Chapter 9 #3
A few others murmured in agreement, and I felt a subtle change ripple through the group. Shoulders loosened. The edge in people’s voices softened. Expressions morphed from nervous to faint, cautious optimism.
It wasn’t relief exactly, but it was something to cling to for now.
“In the meantime,” Rhys said, tone easing slightly, “there’s not much else we can do tonight. But we’ve got no kids to supervise anymore, so we might as well try to make the best of it.”
Zach huffed out a breath beside him, a faint grin tugging at his mouth. “Yeah, if there was ever a time to take advantage of a situation, it’s probably now,” he said. “We can basically do whatever the hell we want. Drink, smoke some shit, party all night if we feel like it.”
“Have some real fun for once,” Sutton added, flashing a small, coy smile at Rhys.
“Yeah,” he said, his gaze settling on me again. “Fun.”
Something in the way he said it made my stomach tighten, an unwanted flicker of awareness that I had no business feeling right now.
Sutton noticed where his gaze was focused, and the smile on her face vanished, replaced with an unmistakable scowl.
“Well,” Jesse said with a wry half-smile, “we do have a pretty solid stash of beer hidden around here. Seems like a waste not to drink it.”
That earned a few snorts and quieter laughs, the tension cracking just enough to let something almost normal slip through.
Rhys inclined his head slightly, then stepped back. “Anyway. Just wanted to let you guys know the plan.”
With that, he turned and headed back toward the other side of the fire, the rest of the group following him without question. Sutton looked back over her shoulder once, just to flash me another dirty look.
Jesse exhaled deeply and stood. “I guess I’ll go grab some of those beers,” he said. “Who wants one?”
A few people raised their hands, and Jesse headed off toward the woods where the main Dirtbag stash was hidden.
He returned ten minutes later with an armful of drinks. Caps hissed and popped, and a few people laughed, properly this time. In that moment, it was almost possible to pretend this was just another late night at camp.
Over the next couple of hours, things started to feel a lot more settled. Conversations grew a little louder and looser, helped along by the crackle of the fire and the steady flow of alcohol, and no one brought up the so-called prank that was keeping us all trapped here.
I was halfway through my second beer, listening to Wren tell a story about a disastrous date her sister had gone on, when I noticed Grace approaching us from the other side of the fire.
“Hey,” she said, glancing between us. “Have any of you seen Delia?”
“I saw her walk past a while ago,” Jesse said. “Why?”
“She said she was going to grab some candy from the Snack Shed,” Grace replied. “But that was twenty minutes ago, and she’s still not back.”
“Maybe she went to bed?” Tamsin suggested. “I mean, it’s almost eleven, and today’s been pretty hectic.”
Grace shook her head. “She wasn’t tired, and she wouldn’t just go without telling me. We share a cabin, remember?”
“Maybe she tripped on the way back,” Wren said. “Twisted her ankle, or something like that. So she might just be moving slowly.”
Grace hesitated. “Yeah. Maybe,” she said, though she didn’t sound entirely convinced. “I’ll go check.”
She turned and headed off, silhouette slipping in and out of the shadows as she moved beyond the circle of firelight.
For the next few minutes, our conversation picked back up, until it was abruptly cut off by a scream full of raw, unfiltered terror.
Everything stopped for a second. Then the entire group jumped to their feet at once.
“That was Grace!” someone said, unnecessarily.
We were already running.
Twigs loudly snapped underfoot as we cut across the clearing and into the darker stretch of ground beyond, heading down the path that led toward the Snack Shed.
It finally came into view, and in the moonlight, we could see Grace standing just outside it. Or rather, she was trying to stand. One hand was clamped over her mouth, and her whole body was folded in on itself as if she might collapse at any second.
“What happened?” Olivia demanded, skidding to a stop beside her. “Are you okay?”
Grace didn’t answer. She just lifted a shaky hand and pointed.
I followed the direction of it, my gaze dragging slowly toward the side of the shed. That was when I saw her.
Delia.
For a second, my brain refused to process what I was looking at, the image too wrong to make sense of all at once. She was upright, her back against the wooden boards, her head tilted slightly to one side.
Then my eyes found the shaft.
A harpoon had been driven clean through her torso and into the wood behind her, pinning her there like a mounted trophy animal. Blood had soaked through the front of her shirt and spread outward, dripping slowly down the wall and pooling at her feet.
In that moment, any lingering doubts I’d had disappeared completely.
This wasn’t just a sick prank.
There was a killer at Camp Blackpine.