Chapter 1
Ten days earlier
Someone was watching me. I could feel it.
I resisted the urge to look around and kept my eyes forward, taking in the sun-streaked path ahead as Jasmine, the counselor tasked with showing me around, led me deeper into the heart of Camp Blackpine. The back of my neck was still prickling with that crawling awareness of being observed.
Relax. I gave myself a quick mental shake. You're the new girl. Of course people are going to look.
That was all it was. New counselor, unfamiliar face, bound to attract some curious glances. Nothing weird about it.
“—so those orange markers you can see on the shoreline," Jasmine was saying, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the lake glittering through the tree line to our left, “that section of the lake's completely off limits this year.
Kayaking, canoeing, and paddleboarding are still available, just not in that zone. And swimming's been pulled entirely.”
I lifted a brow. “How come?”
Jasmine's expression flickered briefly. “There was a drowning last year. A girl. She was only twelve.”
“Oh, shit. That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, it was awful.” Jasmine sighed. “She sneaked out in the middle of the night to go swimming, and…” She trailed off, pressing her lips together. “Someone found her in the morning.”
I processed that for a moment, watching the orange markers in the distance bob gently at the waterline. “I'm surprised the camp was able to reopen after that,” I said carefully. “Especially given the camp's clientele. I mean… rich Manhattanites are known for being pretty litigious, right?”
“Normally, yes.” Jasmine tucked a loose copper-red braid behind her ear. "But the death was ruled an accident. The kid broke the rules and sneaked out alone at night. So there was no counselor negligence involved. Nobody had anything solid to sue over.”
“Still, the PR alone…” I slowly shook my head. “It must’ve been a nightmare keeping something like that out of the media.”
I was probably being too heavy-handed with my questioning, which was the exact opposite of what I was meant to be doing at Camp Blackpine, but thankfully Jasmine didn’t seem to notice.
“Let me put it this way. The kid that died wasn't one of the wealthy ones.” She said it flatly, the way people say things they find distasteful but true. “She was a full-ride scholarship kid at some private Upper East Side academy, and her best friend’s parents paid for her to attend camp here every year so they could be together over the summer. Nice of them, I guess, although it was probably just a drop in the bucket for them.”
“Ah.”
“Anyway, her parents got a fat compensation payout, and that was more or less the end of it. But if she'd been one of the other Blackpine kids…” Jasmine made a small, bleak gesture with her hand that finished the sentence better than words could have.
I didn't say anything to that. There wasn't really anything to say.
Jasmine seemed to agree, because she cleared her throat and visibly moved on. “Okay, so, important question. Are you a Dirtbag or a Legacy?”
I blinked at her. “Sorry?”
“Dirtbag or Legacy.” She said it like it was obvious, then caught my expression. “Right, sorry, you just got here.”
I let out a weak laugh. “Yeah, I’m still pretty clueless about the terminology here.”
“Okay, so… the counselors are split into two unofficial camps. No pun intended.” She paused for a beat, gesturing to herself.
“There's people like me. Locals from Millhaven, which is about forty-five minutes that way.” She paused again, jabbing a finger westward.
“We're here because we need the paycheck and it beats waiting tables all summer. So that’s the Dirtbags. And we chose the name ourselves, before you feel bad about it.”
“Noted,” I said, lips twitching.
“Then there's the Legacies.” Something in her tone shifted, like she was trying to sound neutral but not quite managing it.
“Ex-campers. They grew up coming here every summer, and now that they’re in college, they come back as counselors.
They don't need the money, of course. It's all about the connections. The networking. Having something pretty on their resumes so they look like real people with real interests, and not just trust fund kids who spend their entire summers wandering around Europe.”
“I see.”
“So… where do you slot in?”
“Well, I’m not from anywhere around here, but I guess I’d be classified as a Dirtbag anyway.
” I sidestepped a gnarled root cutting across the path before us.
“I grew up in a tiny town in Montana, so the wealthiest people I know are the family that own the general store.
And maybe a handful of classmates at NYU, but I don't make a habit of asking people for their financial statements.”
Jasmine laughed softly at that, and I felt her relax beside me. “Thank god,” she said. “I was hoping, but I wasn’t sure, because I’ve never seen you around Millhaven.”
“They’re really that bad?”
“The Legacies?” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, a couple of them are fine, I guess. But most of them are…” She trailed off again, seeming to weigh her words, then apparently decided against the effort.
“Snobby assholes. They think they’re better than everyone, and a few of them are pretty open about that. ” She paused. “I guess you'll see.”
Before I could respond, the path opened out into a wide, flat clearing, and Jasmine swung her arm out in a vague ta-da gesture.
“Here’s the archery and ax throwing section.”
I took in the range ahead of us: the neat row of targets at the far end, the marked throwing lines, the locked equipment sheds running along the side fence.
“I know what you're thinking,” Jasmine said, arching a ginger brow.
“You do?”
“Swimming’s banned because one kid drowned, but at the same time, we're handing kids axes. What the fuck is up with that?”
My forehead crinkled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“It's actually really well regulated,” she said.
“The counselors who run these sessions are properly trained in the sport and all the safety protocols.
The equipment stays locked up when it's not in active use, so there's no sneaking out at midnight and accidentally putting an ax through someone. But… the lake doesn't lock.”
“Fair point.”
There was someone at the range already. A guy in dark athletic shorts and a gray henley with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows.
He stood side-on to the nearest target, relaxed but focused, and as I watched, his tanned arm swung back. The ax left his hand in one fluid arc, burying itself in the wood dead center with a sound like a period at the end of a sentence.
He was good.
He was also one of the hottest people I'd ever seen in my life.
He was tall, well over six feet, with the kind of build that suggested he'd been athletic his entire life.
His dark hair was pushed carelessly back from his forehead, and his strong jaw was a few days past a shave.
Even from this distance I could see the clean, sharp lines of his profile; the sort of face that was unfairly handsome.
“Ugh.” Jasmine said it quietly, almost to herself.
I looked over at her. “What’s wrong?”
“That's Rhys Usher on the range.” She said his name like it was a curse word. “Ever heard of Northgate?”
I nodded. It was impossible not to have heard of the massive telecommunications conglomerate. “Yeah, how come?”
“His family owns it, so he’s a Legacy, obviously,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He might seem decent to you at first because he's got a killer smile and actually works hard, unlike his lazy-ass buddies. But don't let any of that fool you. He's an asshole just like the rest of them.”
As if on cue, because apparently the universe had a sense of humor, Rhys retrieved his ax from the target, turned around, and looked directly at me. Not a casual glance. A full up-and-down look.
Then he smiled.
Good god. Jasmine wasn’t wrong about that smile. I was about ready to melt right into the damn ground.
Stop it. I mentally chided myself. That’s not what you’re here for. No distractions.
He wiped off his hands with a rag tucked in his back pocket as he crossed the clearing toward us, all easy confidence.
“New blood, huh?” he said, by way of greeting. His gray eyes moved briefly to Jasmine before settling back on me. “I’m Rhys,” he added, extending a hand. “Rhys Usher.”
I briefly shook his hand, trying to ignore my racing heart. “Alissa Madsen,” I said. Or croaked, more accurately.
“I’m guessing you're here to replace Gen?”
I opened my mouth, but Jasmine got there first.
“She's an extra hire,” she said. “Mabry decided to bring on a few more this year since we were stretched kinda thin last summer. But Genevieve should be back like always.”
Something crossed Rhys's face, and he hesitated, easy confidence dialed back half a degree. “You didn't hear?”
Jasmine frowned. “Hear what?”
“Gen died,” Rhys said, lowering his voice slightly.
“What?”
“It happened four months ago. Car accident."
Jasmine went very still. “Oh my god.”
“I assumed you knew." Rhys pulled out his phone and scrolled briefly. “Everyone was talking about it in the group chat for ages.”
“What group chat?” Jasmine asked.
He turned the screen toward her. She looked at it for a few seconds, then looked away, her jaw set. “I'm not in that one,” she said.
Rhys looked at the phone, then back at Jasmine, the implication landing visibly.
“Looks like it's a Legacy-only thing,” Jasmine added. Her voice was still pleasant and even. Impressively so.
Rhys had the grace to look uncomfortable. “I'm sorry, Jas,” he said. “That's a really shitty way to find out.”
She didn't respond to that. Just gave him a withering look.
Rhys turned back to me, and just like that, the smile returned, though something behind it had shifted slightly from when he'd first flashed it at me. “Nice to meet you, Alissa,” he said. “Welcome to Blackpine.”
With that, he turned and walked back toward the range.