Dead of Summer

He stops and twists to the side, looking at me over his shoulder in the dark, lit only by the moon and stars in the clear sky above us. “Are you sore from the river?” he asks, like that could possibly be the reason that I’m lagging behind.

“No.” I rub my arms, gooseflesh breaking out even under my long-sleeved shirt. “I’m fine.”

“You’re quiet.” He doesn’t move, and I stop as far from him as I can while still able to see the sharp line of his cheekbone. I’m not out of following range; he doesn’t need me to walk beside him like a dog.

“I’m tired,” I admit, sighing out a breath along with the words.

“You’re afraid of me.” I hate that he’s right. I hate that I have no idea how to refute the claim when I’m standing here with a distance between us wondering if he’s going to go back on his word and kill me like he wanted to kill my campers.

“You’re not exactly trustworthy.” I rub my arms harder, dragging my sleeves down to my wrists. “And God, I’m so cold. Tell me this won’t take long so I can find a blanket or twenty.”

He doesn’t answer right away. To my horror, he backtracks, moving until he’s standing right beside me, close enough that I could reach up and choke the shit out of him if I wasn’t so nervous about this whole thing.

“Would you feel better if I told you where we’re going?” he asks finally, reaching up to gently curl his fingers around the base of my throat in a move that’s not so much threatening as it is possessive.

Though I still can’t figure out what there is to prove here to me. If he’s telling the truth, then this will last another few nights. That’s all. Then he’ll be gone, and then I’ll hopefully be able to get high enough to chalk this up to a nightmare or continuous hallucinations.

“Maybe,” I allow, meeting his gaze in the darkness. I can’t really tell much about his face. He’s looking at me, I know that, but anything else is lost in shadow. I can’t read him anyway, so it’s not like the lack of seeing his expression is a big loss for me here.

“The night you stopped me, I had to come up with a solution of what to do with my gear. So I hid it in the woods,” Kayde explains smoothly, easily, like he’s just telling me about running errands. “Probably a bad idea if any of the kids find it on tomorrow’s big hike, don’t you think?”

Yeah. Yeah that would be bad. I know for certain he’d had an ax, and none of the kids, especially Melody, needs that in their hands.

“That’s all?” The words come out before I can stop them, and I wish I could shove them all back into my mouth and swallow them down where Kayde can’t remember them, like they never existed in the first place.

“Yeah, eager little sweetheart. That’s all for tonight. Contrary to what you obviously think about me, playing with you when you’ve had a rough day and you’re clearly worn out isn’t really something I’m into. I like it when you’re feisty. Not when you’re shivering.” At that, he runs his hands down my arms, palms warm even through the fabric of my shirt as he moves them back up. “So we clean this up, and then you can curl up in all the blankets you can find. Deal?”

I open my mouth with the intention of agreeing. That’s what he’s asking for anyway, and it’s not like I’m really giving him anything. Instead, what comes out is, “You’re not dragging me out into the woods to kill me?”

Kayde doesn’t move. He’s quiet for long enough that my stomach starts knotting nervously, and my hands clench at my sides as his still on my shoulders. “You think I’d bring you all the way out here to kill you, Summer?” he asks finally, disbelief in his voice. “Why would I do that?”

“So you don’t get caught?” God, I wish I knew how to shut up.

A derisive scoff is the answer I get first, and I see Kayde shaking his head in bemusement. “Really? You think I care about that? You think I hide my kills? I wasn’t going to hide any of those kids’ bodies, remember? It would’ve been all over the news and everyone who showed up here would’ve been able to see what I’d done. No, I don’t need to hide anything. Not your body, not anyone else’s.”

“That feels reckless.” Isn’t that a quicker way to get caught?

But if he doesn’t care, then there’s certainly no reason for me to, either. He just shrugs his muscular shoulders and strokes his palms down my arms again. “Not gonna kill you,” he purrs in a voice that shouldn’t be so fucking hot that my fingers clench tighter against my palms. “You’re fine, baby girl.”

I should definitely hate it when he calls me that. It should not be growing on me in any capacity, and I groan under my breath in what I hope he thinks is irritation. Though, judging by the way he leans forward to press his lips to my forehead, I might be overestimating that. Without another word, he tugs on my wrist, apparently tired of me trailing behind him as he leads me through the dark woods to some unspecified location.

Even when he stops, I have no idea what I’m looking at. It’s a clearing, barely, with a couple of stout, old trees taking up most of the space. It’s far enough from camp that no one would be out here, but definitely not far enough that we won’t end up passing it when we hike tomorrow.

“My stuff’s under the trees here,” he tells me, nodding toward the two trees with their exposed, arching roots. “Grab what you find from that one.” With a quick flick of a gesture at the left-most tree, he sets off to the one on the right, dropping to his knees in the dirt and digging at the soft earth with his hands.

“Should’ve brought a shovel,” I gripe, heart sputtering nervously in my throat. But I go where he’d directed, finding the spot in the dirt that looks a little different from the rest in the moonlight.

I don’t really have to dig. Just a few swipes from my palm has me uncovering a small, jacket-wrapped bundle from near one of the large, exposed roots. Curiously, and after making sure Kayde is still wrestling with his larger bundle, I unwrap the jacket from the items, unable to stop myself.

A flashlight.

A lighter.

A knife.

Only three items, but my hands tremble as I get to my feet with my prizes, reaching into the bundle that I cradle in my other arm. I mean to grab the flashlight. I really do, since it’ll be useful when navigating to wherever the hell he wants to take all of this stuff.

But instead, my fingers curl around the hilt of the hunting knife, and I bring the unsheathed blade up and out of the jacket so the moonlight shines on the ghostly gray blade.