Dead of Summer

But he doesn’t carry me bridal style like before. No, this time Kayde slings me over his shoulder, and the breath leaves my lungs in a gasp as I come down against his shoulder. “Fuck!” I shriek, my hands scrambling against him for some kind of purchase.

“Don’t you dare kick me,” Kayde warns, an arm wrapped around my thighs to pin me against him. His fingers roam—of course they do—as he walks, and his other arm pins my ankles to his chest as if he thinks I won’t listen.

“I’m not kicking you!” I protest, though the muscles in my legs protest the lack of doing so. “I’m just trying t-to—” Well, it’s not like getting comfortable is a real option. But his hand around my ankles moves, until he’s dragging my arm over his other shoulder where I can bury it in his t-shirt with some kind of confidence.

“There. Happy?” I doubt he’s really asking, since he hasn’t stopped walking. And his fingers haven’t stopped moving until they’re kneading against the bare skin up my upper thighs and causing me to tense for an entirely different reason.

“Where are we going?” I whisper, watching the cabins get smaller and smaller. It’s hard to tell, though I think we’re heading for the lake. If he’s going to drown me, why wouldn’t he have saved himself the trouble and let me die in the river yesterday?

“Shouldn’t matter much.” His voice is sharp, the amusement I usually find there missing. The answer makes me fall silent, any other words dying before they can make it out of my mouth. But I hold him tighter, hating that it makes me feel just a touch better when he’s the reason for all of my problems in the first place.

It’s a good five minutes before I hear the lapping of water against the dock, and I stiffen in his arms. “Kayde…” My voice is soft, so soft he may not hear me, but Kayde doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even slow down as I hear a door creaking open, and I realize where we are.

The boathouse.

It’s off limits to campers, and even counselors rarely have a reason to be here unless we’re dragging out the kayaks and paddles. The rest of it is empty space, or storage, and because of that, most of us steer clear.

Except for Darcy, when she’d been in love with Daniel one summer.

And I’m pretty sure I’ve noticed Liza and Kinsley sneaking out of here in the afternoons when they don’t think anyone is looking. Too bad my jealousy is just that prominent that I do, in fact, notice. And maybe, just slightly, I’ve had my own wishes about having someone that I’d want to be here with. Someone to whisper with about our secret plans to come to the boathouse and spend a few stolen minutes away from preteen campers and judgmental counselors.

But God, Kayde is not the partner I’d had in mind for those fantasies. Not even close.

I’m dropped to my feet without notice, and my knees would’ve buckled if Kayde didn’t have an arm around my shoulders to hold me upright. My teeth lock around the words thank you to prevent them becoming real, and I step back from him the moment I feel like I’m able to do so.

“What are we—” A click cuts me off, and I see the flare of an electric LED lantern as Kayde sets it down on a nearby shelf. “What are we doing here?”

Kayde just fixes me with a look and turns on another, less bright lantern. But the orange light seems to mesh with the bright white, until this mostly empty side of the boathouse is well-lit enough for me to see every twitch of his expression, and for him to see mine.

“What do people normally do when they come here, Summer?” he asks, flicking back a tarp to reveal a stuffed black backpack in the corner.

“I wouldn’t know.” Even through my fear, it’s impossible to keep the sourness from my tone. “No one has ever asked me to come here. Or thrown me over their shoulder, caveman style?—”

His sudden grin is anything but nice as he steps forward into my space. “Am I going to break your boathouse cherry, then?” he purrs, his hands coming up to my shoulders. “What a fucking honor.”

“Why here?” I ask, glancing around the small room. The wood floor under me creaks as I step to one side, and I look down at the planks in alarm as if they’ll break and send me plunging into the cold lake below. Two pillars stretch from the floor to the ceiling, and I know for a fact they continue every few feet in the other area of the boathouse too, the side where we keep the kayaks.

“Because I wanted a place where you could be a little louder.” Kayde busies himself with his backpack, unzipping it and fishing a few things out before dropping it back to the floor. “I worry about you in one of our cabins. You’re not so good at control, sweetheart. Besides…” When I look back at him, I see he’s tying a rope around one pillar, at about head height for him. He uses one of the pillar’s horizontal pegs to make sure the rope won’t slip, tugs on it, and moves to do the same to the other pillar.

“Gotta teach you a lesson, don’t I?”

“What?” The way the word leaves my throat is more of a rush of air and fear, instead of a real word. I take a few steps away from him on the creaking planks, curling my fingers into my palms. “No, I’m not?—”

“I do like it when you tell me no,” Kayde muses, working on tying the other rope into place. “I like your little rush of panic when you realize I’m going to do something outside of your comfort zone.” His wolfish smile finds my wide eyes, and he drops to one knee, another rope appearing in his hands from his backpack as he ties it to the base of the pole. “We should do safe words. What’s yours?”

“What’s my…” I stare at him like he’s grown a second head. “I don’t have a safe word.”

The look on his face as he pauses to look up at me is, in a word, rather unimpressed. His brow raises dismissively, and his mouth twitches in a frown before he states, “That’s very unsafe of you, baby girl. You really need a safe word when you’re going to play?—”

“I never did this before you!” I throw my hands up in exasperation, stomach rolling as I pace along my side of the room like a trapped tiger. My heart flutters in my chest, and I’m sure I’m absolutely going to vomit. “I never needed a fucking safe word before?—”

“Sounds boring.” He cuts me off effortlessly, without raising his voice. “Pick a safe word. That’ll let you say ‘no’ and ‘stop’ all you want, and I’ll know you don’t really want to stop. Say your safe word, and everything stops. And…well you know.” He smiles at me, though any humor there is dark and mocking.

“I hate you,” I breathe out, still clenching my hands so hard my fingers seem to creak with the effort.

“You did this to yourself. I asked you so many times for the knife. But you made me take it from you. I warned you, Summer.”

I haven’t felt like this in years.