Chapter 12
“This is fucked.” Knox scraped a hand through his hair. “Seriously fucked. None of this makes any sense.”
Sutton shot me a sideways look. “Maybe Alissa was right after all,” she muttered. “It’s one of us.”
Rhys cleared his throat and spoke up again. “I remembered something while we were out there,” he said. “During the Wilderness Wander a few days ago, some kids found a beanie. It looked brand new. Alissa, Caitlin, Zach… you guys remember that, right?”
Jensen raised a palm. “I was there too,” he said. “And yeah, it was definitely new. The kids were all joking about it belonging to the Woodsman.”
“Not so funny now, is it?” Jasmine said under her breath.
Sutton raised a brow. “So what’s your point?” she asked, eyes fixed on Rhys. “You think that beanie belongs to whoever’s doing this?”
“Maybe.” Rhys scratched his jaw. “Maybe he even left it there on purpose, to taunt us. Let us know that he’s lurking out there.”
“Or maybe a hiker dropped it a few weeks ago and that’s why it looks new,” Sloane said, rolling her eyes. “Either way, some random beanie doesn’t really help us, does it?”
“It could be evidence that it’s an outsider behind all this shit,” Rhys said. “I think that matters.”
“How?”
“For one thing, it stops us all from turning on each other,” he said. His gaze moved across the group again. “Cohesion matters right now. It’s pretty much all we’ve got.”
“He’s right,” Jasmine said in a grudging tone. “We need to stick together. Whoever this asshole is, he probably wants us to lose it and start splitting off into smaller groups, because that makes it a hell of a lot easier for him to pick us off.”
The words landed hard, cutting through the room with grim clarity. Beneath today’s forced calm, we’d all known this was a possibility.
Delia might not be the only victim.
Just the first.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then someone near the back cleared their throat. “So… what do we do now?”
A few people shifted, glancing at each other, but it was Jesse who finally answered. “I don’t think there’s much we can do right now,” he said. “Not until Brad and Olivia get to town. All we can really do is sit tight. Wait it out.”
“That’s it?” Maren asked, her voice catching. “We just sit around and hope nothing else happens?”
Jesse lifted a shoulder. “Pretty much, yeah. But we don’t have to just sit here in silence freaking ourselves out. We can stay together in the dining hall for a bit. Eat, drink, maybe play cards or something. Or just talk.”
“And when it gets dark,” Caitlin added, picking up the thread, “we can head back to the fire pit and hang out together. Same as last night.”
“Good idea.” Garrett nodded. “Just be careful moving around once it’s dark. Take a flashlight or phone. And watch where you step.”
He didn’t need to spell out the reason for that.
“Wait.” Jasmine frowned. “Is it really a good idea to be sitting out in the open tonight?”
“Honestly, it’s probably safer than splitting up across a bunch of buildings,” Caitlin said. “At least out there we can see if anyone’s coming. So no one can sneak up on us.”
“And acting like everything’s normal might stop us from losing our minds,” Jesse added. “Because I’m about five minutes away from doing exactly that.”
A few strained laughs slipped out. Then Rhys spoke up again.
“You’re right. This whole situation is insane, but we can’t let it get to us too much,” he said. “We have to try and keep things as normal as we can. Stick together, stay busy, wait for help.”
No one argued with that, because right now, it was the only plan anyone had.
A few hours later, we were back out at Blackpine’s main firepit.
The sky had deepened into that rich, inky blue that came just after sunset, the last traces of light bleeding out behind the tree line.
The fire had been lit again, flames licking steadily upward as the wood caught, casting a warm glow over the clearing.
This time, no one drifted too far away from the rest. The night before, the group had naturally split into separate clusters; an invisible line dividing Legacies from Dirtbags.
Now we all sat in a loose circle around the fire, shoulders close and knees almost touching, like we were subconsciously trying to shrink the space between us.
Not that it made the unease go away.
A handful of people eventually pulled their benches or logs together near the center so they could focus on the main conversation. Off to the sides, smaller pockets had formed, speaking in quieter tones, heads bent slightly toward each other.
No one was alone.
Garrett had passed around beers at some point, and I held one loosely now, more for something to do than any real desire to drink it. The can had grown lukewarm from the heat of my hand.
“…I’m just saying, if they hit the road by sunrise, they could cover a good distance before it gets too hot,” Caitlin was saying from somewhere across the fire, her voice carrying just enough for me to catch it.
“Especially if they keep a steady pace. So they’ll definitely be there by lunch tomorrow. ”
“Yeah,” Logan replied. “Brad’s like a machine when it comes to that stuff. And Olivia’s pretty much the same.”
“Good,” someone else muttered. “The sooner they get to town, the better.”
As the conversation went on, I glanced around the circle, taking in the faces lit by the firelight. Everyone looked a little different tonight. More drawn. More alert.
Across from me, Sutton sat close to Rhys, her body angled toward him. He was looking outward, his gaze moving past the firelight and into the darkness beyond, steady and watchful.
For a second, it occurred to me that he looked less tense than the rest of us. Then he shifted slightly, and the thought was gone.
I took a small sip of my drink, and my eyes drifted over to the darkness between the nearby trees, like I was half-expecting to see something move there. Nothing did, but the worry didn’t go away.
“Guys?” Grace suddenly sat up straighter, her voice thin and tight. “What if something happens to them?”
“Who?” Maren asked.
“Brad and Olivia. What if they don’t make it to town?”
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Caitlin spoke up. “They will. They’re probably more than halfway there by now. I bet they’re settling into their tent as we speak.”
“But we have no way to contact them to make sure.” Grace’s voice was starting to sound slightly hysterical now.
“Anything could happen to them. Or it could’ve happened already.
The killer could’ve followed them out there, or a car could’ve run them over once they made it to Route 30. Or… a bear could’ve snatched them.”
“I don’t think so,” Caitlin said gently. “Whoever’s doing all this… I have a feeling they’re staying pretty close to camp, like Rhys said earlier. So I doubt he followed Brad and Olivia. He might not even know they left, because it was so early in the morning.”
“Also, a car’s not taking them out,” Zach added. “It’s summer. Full visibility during the day. And bears? Come on. That basically never happens here.”
“But it can,” Grace insisted.
Sutton suddenly straightened. “Oh my god. I totally forgot!”
Everyone looked at her.
“Even if something happened to them, it wouldn’t even matter,” she went on.
“Excuse me?” Grace snapped.
Sutton frowned. “Okay, that came out totally wrong. Of course it matters if something happens to Brad and Olivia. I just meant… Piper and her boyfriend can get help.”
“Piper left,” Wren said, brows rising.
“Yeah, but she didn’t go straight back to the city.
She went to stay with Ian in Saranac Lake for a few days, and she said she’d come back to visit us before she headed back to the city.
” Sutton’s eyes moved across the fire to land on me.
“Alissa, I showed you the message, right? Do you remember her exact words?”
I nodded slowly. “She said she’d come back in a few days. And that was… two days ago, I think.”
“So she could be here tomorrow,” Maren said. “Maybe even before Brad and Olivia make it to town.”
“Exactly,” Sutton said, nodding fervently. “That’s what I meant before. Even if the absolute worst-case scenario happens to Brad and Olivia, help is still coming anyway. As soon as Piper and Ian arrive, we can get them to drive a few of us to the nearest police station.”
Jasmine wrinkled her nose. “Are you forgetting how flaky that girl is?”
“I know she can be a bit of a flake, but she promised to visit,” Sutton said. “And I’ve known her my whole life. If she promises to do something, she does it. Always.”
Relief rippled through the group in small, almost imperceptible ways. Shoulders loosened. Postures eased. The brittle edge that had been sitting over everything since the afternoon softened just a fraction.
“Okay… yeah,” Jesse said, nodding slowly. “That’s actually really good. If she comes in the morning, we could have cops here before lunch. And then we can all get the hell out of here.”
“Exactly.”
“All right.” Caitlin pushed herself up from her seat with a sudden burst of energy. “I’m making celebratory s’mores.”
A few people blinked at her.
“Seriously?” Knox asked.
“Yes, seriously,” Caitlin shot back. “We’ve got marshmallows, chocolate, and crackers. We might as well use them.”
A few people volunteered to go with her, because no one wanted to walk around alone right now, and the rest of us watched them go, their figures slipping in and out of the shadows as they moved beyond the reach of the firelight.
For a moment, the tension threatened to creep back in, that instinctive tightening in my chest at the idea of people leaving the circle. But then Caitlin and the rest of the s’mores crew returned a few minutes later, arms full of supplies and very much alive, and the moment passed.
Someone handed out skewers, and soon people were leaning forward, holding marshmallows over the flames. The conversation picked up again, still subdued but less strained.
I shifted slightly on the bench, adjusting my grip on the lukewarm can in my hand, and glanced off to the side.