Bethany laughs again but it sounds thinner now, like she’s losing control of the story. “Home wrecker,” she spits at me. “Pawn shop trash. Thinking you can climb your way up.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I say, and for once my voice doesn’t shake.
“Yeah,” she says, stepping closer again. “But you want my man.”
There it is. The thing Lottie tried to explain. She’s afraid of him leaving her.
I look to Oaks before I lift my chin. “What if I do?”
“You can’t have him without a fight. You won’t win.”
Oaks’ jaw tightens. “Beth,” he says low. “Walk away.”
She stares at him like she’s memorizing his betrayal, then throws her hands up and turns loud again for the camp. “Fine,” she says. “Enjoy your floatel whore. See how long that lasts.”
She stalks off toward the shoreline with her head high like she thinks she won something, boots crunching gravel, leaving a trail of poison behind her. The camp holds its breath for a second and then it exhales and conversations start up low and cautious, like the whole place is deciding how to file what they just saw.
Legend gives Oaks one long look before turning back to Sophie. Royal pushes off the post and disappears into the trees with Becki. Lottie comes straight to me and her eyes are bright with anger she’s barely containing.
“You okay?” she asks softly.
I nod even though my chest feels cracked open.
Oaks’ hand is still on my arm. I feel it like a brand. He realizes it too and drops it slow, and the space between us is charged now, public and unavoidable. I look around at the camp, at the cabins and tents and faces that will remember this, at the women who will talk and the men who will judge, and I realize there’s no pretending nothing is happening anymore.
Not after this. Not after he stood between us and chose me. Not his wife.
Oaks drags a hand through his hair and exhales hard. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, just for me.
I meet his eyes. “You didn’t do this alone,” I say, because if I’m honest, my body made choices too.
The lake glints behind him in the morning light, dark and watchful. Something moves under the surface, or maybe that’sjust my nerves looking for monsters because it’s easier than admitting it might be human. Either way, Hell ain’t done with us.
And now everybody knows it.
Chapter 23
Oaks
Bethany’s still running her mouth when the scream cuts through camp. It ain’t shrill drama, and it ain’t a wife trying to win a crowd. It’s terror, pure and sharp, coming from the shoreline like somebody grabbed a lung and squeezed. Every biker in the clearing goes still at the same time. Legend don’t have to say a damn thing. We move because that’s what we do when the danger turns real.
The scream comes again, closer to the water this time. One of the prospects, a young kid named Mercer, stumbles up the slope from the dock white as a sheet, eyes too wide, mouth working like he’s trying to swallow his own panic. “There’s something out there,” he pants. “Boat’s… fuck… just come look.”
Boots pound dirt. Gravel sprays underfoot. Royal reaches the shoreline first and stops like he expects the lake to bite him back. Holler jogs past me already pulling a flashlight from his cut even though it’s broad daylight, like his hands know what they want even if the sun is lying.
The lake is too calm. That’s the first thing I notice. Herrington sits flat and glassy like it’s pretending nothing ever happens beneath it, early sun throwing long streaks across the surface while birds scatter from the reeds and the water keeps acting innocent.
Then I see it. Half-submerged twenty yards from the dock, a small aluminum fishing boat, tilted wrong. One side sitslower than the other, nose dipped like it tried to climb out and failed.
Holler mutters, “That ain’t one of ours.”
Royal answers quiet, “It ain’t.”
Legend steps down beside me, gaze locked on the boat like he’s already putting a name to the feeling.
“Girl from Pearly Gates,” I answer automatically. “Twenty-two. Worked at the feed store.” Nobody says her name. Sadie.
We all look at the boat instead, like if we avoid saying it we can avoid making it true. Something dark is smeared along the inside rail. Blood don’t spread right in water. It blooms. It thins. But this looks thick. Sticky. Recent.
