Dead of Summer

I’ve never seen a knife like it. Not even the one Kayde ran along my skin last night. One side is deadly sharp and wickedly curved at the end. The other, which should be the safer, duller side, is serrated near the hilt, and the sharp curves march up to the middle of the blade before they stop.

Even the top edge looks sharp, and I turn the blade over in my hands without immediately realizing Kayde has gotten to his feet, his backpack no longer flat and the handle of his ax sticking up past the zipper.

“You can give me those, Summer,” he invites, standing in the middle of the small clearing between the two trees. He stretches one hand out to me, his tone completely friendly and not an ounce of worry in his posture.

“Aren’t you worried?” I ask, turning more to him with eyes wide enough I’m sure he can see the whites of them in the moonlight.

“Of what?”

“Of what I could do? You’re not holding the ax, and I don’t have to be good at this to…” I trail off, still cradling the other objects as I survey the perfectly spotless knife. The handle is heavy in my hand, and warming to the temperature of my skin quickly.

I could kill him with this.

“To…?” I can almost imagine the smug arrogance on his face. Even when I step closer and offer him the other items in his jacket, though I keep the knife in my hand and pulled away from him. To my surprise, Kayde takes the flashlight and the lighter, shoving them in his backpack along with the slick jacket, before straightening to look at me once more. “Whatever it is you think you’re going to do, you won’t. Give me the knife, baby.”

I really need to give him the knife before his amusement turns to something else. He’s probably right; I don’t think I could kill him, even if he wasn’t most likely just as dangerous without a weapon in his hands as he is with a knife or ax.

And yet my fingers tighten on the hilt, and I find myself taking a step back. “You were going to kill everyone here,” I remind him, as if he’s forgotten. It’s so stupid of me, but with the rush of blood in my ears and the pounding of my heart in my chest, I can’t stop myself. I can’t stop this strange, emerging part of me that wants to hold some kind of power in this game between us.

Even if it’s ephemeral and fleeting; given to me only by the knife in my hand.

“We’ve established that,” Kayde murmurs. “You’re going to hurt yourself, you know.”

“Maybe I want to hurt you.” I throw the words at him like a challenge and regret it the moment he tilts his head to the side, like a curious predator observing the stupidest rabbit ever born.

“Do you?” He strides toward me gracefully, unerringly, and doesn’t hesitate until my hand is up and the point of the blade is just pressed against his t-shirt. “Do you want to hurt me, Summer? How badly?” He doesn’t make a move to stop me, or to grab for the blade.

“I don’t…” I hate that my confidence falters, and it’s hard to meet his gaze, even in the mostly dark clearing. “I don’t know.”

“Give me the knife.” His voice is soft, but not quite so gentle. There’s a dangerous, silky undertone in his words, that promises me I’d rather give him the knife than have him take it. “Give me the knife, before you get hurt or I have to do something not very nice.”

“You’re never that nice.”

“Baby girl, I’ve been so nice. But if you’d rather that change, if you’d rather me show you something different, then I invite you with every ounce of my being to not give me the knife. Take a swing at me. Try to cut my throat.” He mimes the action with his own fingers, then taps a spot on his chest. “Stab me. Slide that blade between my ribs and find my fucking heart.”

“I don’t think you have one.”

“I think you might be right. You gonna give me that knife?”

Though I open my mouth to say something, no words come out. Instead, my grip on the knife shifts, tightens, and I shift my feet in the dirt to something I feel is more balanced.

“Oh, that’s such a bad girl. I didn’t think you wanted me to be mean, baby.” Before I can react, he grabs my wrist, quick as a snake, and his finger presses into a spot just under my palm. It makes me yelp in surprise and pain, and my grip goes lax against my will.

He doesn’t let the knife hit the ground. He grabs it in midair, yanking me to him in the next moment until we’re pressed almost together and somehow, the tip of the knife has found its way up and under my chin, the point digging into my skin as I pant open-mouthed in fear.

“Bad girl,” he growls again, not moving the knife away. “You could’ve hurt yourself with this. I thought you didn’t like a blade on your skin, hmm? You were certainly against it last night.”

For the first time since all of this began, I can’t speak. I’m too afraid to do more than breathe as I stare up at him, my fingers knotted in his shirt as I stand stock-still and try not to shake.

“Don’t you have something to say to me?”

It clicks after a few seconds. He wants me to apologize. To eat my pride and say I’m sorry. He knows I’m terrified, and wants me to do what I can to writhe out of his trap, even if it means chewing off my own arm. My fingers dig deeper into the thin fabric, until I’m sure I’m stretching it, and I can only stare sullenly at him, words dead in my throat.

“You don’t?” There’s genuine surprise in his voice, and something else that I don’t like. Something that sounds pleased. “You won’t beg me to forgive you, baby?—”

“No.” I don’t know where that flash of defiance comes from, but the blade stroking down to my sternum makes me regret it almost instantly.

“Fine. Then I don’t forgive you.” He twists the blade before pulling it away, though the lasting sting that pulls a gasp from me is enough for me to know he’s actually nicked me with the knife. “I don’t forgive you at all.” He sounds almost feral as he says it, even though his calm and collected movements as he puts the knife in a sheath at his belt read as anything but.