Chapter 21. In Which I Commit a Third-Degree Crime, and the Whole Washington-State-Corrections-Probability Thing Increas
“Thank the Lord Almighty, Jesus Criminy, you’re here,” Christiana hisses so sharply that it cuts through Cabin Gamma.
She’s back by the sinks, holding a paint roller dripping with glowing liquid.
Her body is drowning in a baggy sweater covered in a joyful smiley face pattern, but her hair is as frizzy and unhinged as a mad scientist’s.
I remain still in the doorway, taking in the lit-up canvas they’ve painted so far. By Jameson’s twin bed are two bottles—one labeled OXALATE ESTER AND ELECTRON-RICH DYE, and the other HYDROGEN PEROXIDE SOLUTION. A puddle of the oxalate ester solution collects on the floor.
By the right wall, Benedict is still painting with a roller.
Jade is, too, climbing up on a bunk bed to reach the ceiling.
She extends her roller over the bunk’s railing, her whole body shaking as she fights to stay balanced.
Behind her, on the windowsill, lit taper candles are set in ornate sconces.
Those must be Jameson’s. A cubby nearby stores a hockey helmet and knee pads.
Luca’s bed.
“What’s going on?” I demand as I hurry to close the door, its hinges squeaking too loudly for comfort. The oversized cuffs of Luca’s varsity jacket that hang past my fingertips catch on the doorknob, slowing me down. “I went to our cabin, and you guys weren’t there. Are you really not done yet?”
“The solution didn’t activate as quickly as I thought it would,” Christiana says, pointing her roller at the bottles strewn across the floor. “Is Gamma still at the rink?”
“For now.”
The words that need to come next sizzle on the tip of my tongue. Luca told me his cabin didn’t steal our bedsheets.
But Benedict, Jade, and Christiana are almost done. We can’t take this back. It’s too late. Maybe Gamma can sleep with their heads under their blankets to shield at least part of the light? It’s not like we’re doing something really evil here.
Plus, an insistently loud part of me knows we need to win the next two tests to even tie with Gamma. And they can’t win any more.
Backing out now means defeat. Can I be okay with that?
My twinges of conscience grow stronger. The walls shift and bend, morphing into a mural of Luca’s glowing, golden face.
He smiles back at me, the same way he did when he saw me at announcements on the first day of camp.
In the Catenoid Meadow, and in the canoe.
Tonight, when he wrapped his arms around me, teaching me how to hold a hockey stick.
“Wait,” I say toward everyone. “We can’t—”
A scream fills the cabin, cutting me off.
Jade slips from her precarious balancing act on the top bunk. She falls off the railing, her paint roller hitting her forehead and splattering glowing juice all over her. The lit taper candles knock off the windowsill and come crashing down with her.
The wood floor catches fire.
My mouth hangs open.
“You have to be joking,” Benedict drones from the other side of the room. He’s staring at the flames with the same judgment he would give a pair of Crocs.
“Are you okay?!” Christiana shouts, rushing over to Jade.
As Christiana helps her off the floor and moves her farther from the fire, Jade winces. She flexes her arm. A long cut travels down the side.
Still, relief floods through me. She’s not dead.
I point at the flame that’s thankfully spreading as slowly as a tortoise. “That could’ve been much worse. Let’s find some fabric to swat it—”
The flame approaches the puddle of oxalate ester and electron-rich dye.
It shoots up to the size of a bonfire.
“—out,” I finish, the words falling out from under me.
“WHAT THE FUCK,” Jade screams. She stumbles backward so abruptly that she drags Christiana down to the floor with her.
“The chemical makeup of glow stick liquid isn’t supposed to be flammable,” Christiana shouts over the crackling wood. “Jade, what did you do?!”
“Shit, I don’t know. Don’t put Expert Social Science in charge of mixing chemicals!”
The flames soar higher, licking up Luca’s bunk bed. The crackling grows louder, whipping hot smoke into our faces.
“We need to go,” Benedict says, standing by the door.
“We can’t just let their cabin burn,” I hear someone say. It takes a second before I realize it’s me. My voice feels too distant, too unreal, as if this is all some hallucination. It must be.
Stomping comes up behind me.
“Rory, come on!” Benedict shouts over my shoulder. My hand is snatched, and I’m being dragged out of the cabin. A crashing noise comes from inside as we make it out the door—ceiling beams falling and destroying whatever was in their wake.
The moment our feet touch the grass, we turn around. We go still as dark smoke billows from the roof and coats the treetops like an SOS signal.
“Well,” Jade mutters between us. “Now what?”
“Over here!”
“Hurry!”
We turn toward the frantic shouts coming from the main path.
Heart rate spiking, I check my watch. Ten minutes left until the skate night ends.
They must have seen or smelled the smoke from the arena.
I search for a hiding spot, even though my vision is blurry and my adrenaline screams to run without any logical plan.
I finally spot a thick cluster of bushes and point at them.
Everyone gets the signal, and we rush to hide.
A collection of mentors and campers sprint up to the cabin. Some shine their flashlights around to check for anyone inside. Others yell into their phones. One flashlight beams directly at our bushes. We gasp and duck deeper.
Footsteps shuffle off the path and into the grass. Toward us.
They get closer. And closer.
“Our Father, who art in heaven,” Christiana whispers, bowing her head and threading her fingers together, “hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come—”
Jade hits her hard on the arm. “If the Lord is finally going to hear you, it isn’t going to be after you’ve become an arsonist.”
Christiana’s eyes snap back up. “It was you who—”
I grab them both in a headlock. “Stop. It. Now.”
They fall as silent as the cavernous oblivion of a soundwaveless black hole, and so suddenly that I can only wonder how intense my face must be. All the blood feels drained from my cheeks, and my eyes burn on the verge of tears.
Right now, I should only care about what would happen to my image if I were caught. It would be dead. I would be dead.
But I don’t care. Not a big part of me, not a small part of me. None of me. Not when all of Luca’s hockey gear was in there. Everyone else’s belongings, too.
We fucked up.
“THE BACHELOR ISLAND GHOST IS REAL,” someone shouts in the distance, panicked and piercingly loud.
Our heads perk up, and we peek over the bushes.
By the porch, Jameson claws at his hair. He’s staring at his cabin in horror. “I knew I needed water from the Red Sea.”
Felix rushes to his side and attempts to calm him down with a few back pats, but it’s too late. Other campers are shouting alongside him now, including Cindy and Samuel and Eleanor, who live in that very cabin.
Luca trails behind them all, standing still by the path. Flickers of reds and oranges flash across his shocked expression.
“If you all don’t wish to get caught,” Benedict says, squatting on his feet, “then we need to go. Now.”