Chapter 11
Samuel
The air in the bunkroom was thick with the smell of unwashed boys, damp wood, and a cheap, pine-scented disinfectant.
The single, bare bulb in the center of the cabin had been extinguished at lights-out, plunging the space into a darkness broken only by thin slivers of moonlight cutting through the grimy, high windows.
Samuel lay rigid on the thin, lumpy mattress of his top bunk, staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep. A deep, humming tremor lived in his bones that even exhaustion couldn’t override. His hands, resting on his chest, wouldn’t stay still. They trembled with a fine, constant shake.
Slowly, he brought his left palm up into a sliver of moonlight.
A stark, raised welt was bisecting his palm, an angry red line against his skin.
It was from a ruler. Three sharp cracks for fidgeting during the evening scripture reading.
The skin was hot and tight, throbbing with a dull pain.
He squeezed his eyes shut, the pressure behind them building.
Please. God, or anyone. Please just make it stop. Make them come get me. Make this not be real.
No answer came, just the hollow sound of his own heart beating too fast.
His eyes snapped open. The prayer felt foolish now, a child’s fantasy. Salvation wasn’t coming.
He pushed himself up on one elbow, the frame of the bunk groaning softly under his weight.
He froze, listening. No one stirred. His eyes scanned the shadowy forms in the other beds.
Dark lumps under rough wool blankets. Some were asleep.
Some were, like him, probably just pretending, trapped in their own private hells. The thought was no comfort.
He knew the rules. He knew the price of breaking them. Being caught out of bed after lights-out meant a report. A report meant correction. Which, in turn, meant more pain, more humiliation, more of that hollow, sick feeling in his gut.
The smart thing, the safe thing, was to lie back down.
But the restlessness was a physical itch under his skin. He needed to get out. He needed air.
Moving slowly, he swung his legs over the side of the bunk and lowered them to the cold wooden floor.
The boards creaked under his bare feet. He snatched his scratchy, knitted jumper from the foot of the bed and pulled it over his head.
He found his sneakers, laced them with fumbling fingers, and crept toward the heavy wooden door.
He paused; his ear pressed to the rough grain. Nothing. No footsteps, no low voices of night-watch counselors on patrol. He cracked the door open just wide enough to peer out with one eye.
The grounds were empty. Bathed in cold, blue moonlight, the compound looked different; almost peaceful in its abandonment.
He stood for a moment on the wooden porch of the cabin, the night air chilling the sweat on his face. Then, a sudden, wild impulse took him. He launched himself off the steps, his sneakers hitting the dry, packed dirt with a soft thud, and he ran.
He didn’t think. He just ran.
He cut behind the utility shed, his feet finding the narrow path that led into the sparse woods at the edge of the camp’s land.
Branches snagged at his jumper, twigs snapped under his feet, but he didn’t slow.
He ran until his lungs screamed and the trees thinned, until he burst out into a small, moon-washed clearing at the edge of a dark, still lake.
He skidded to a halt, chest heaving, and immediately ducked behind the broad trunk of a pine tree. Peering around it, his blood ran cold.
There was a figure. Sitting on the ground near the water’s edge, a dark shape against the silver gleam of the lake.
Counselor.
The thought was instant, paralyzing. He’d walked straight into a trap. He was dead. He prepared to bolt back into the woods.
But then the figure moved, just a slight tilt of the head. A shaft of moonlight caught a shock of hair. The hair was wild, a mess of blond spikes sticking out at odd angles, looking like it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks.
Samuel’s breath caught. Not a counselor.
Elias.
The voice, low and roughened by smoke, cut through the quiet. “Wanna a smoke?”
Samuel flinched, his heart slamming against his ribs. He hadn’t made a sound. He’d barely breathed.
How had Elias known he was there?
The older boy hadn’t even turned around. Swallowing the lump of fear in his throat, Samuel crept out from behind the pine and slowly lowered himself to the ground a few feet away, leaving a careful buffer of space between them.
“How did you get those?” Samuel whispered, his eyes fixed on the slightly crumpled red-and-white box of Marlboros in Elias’s hand.
Contraband. A serious offense. The thought of the punishment for being caught with those made his palm throb in sympathy.
Elias smirked, a quick, shadowed flash of teeth in the moonlight. He didn’t answer. Instead, he nudged the open box toward Samuel with a casual flick of his wrist.
Samuel stared at it. A silent debate raged.
Taking it was another rule broken, another layer of sin.
But the rebellious pull, the need to grasp at any shred of autonomy was stronger.
He shot a furtive, paranoid glance around the clearing, seeing nothing but trees and water.
His trembling fingers reached out and plucked a cigarette from the box.
Elias produced a cheap plastic lighter. The flick-hiss was obscenely loud.
He lit Samuel’s cigarette, then his own.
Sam inhaled tentatively, and the smoke hit his lungs like ground glass.
He doubled over, a harsh, racking cough tearing from his throat.
Elias watched, his smirk lingering, and shook his head slowly, a silent ‘rookie.’
“I have my sources,” Elias finally answered Sam’s question, his voice a gravelly murmur. He took a long, practiced drag, the tip of his cigarette glowing like a malevolent orange eye.
Samuel frowned, the smoke still burning his throat. “You mean… someone from here? The Hills?” The idea was inconceivable. The idea of one of the staff trafficking in cigarettes was like imagining the pope dealing black-market goods.
Elias stayed quiet for a long moment, the silence stretching as he stared out at the black water. When he finally spoke, his voice dropped even lower, a rumble that seemed to merge with the rustle of the pines. “I mean everything has a price. You just have to be willing to pay it.”
Samuel frowned. He stared at Elias’s profile, stark in the moonlight. The sharp line of his nose, the curve of his lip around the cigarette, the defiant jut of his chin. The wild, spikes of blond hair looked almost silver.
Pretty, Sam thought.
The thought arrived fully formed, a quiet, devastating truth. It was followed instantly by a wave of scorching shame so intense it stole his breath.
He knew he shouldn’t think it. He knew it was the sickness they were here to cure, the very poison in his blood. But the thought was there, undeniable, and beautiful, and it terrified him more than any counselor’s wrath.
Suddenly, Elias turned. His green eyes, usually hooded and lazy, were sharp, catching Samuel in the act of staring. They gleamed in the darkness, knowing. Samuel felt a hot blush explode across his face and neck. He was grateful for the dark.
“We are not, you know,” Elias said, his voice so quiet it was almost lost under the lap of water against the shore.
“What?” Samuel breathed out, matching the hushed tone, afraid to shatter this fragile, illicit bubble.
“Sinners.”
The word hung between them. Simple. Blasphemous.
Samuel’s stomach flipped.
“But…” he started, the programmed responses rising automatically.
But it says… But they told us… But it’s an abomination…
Elias cut him off, his gaze unwavering. “Love is never a bad thing, Samuel. Love is God.” He said it with a conviction that felt solid as stone. “It’s people that are bad. Hateful. Deceitful. You should fear their judgment, not the Almighty’s.”
Samuel stared, his mind reeling, the cigarette forgotten, smoldering between his fingers. He wanted to say something. What? He didn’t know, but even if he did, it was already too late.
Elias moved.
He leaned in, closing the distance Samuel had left. There was no hesitation, no asking. His lips met Samuel’s.
They were soft. Slightly chapped from the cold night air. The kiss was gentle, a tender, questioning pressure. For a second, Samuel froze, every muscle rigid with shock and terror. His breath stuttered to a stop in his throat.
Elias’s hand came up, his palm cool against Samuel’s feverish cheek, a steadying anchor.
And then, something broke. The confusion, the trepidation; it melted under the warmth of that touch. It transformed. The fear became a frantic pulse, the shame became a desperate, aching need. He kissed back, a clumsy, eager press of his own lips.
Elias made a soft, approving sound against his mouth. The hand on his cheek slid back, fingers tangling in Samuel’s hair with a possessive grip that made Samuel whimper.
The kiss deepened. Elias’s tongue swept against Samuel’s lips, a hot, wet question, and Samuel opened for him with a shuddering sigh. The taste of smoke and something uniquely Elias flooded his senses.
In the next moment, strong hands gripped Samuel’s hips.
Before he could process it, Elias pulled, and Samuel found himself tumbled forward, straddling Elias’s lap on the cool earth.
The new position was impossibly intimate, terrifyingly electrifying.
Elias’s hands slipped beneath the rough wool of Samuel’s jumper, finding the skin of his back.
His palms were warm, calloused. The touch made Samuel shiver violently, a full-body convulsion of pure sensation. He gripped Elias’s wild hair tighter, anchoring himself as the world dissolved into the taste, the heat, the desperate, clawing need…
The world exploded in a searing, white light.