Dead of Summer

“First time for everything?” I ask, turning to him as I pull the marshmallows off of the stick. Instead of a s’more, tonight I really just want the sticky, melty sugar of a marshmallow to glue my mouth shut.

“First time for everything, since you appeared,” Kayde agrees, taking the fork from me and bumping our knees together as he slides them off onto my plate. “No s’more for you?”

“Not in a graham cracker mood tonight. I just want the sugar,” I tell him, a wry grin on my lips.

“Gotcha.” Before I can stop him, he scoops one marshmallow off the plate and holds it up for me, prompting me to stare at him, wide eyed. “Open up, baby girl,” Kayde purrs, much too quiet for anyone to hear.

Tentatively, I do so. His fingers slip in alongside the marshmallow, and he drags the pad of his thumb over my tongue before pulling away. Chewing quickly, my face burns and I feel the pressure of someone else staring at us.

Across the fire, Liza and Kins definitely aren’t being subtle. I meet their gazes with a mouthful of melty, perfect marshmallow, only to see the surprise and fascination on their faces.

God, I feel like I’m in a soap opera. My flush deepens, and when he sees my expression, Kayde follows my gaze. A small laugh leaves him, but he doesn’t move away. If anything, he slides closer to me, an arm draped around my shoulders as I pick up the other marshmallow.

“Split this one with me?” I request, raising one brow. “You know they’re staring at us, right? Daniel’s probably documenting all the shit he can go tell Darcy, too?—”

Kayde’s movement cuts me off. He grabs my hand in an unrelenting grip and brings it up to his face, where he nips at the marshmallow playfully before taking half of it between his teeth and leaving me with the sagging, melty remains. Not that I waste the other half, of course. It goes in my mouth, and if part of me wishes I could taste Kayde’s mouth on it, then I’m definitely burying that part of me in the morning, because that’s wrong.

Besides, he’ll be gone the day after tomorrow. And even with my confused feelings, there’s a strong sense of relief in that. Sure, he can be cute as hell when he wants. He’s attractive, and so good at everything that happens at night that it makes my head spin.

But more than that, he’s a murderer. He wanted to kill the kids here, and only playing a stupid game with him saved my campers from his ax.

I do not, in any circumstance, want Kayde Lane to stay around for longer than the next thirty-six hours.

When he gets up, I blink in surprise, letting him have the disposable plate so he can chuck it into the fire. “I’ll see you later, okay?” he murmurs, though he doesn’t look at me as he speaks.

It feels…strange. Though I can’t pinpoint why.

“Later where?” I ask, because that’s important even if he doesn’t think it is.

He hesitates, but when Kayde looks at me, it’s with a grin that’s wolfish in its very nature. “Your cabin,” he promises. “Don’t worry about waiting up for me. Just leave the door unlocked and I’ll come wake you up.”

I don’t have the chance to tell him how ominous that sounds. Not when he turns and walks away, one hand in the pocket of his jeans as he heads for what looks like the lake, though it’s definitely too late for any kind of swim.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It takes longer than I want to get back to the cabin, but the reason for that is no fault of mine. Not when Kinsley and Liza appear on either side of me, taking over the space on my log and pulling me back down when I try to escape.

“Oh no you don’t.” Kins laughs, though the sound isn’t exactly friendly. There’s a feral light in her eyes, and I groan before hiding my face in my hands.

“I know you saw all of that,” I tell both of them, having felt their piercing gazes on me the whole time I was with Kayde. “I don’t know what you’re going to ask, but you saw it, so I feel like I should be allowed to go. Or I’ll invoke my uh, sixth amendment right?” I squint, feeling like that’s not right.

“Fifth,” Liza corrects. “If you don’t know which it is, you don’t get to use it. And we have questions.”

“Thought you didn’t want answers. Neither of you are interested in, what’s the word again…Oh right. Dick.”

Sure enough, Kinsley looks offended at the word, and I take a little bit of pride in that when she’s trapping me on the log with her. If she’s going to ask me uncomfortable questions, I’m going to make this worse.

Naturally, both of them grill me. On the s’more, on the marshmallow. On Kayde. But I fend off most of their questions and finally end up on my feet, managing not to pitch over into the fire. “I’m going to bed,” I announce to both of them, hands on my hips. “My kids are in bed, it’s time for me to sleep so I can get up and stop them from murdering the talent show competition in the morning. If I'm not out and at breakfast when you guys are, assume a child killed me. Come look for me, and set me out on the lake in a Viking style funeral.”

“I’ll shoot a flaming arrow onto your kayak to set your body ablaze as you cross over into Valhalla,” Liza agrees easily, as Kinsley tries to think of something else to ask me.

“Hey.” Before I can cement my escape, Kins reaches out and grips my wrist, staring at me with wide eyes. “Really quick, okay? You’d tell us, right? If Kayde was doing something you don’t want him to do?”

I look between them, surprised to see a matching amount of concern in their eyes. I have no idea where it’s coming from, or why, but it is touching to have both of them asking like this.

Too bad I can’t tell them the truth. Too bad I didn’t have the balls to tell them the truth five days ago, before any of this happened. Surely we could’ve figured something out. We could’ve stopped Kayde and either chased him away, gotten him arrested, or killed him.

Though now my stomach twists, screaming at me that we are not killing Kayde, and I can’t help but agree. I can’t kill him now. Not unless he breaks his side of our bargain. Even if that were the case—no.