16. Sixteen
Sixteen
Xavier
Iwas missing something and I fucking hated it. Brennon never answered my question. He just looked through me. His deep voice hollowed over a single word, “Come.”
Ignoring him would have meant breaking the habit of a lifetime.
It had been years since my father had given me any orders, mostly because I avoided his house like a cancer patient fighting back against death, but I’d been so conditioned by his constant commands that even orders from someone else triggered the impulse to obey.
Which was why I now paced a few steps behind Brennon as we walked up the road toward the gates.
It should have been obvious where we were headed, but my first clue didn’t come until we passed the gates and he dipped off the road to follow a dirt track, just big enough for a four-wheeler to pass through.
You might not think it, but a summer camp full of kids and food actually generates a shitload of trash. Literal trash. That all has to go somewhere. And when that summer camp is hours from anywhere, buried in a forest filled with wild animals, there isn’t an easy solution.
Agonde, therefore, had its very own mini garbage dump.
Really, a collection of bear-proof dumpsters hidden from sight way out past the welcome sign.
From there, if you knew where to look, if say, you’d spent nearly twelve summers exploring every break in the trees or tracing down every exposed patch of dirt, you’d find a path.
Patches of grass and mud, years of autumn leaves buried layer by layer, all made it hard to see.
But, of course, the four of us could always find it.
As pre-teens, we had started using this route to sneak out to the Throw in the middle of the day. Around the time when Toni started getting snide comments about our friendship from other girls. Around the time when our cabin leaders started teasing us about Toni.
No one ever really went past the gates unless they were leaving the property altogether.
Only the maintenance crew ever came out here regularly, and even then, only late at night, so it had always made for a convenient alternative.
One we referred to in conversation as ‘the back door’.
It was just as easy now as it had been then to slip behind the last dumpster and take the single track path through the woods.
Brennon tossed a few looks over his shoulder, but otherwise we didn’t speak.
It was odd to hear him so quiet. Normally, snarky jokes were his default over silence.
Cole, true to form, was pacing in circles around the stones when Bren and I entered the clearing.
By mid-July, Cole’s usually built up a pretty good tan.
Almost all of the staff do, except Brennon, because we spend so much time outside while he acted like the office vampire, behind his computer all day and only emerging at night.
Maybe it was the shade from the trees or the shadow on his face from the brim of his baseball cap, but right now, Cole looked pale, too. Downright ill.
“What did you two drag me out here for?”
Neither said a word, but they did exchange a meaningful look. Apparently, I was missing out on time with my wild girl so these two could stare at each other.
“Just spit it out,” I growled.
Another exchanged glance. When the hell had these two gotten so fucking chummy again? I was close to losing my patience. After another beat of silence, I really was done.
“Fine,” I said, pushing past them both to take the path that would lead me right back to the dining hall. But my feet froze when Brennon called out, “I saw you the other night.”
I didn’t turn back, but I did take his fucking bait, “So?”
“With Birdie,” he replied, “I saw you with Birdie the other night. On the water trampoline.”
My mouth dropped open, but I wouldn’t give either of them the satisfaction of having caught me off guard.
I clicked my tongue once and wiped the expression from my face as I turned back to stare at Brennon.
He was seated so casually on of the tallest stone, not seeming to give a fuck about any of this.
“You spied on us?”
That stone was large enough that even Brennon’s long legs didn’t reach the ground.
They just hung over the edge, swinging slightly, like he was little kid in a chair that was too tall for him.
He wasn’t even looking at me. He was engrossed with picking at his calloused fingertips like he’d done nothing wrong.
“You spied on us?!” This time I screamed it.
“I did.”
“But that’s not the important part of the story,” Cole cut in.
And as it turned out, he was right. Brennon spying on Toni and I was nothing in comparison to Mitchell.
Nothing compared to the photos he’d taken of Toni that would surely lead to violence if her brother ever saw them.
Or to the insinuations he’d made about a body and a grave in the woods that could spell doom for us all.
My mind worked in overdrive turning over option after option for dealing with Mitchell.
I chewed the inside of my cheek contemplating what to do, only refocusing on the forest after what felt like minutes later when Cole started his shit.
“This is all her fault,” he muttered still pacing in tight circles that were starting to make me dizzy, “Mitchell, Nick, everything thing else that’s gone wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“All this shit, it always fucking comes back to Toni.”
I was done with his shit. Bren’s, too. All they did was blame my wild girl without ever bothering to listen. If they wanted to be miserable assholes, that was their business, but they were done blaming Toni for it. I snatched at Cole’s t-shirt and yanked him to a stop.
“How dare you blame her for this!” He looked at Brennon and rolled his eyes. I shook him again, until I had his full attention, before I unleashed.
“If any single one of us had been man enough back then to tell her how we felt, maybe she never would’ve went running to Nick in the first place!” I screamed, “Did you two selfish pricks ever think about that, huh?!”
“Maybe she shouldn’t have gone chasing a guy five years older,” Cole rambled off his shitty excuse.
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” I said, slamming both my palms against his chest to shove him back.
“Flip the tables. Do you know how many of the female elite campers, or fuck, the boys too, probably have crushes on you?! Surprise, it’s a lot, considering what an asshole you are. Are you telling me that if they came on to you, you wouldn’t brush them off? You wouldn’t turn them down?”
His face sagged while his brain played catch-up. When my words finally sunk in, his frown became a stammer of, “Of course not. I would shut that shit down right away. I-”
“Exactly! So how can you think Toni was to blame for what happened? That guy was a fucking predator who did his damnedest to groom a fifteen-year-old girl.”
This time there were no snappy comebacks or potshots. Nor was there any admission of wrongdoing from Cole, either. Brennon chimed in, chuckling at us from his perch atop the tallest of the stones, “The two of you are going to make me hard if you keep fighting like that.”
Cole jumped away from me like Brennon’s words were a threat, but I just rolled my eyes at Bren, who had dropped to his feet and come closer, “We get it, you get off on watching.”
My derisive tone had the inverse effect to what I’d anticipated. Brennon’s light eyes just sparkled with mirth, as he walked even closer to Cole and I.
“If it wasn’t for my voyeurism, none of us would be the wiser about that fuckface.”
He had me there.
“So, might I suggest we put the past aside and focus on all the fucking problems we have in the present?”
Cole dove on Brennon’s suggestion, once again going on the offensive. Probably due to hearing the phrase ‘the best defense is a good offence’ from his shithead father one too many times.
“Yeah,” he turned back to me, “like, why you’re stealing camper files.”
He pointed right at the centre of my chest, his index finger twitching accusingly.
I resented the accusation, and though I was loath to explain my actions to these two, who were increasingly grating on my nerves, I also couldn’t have Cole blabbing to anyone about what I was doing.
He’d obviously already told Brennon, so how long before word spread to Jack.
I sighed, resigned to the story I was about to tell. It didn’t take long, maybe five minutes of succinct storytelling. The path from my sister to Holly, and Holly to Jack’s involvement with Franklin Barrett was a fairly straight one. At least in my opinion.
“Your sister? After all this time?” Cole spluttered as he tripped over his words, “Why didn’t you tell us?”
I looked between the two of them, “I should have thought that was obvious.”
My words hung in air between us. Between all of us. I had succeeded in stunning them both into silence, and I would consider that a victory no matter how the rest of this conversation went.
Brennon, predictably, piped up first, “More of the past rearing its ugly head.”
His usual attempts at charm were replaced by a grim expression. He wasn’t wrong. Whether it was last summer, or ten years ago, the past was like a forest fire spreading. First smoke, then came flames, and soon we’d all be engulfed by it. Maybe we already were.
“Xavier,” Brennon stared at me, his eyes critical like he was assessing not only my words, but everything about me, “Are you saying that Agonde… that Jack Walker, are part of some, what, child kidnapping ring?” His eyebrow, the pierced one, was raised.
Skepticism laced through his question and his whole posture.
“This is Agonde. Not some sort of…some sort of…” Whatever it was, Cole couldn’t bring himself to articulate it. It had been difficult for both Toni and I to swallow, too. That this place we loved so much might be part of something so sinister.
Brennon shook his head over and over again, “If kids were disappearing, don’t you think someone would notice? We would notice? Or Jack?”
“Don’t you see,” I replied, “That’s what makes it so perfect. It’s never so many that it’s noticeable. One kid a summer, maybe two. Never enough to draw suspicion, and always the kids that fly under the radar.”
“Holly didn’t fly under the radar!” Brennon shouted.
“Sure, but only because of you and Toni, and the marathon,” I glared at Cole who at least had the decency to look ashamed as we all recalled his role in what had happened to Holly. “And then she was gone. With Jack,” I stressed, “Can’t you see how it’s all connected.”
“This is fucking insane,” Cole fumed, “You sound insane. Jack wouldn’t…he couldn’t…”
“Couldn’t he?”
Finally, the reaction I’d always expected from him, the anger, and untethered rage, started to peek through.
He’d been doing a good job of keeping in locked down since staff training, but I was fucking sick of it.
At least anger was a response. Not a healthy one, fine, but none of us ever claimed to have healthy emotional registers.
Not even Toni. So, when he shoved me, wrenching my shoulders and slamming me into the rocks, sure it hurt, but it also felt vindicating.
Almost as vindicating as his brittle, feeble, protest, “No. It is not possible,” he mumbled so close to my face that touches of his breath moved through my hair like a fresh breeze.
I hadn’t been this close to Cole in a long time and scattered memories made me shiver.
They made him shiver too, and for a single, solitary second, something other than frustration flashed across his face.
Whatever feeling it was, it snaked its way down to his hands. He released me and stepped back.
“It’s not possible.”
He stepped back again, the dark anger slipping through again.
“Fuck this. I don’t have time for this.”
Cole always needed to put his rage into some sort of action. On the ice, it resulted in penalties, in the past it had been via his fists. Now, he just snatched the cap from his head and tossed it to the ground with all of his might.
“I’m going to figure out what to do about Mitchell. You coming?”
For a moment, I thought he was talking to me, but I realized quickly that his brown eyes were trained, not on me, but on Bren, who nodded but didn’t move.
A glum expression played on his lips, and he still toyed with that fucking piece of metal and he didn’t stop as his gaze darted from Cole to me, and back again.
“You coming or not, Brennon?”
Brennon said nothing and Cole snapped, “Fine. Of course not.”
He stomped off toward the dining hall, his shoulders heaving as he went.
“Brennon, I…”
I stopped. I had no idea what to say to him. I was still so angry at him for giving up on me, for not trusting me. But at the same time, I wished so strongly to reach out and hold him. To feel his heartbeat against my skin, and before I could help it, the words just slipped out.
“I miss you,” I whispered.
“I miss you, too. But it doesn’t change anything. Not really.”
“Brennon,” I pleaded with him, “Why not? Why won’t you just listen? Please! Just think about it?” My hand landed on his chest. Beneath the ratty looking tank top he wore; I could feel his heart beating and the radiating warmth of his skin. I missed touching him. But I missed his smile more.
“I can’t, Xavier. I just can’t,” he said so sadly, “She left us. Twice. Even after she promised me she wouldn’t. It’s only a matter of time before she does it again. I just hope it’s permanent next time.”
He swiped a hand down his face at the desperation he must have seen on my own.
I willed him to consider the possibility that Toni was telling the truth, that we were on to something.
He was less cruel, less sharp than he’d been earlier, but his eyes stayed unfocused, like he was staring off into space, as his large hand covered mine and he said, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.
I’ll help get Mitchell, because the guy’s a creep, but I can’t be a part of whatever misguided witch-hunt you two are on.
I’m too tired.” Then, he ripped my palm from his body.
He bent down for just a second to grab Cole’s cap from the ground and shoved it into his back pocket before stalking away after him.
Abandoning each other in a crisis. Another habit we all seemed incapable of breaking.