, suddenly very aware of how small the space felt.
Rhys set the food on the small coffee table that sat in front of the sofa. Then he looked back over at me, his expression softening slightly. “Hey,” he said. “Are we okay?”
My stomach began to churn. “What do you mean?”
“You just…” He hesitated, like he was choosing his words carefully. “You seemed a bit off with me this morning.”
I forced a faint smile, even as my pulse began to spike. “It’s not you,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just everything that’s going on here. I’m scared all the time, and it’s really getting to me.”
Rhys studied me for a second longer, then stepped closer. I didn’t shy away from him this time. Instead, I made myself reach for his hand first, threading my fingers through his like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“We’re fine,” I added softly.
His grip tightened slightly around mine. Then his gaze dropped, focusing on the point where our hands met.
“Huh,” he murmured. He glanced back up at me, something unreadable flickering in his eyes. “Your pulse. I can feel it.”
My chest tightened. “Oh?”
“Yeah. It’s racing,” he said. His thumb pressed lightly against my wrist, like he was testing it. Measuring. “Really racing.”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.
“You really are terrified,” he added, almost under his breath.
His gaze shifted, locking onto mine. Then he stepped even closer, and my back hit the wall before I even realized I’d moved.
“Wait…” he murmured, voice dropping. His eyes flicked over my face, searching, reading. “You’re not just scared, are you?”
Heat flooded my face before I could stop it, and the corner of his mouth curved. "You're turned on right now."
It wasn’t a question.
I opened my mouth to deny it, but the words stalled before they could form. Because he wasn’t wrong. As terrified as I was in this moment… I was also living in one of my deepest, darkest fantasies.
I’d always loved the idea of a man who could tear the world apart without hesitation, but would never turn that violence on me. Loved the idea of something dangerous and unhinged balanced against the idea that I was the one exception. The one person who’d be spared.
But that was the problem. I didn’t know for sure that Rhys would never turn on me.
Yesterday he’d told me that all he wanted was to keep me safe, which implied he’d never hurt me…
but if he was actually capable of every terrible thing I was starting to suspect, then that meant there was probably no line he wouldn’t cross. No guarantee that I wasn’t next.
So that was where the fantasy cracked apart. Where it spilled into the real world and stopped being something safe that I could control.
Rhys leaned in then. For a split-second, my instinct was to pull back, just like last time, but I didn’t. Because if I hesitated or flinched, or gave him even the slightest hint that something between us had shifted… he’d know.
His mouth found mine, and I kissed him back, matching his energy. Trying to make it feel real instead of what it actually was, which was calculation layered over panic.