CHAPTER FIFTEEN
My eyes peel open as someone lifts my body.
“She’s waking up,” Jay whispers. “Let’s hide over here.”
I glance around and realize Noah holds me while crouching as best he can. Clutching me close, he ducks beside a building that must have been Jay’s focus.
“What happened? Was someone shot?” I manage to get out.
“Shhh…” Noah whispers into my ear. “The five of us aren’t hurt.”
Parker and Jay sneak off behind the building. Alarmed, I try to sit up, but Noah tightens his hold. “There were other people walking back. They’re just going to go check on them.”
“We should help. What if someone was hurt? We need to find Mr. Smyth.” I don’t know the other campers well, but I wouldn’t want to see them get hurt. From our position beside the building, I can’t see the lane anymore.
Lucca leans over to me. “Let me check out your head. Noah and I pulled you down at the same time, so you hit your head on the ground.”
Tentatively, I reach up and touch my hair and find something wet and sticky. “Lucca, I’m bleeding, but I feel all right. We should get back to the auditorium. It’s closer than our cabins.”
“We should wait until Parker and Jay get back. They’ll be upset if we leave without them. We don’t want them wandering around searching for us,” Noah cautions, but I’m anxious to move.
When Lucca and Noah determine that I’m not going to walk away, Lucca checks my head. I wince as he gingerly moves hair to the side. “You’re right. It doesn’t appear too bad.” He pulls off his tie and makes a move to wrap it around my head.
“Lucca. I like that tie. Don’t ruin it. I’ll be fine.” I try to wave him off, but Noah grabs my hands.
“We both feel bad we caused you to get hurt. Let him take care of you,” Noah pleads while rubbing circles with his thumb on my trapped hands.
Begrudgingly, I nod. I’m not used to people taking care of me. Growing up, I was always a tough but careful kid so I didn’t get hurt much. When I did, I walked into wherever I was staying and cleaned myself up. If I waited for someone else to do it, I would have stayed dirty all night.
After Lucca finishes his triage, I try to move away from Noah, but he resists. “I’ve got you. You don’t need to sit on the ground. It will mess up your dress.”
“You’re going to mess up your pants!” I complain to him. “It’s not my dress, though, so I better be careful, as long as you don’t mind. I don’t want your legs to fall asleep in case we have to run.”
Now, worry for Noah adds to my anxiety to get moving. Lily will forgive me if her dress is messed up if we’re being shot at, but I won’t forgive myself if Noah’s hurt in the process.
“My legs will be fine.” Noah pats my arm in reassurance. “Stay where you are. If we’re here for too long, you can sit with Lucca.”
I sigh but don’t move, trying to stay calm and still as my impatience for the others to get back drives me crazy. Just because we don’t hear any more gunfire doesn’t mean something else didn’t happen to them. Even though Jay’s some crazy ninja or something doesn’t mean he’s invincible.
Time drags as we wait for their return. After a while, I move over and sit with Lucca to give Noah a break. Noah’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes as he watches me leave him; although, there must be some relief because he stretches out his long legs once I’m gone.
“We should go running in the mornings,” I say to Noah who mentioned he likes to run to remind himself he can. “I used to do that almost every day. We’ll feel like we’re in boot camp if we do that, though. Start the day with running and end it with martial arts. Never mind. I’ll just go by myself. You guys can sleep in.”
“I like running. If you want to run, I’ll run with you.” Noah replies. “I would feel better knowing you aren’t out here alone when we don’t know what’s going on.”
“I’ll run, too. I don’t run as much as I used to.” Lucca’s voice rumbles through his chest and into my back. “My dad wanted me to play football, but I didn’t want to be pushed into it. I’m sure with his support I could have made it far.”
Lucca sounds almost wistful thinking about his parents. Does he regret not doing more with them around the things they liked so they might have noticed him more?
I’m about to ask him when Jay and Parker run up to us.
Parker stops in front of Lucca and grabs my face. “How bad are you hurt? You weren’t hit, were you? Why didn’t you guys take her to the clinic?”
I put my hands up to stop his barrage of questions. “I’m fine. I’m not hit. We wanted to wait for you so you knew where we were. Now, how is everything out there? Should we go back up to the main building to check on everyone, or did they go back to the cabins?”
“It’s my turn to slow you down.” Parker laughs. “We didn’t see anyone we didn’t know. That doesn’t mean someone we do know wasn’t the shooter, but we don’t think so. Some went back to the cabins, but most have gone back to the auditorium. I think we should go there. We can crash in our team room if we need to.”
Jay pulls me to my feet, and Parker helps Noah and Lucca stand. Jay pushes Lucca’s tie off my head and tries to check out my cut, but I grab his hand to stop him. “We can check it out later. We should move along.”
His hands fall to his sides as he glances around. “Let’s go the back way behind the buildings to avoid as much open space as possible. If this is just idiots with guns, they may think it’s funny to shoot our way. I doubt they’re advanced enough to not let a stray bullet hit us.”
Jay steps in front of me to take the lead. With him in front of me, I can’t see much and lightly touch his back to help guide my way.
As we reach the corner of the main building, we hear voices. Jay puts up his fist to stop us. I’ve seen this in movies before, but I suspect he learned it from his dad.
“How did they get back here?” Kelly demands. We can’t see them, but I recognize her voice.
“I don’t know. Everything’s under surveillance, but someone cut the feed,” Mr. Smyth explains. “I’m having tech look through everything now to see if we can catch anymore.”
I want to say something to the boys, but someone puts their arm around me in a gesture to stay still. They must know I want to talk or walk out there and confront Kelly and Mr. Smyth.
“Do you think they know she’s here? I never met her mother, but from the pictures, she looks just like her.” What’s Kelly talking about? So, it isn’t kids messing around?
I need some answers. I try to pull away, but the arm around me tightens to hold me prisoner. Parker whispers into my ear, “Let’s hear them out. Maybe we can learn more.”
He’s right though. We need to hear what else is being said. I relax, but Parker doesn’t let go.
“She acts just like her mother, too,” Mr. Smyth replies to Kelly. “Most of the pictures were destroyed, but someone still may have a copy. No one here, other than me, ever met Lesia, so without a picture, they would never know. I think they suspect she’s here, though.”
One of the girls here is being threatened. We can rule out Fallon because Parker didn’t move to question them once the mother’s name was mentioned. We can’t rule out Lily and Lara just because they weren’t in our group tonight, but I wouldn’t start messing around with scaring people if my target wasn’t around. Although, Mr. Smyth said they probably don’t know who the target is. They could just be trying to scare everyone.
My initial doubts about this place flare up. The campers here are incredibly intelligent. It has to be more than that, though. My thoughts cut short when Kelly says, “Has everyone been secured back in the cabins or in the auditorium?”
“No. We’re still rounding people up. We’ll do another headcount in thirty minutes. We sent people down to the lake to make sure no one went there for the evening.” That’s Ms. Carlton.
Has she been there the entire time?
“Good. I’ll go do a sweep of the girls’ cabins,” Kelly says.
Crunching sounds reach our ears, so we move quickly to make it appear like we’re just walking up.
“You should be back in your cabins,” Kelly says to the boys. I don’t think she can see me behind them.
Parker steps up and speaks for us. “We didn’t know what was going on, so we hid behind the gardeners shed. We decided to come back up here once we thought it was safe.”
“I’ll walk you back to your cabins. There’s no reason to stay up here. We’ll have one of the counselors escort the others back once they’re done with their rounds.” Kelly tries to throw as much authority into her voice as possible. Even though she isn’t much taller than me, the guys tower over her. After that conversation we overheard, I don’t think any of us know if we can trust her or anyone.
“We would feel more comfortable down here together. We also need to have Cassie’s head checked out.” Parker reaches back and gently pulls me forward.
“Oh, Cassie! How badly are you hurt? We need to take you down to the clinic.” Kelly reaches for my hand, but Jay blocks her.
“It’s nothing. I just need to wash it off. The guys were playing superheroes again, and I bumped my head,” I explain because I don’t want to be separated from them right now. We need to talk about what we just heard.
“Boys have a tendency to do that.” She smirks at them. “If you don’t want to be checked out, I should still walk you back to your cabin.”
“I would like to stay with my team if possible. This is the second time this has happened. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep. I’ll feel better if they’re around.” Now, I want to kick myself. I’ve never played the damsel in distress card, and I hope the guys know I’m just saying this so I can stay with them.
Mr. Smyth walks up to us and joins the conversation. “That’s not possible. Boys and girls are not permitted to stay together.”
Instant irritation rushes through me. Something about this man makes me uncomfortable. I glare at him. “It’s possible, and it will happen. If you send me back to my cabin, I’ll sneak out to find them. I’m tired of being lied to. We’ll stay together.”
“You do not run this camp, Cassandra.” Mr. Smyth tries to pull the adult card on me. “Follow Kelly back to your cabin. We will discuss this more tomorrow because I have other things to deal with right now.”
I shake with anger. “I never said I ran the camp, and if what you’re doing is running it, then we’re all in deep shit because that’s twice someone has fired a gun when we’ve been around. You can continue to lie to me about it being teens in the area, but I will call your bullshit.”
Parker holds me tight. He probably worries I’ll go for Mr. Smyth’s throat if he doesn’t hold me back.
“Cassie! You will not talk to one of us that way.” This time, Ms. Carlton tries to push me toward the cabins.
“Why won’t I? I have every right to protect and defend myself. If you want to ship me back home, so be it, but either way, tonight I’m staying with them.” It’s good Parker’s restraining me because I probably would go after her.
“Whore!” Ms. Carlton gets out of her mouth, but just barely because Jay starts yelling at her.
“I will never hear you talk about her like that. I don’t give a fuck who you are.” Jay’s voice gets louder. “You have no right to talk since you were all over the four of us the other day. Rubbing your tits on Parker as you looked over his shoulder.”
This time, it’s me calming Jay down. I lay my hand on his arm. “Come on, Jay. We need to get to our room.”
I glance at Mr. Smyth and Kelly to see if they’ll stop us, but Mr. Smyth just moves his head to the right toward the building. I take this as a sign of acceptance we can go together, grab Jay’s and Parker’s hands, and move.
Once we’re back in the room, silence bears down on us, the atmosphere thick with our thoughts. Misery plasters the guys’ faces. I hope they’re okay with me deciding we’re going to stay together. It’s what we agreed to, but they may not want to break camp rules. Then, I got Jay involved.
“Look, guys, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. I don’t have anything to lose here, but I know this is important to you.” I stare at my shuffling feet.
“Hey.” Lucca tilts my chin up. “We decided we’re going to stay together. You just made it happen. I wish I could be as bold as you are.”
I give him a quick hug then walk over to Jay. “Thank you for sticking up for me. I really don’t care what she thinks as long as you guys know who I am. We’re the ones that matter.”
Jay hugs me back, briefly tilting his forehead against mine. “There’s something about her I don’t like. She gives me the creeps and not many people do that.”
“I thought you might hit her,” I admit to him.
“I wouldn’t hit anyone, especially a female, unless they truly deserved it. I’m not stupid enough to believe a woman wouldn’t hit me out of malice. If I can stop it from happening, I will.” I appreciate his earnest answer.
“Well, I’m glad you were there with me.” I release him and step back.
The night was going so great until the gunfire. Ugh, the gunfire, I totally forgot about it.
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else. We’re a team and stick together,” Jay says as the others murmur their agreement.
Noah pokes my side. “Stop trying to get rid of us.”
“Why would I want to do that? The whole point of this place is to win, and so far with you, I’m doing that.” I wink at him.
“Ha! We’re in the lead because of you. No one else is going to come close to your numbers this week.” He high fives Lucca.
“We still have a long way to go. That is unless they kick me out, or someone kills me.” I was kidding at the end, but they take my statement seriously and tension fills the room once more. Now we’re back to where we started.
“We need to talk about this.” Parker sits on one of the desks.
“Can we get situated for bed first? I don’t think any of us will sleep anytime soon, but I would still like to get comfortable, at least as comfortable as possible in this dress. Maybe I should have gone back to the cabin. Fallon, Lily, and Lara are going to worry. They probably don’t know what happened down here. I think I was the only girl from our cabin in this dinner round.” I’m torn, now, but I made such a big deal about staying here with them. Being with them is where I want to be because I want to talk about tonight while it’s fresh.
“Here.” Parker takes off his shirt. “You can wear this to sleep in. It will probably be longer than your dress.”
Under his dress shirt, Parker wears a ribbed, white tank. His muscles flex as he hands me the shirt, and I can’t help but admire how good he looks.
Before I start drooling, Lucca pokes me in the side. “Stop staring.”
“How can I not stare? He has a great body. You all have great bodies.” I need to start fanning myself.
I pull the shirt on over my dress and try to reach around to unzip the dress, but I can’t reach it.
Noah walks up. “May I?”
“Sure.” I close my eyes as he does it. I’ve never had a guy help me undress before.
After he unzips the dress, he steps back. I slip the dress down so no one sees anything. Parker was right; the shirt is longer than the dress.
“Lucca, come with me. There are some blankets and things in a closet down the hall.” Parker directs Lucca out the door.
I slide my shoes off and walk to the windows. Blinds we’ve never used are pulled to the top of the windows. Assuming they work, I climb up on the heater to reach the cord, but it’s still too high. I’m about to jump when hands grab my waist.
“Monkey, what do you think you’re doing?” Noah shakes his head at me as he lowers me down.
“I wanted to shut the blinds, but I can’t reach the cord.” Isn’t it obvious what I was doing?
“You’re in a room full of tall people. You’re allowed to ask for help,” Noah says as Jay moves to shut the blinds.
By the time the blinds are down, Parker and Lucca return with the blankets. “How do you want to do this? We can pile a couple together and then have to lie close to one another, or we each get two and deal with the hard floor.” Even though Parker addresses all of us, he looks at me.
I shrug at him. “I trust you guys. I don’t think any of you would do anything I didn’t want if we were alone. I definitely don’t think you would try anything while we’re together. This isn’t the first time I’ve slept with you guys.”
“Okay. Let’s put them in two groups. Cassie, you can pick where you want to sleep.” Parker is evil.
I don’t want to pick. “I don’t care where I sleep. You guys go wherever you’re most comfortable.”
I pick the blankets on the left to lie on. Now, they’ll have to choose. I end up with Parker and Jay. They argue that Noah and Lucca spent more time with me earlier.
For a few minutes, we lie in the quiet dark before Lucca brings up the events of tonight. “What do you guys think is going on here? Are we not safe?”
Lucca doesn’t sound worried, but Noah does when he responds. “I’m not sure what to think about all this. Some girl here is being targeted. We can ask around to see whose mother’s name is Lesia.”
“Well, we know it wasn’t me.” I stare up at the dark ceiling. “My mom was a Jane Doe. No one knows where she came from or what her real name was. She was unconscious and dying when the paramedics found her. They barely managed to save me.” I’ve been told the story a few times by different foster parents.
“Not that I want anyone to get hurt, but I feel better knowing it isn’t you.” Jay elbows me. “I would have to watch your cabin from now on when you’re not with us.”
“That’s great. Did I mention earlier I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me?” I elbow him back. “I think I’m talking to myself with you four.”
Jay throws out ideas on what we should do next. “We should do some background checks on the people here we know. We can connect Lesia to Mr. Smyth. That might give us an idea of where to start.”
“I can do checks on the camp as well. If we can figure out what company runs this place, we can check on them, too.” Noah now sounds excited. He’ll be in his element checking this out.
“I think I should follow Kelly or Mr. Smyth around.” I don’t get to tell them why before they all yell, “No!”
“Hear me out, please,” I plead with them. “I’m small and quiet. I can make my way around to find them. They know more than they’ve told us, and it doesn’t appear like they’re going to say anything else to us.”
“It’s not safe. We need to stick together,” Lucca argues.
“We can go in teams. Cassie and I can check out the people. Noah will be safe checking out computer stuff. Parker and Lucca can question the girls. The girls here will say just about anything to them for a smile.” Jay laughs.
Parker sighs loudly. “Fine, but we’ll have regular check-ins at the Corral. We’ll also continue our evening training.”
We all agree to the plan before we fall asleep.