“Yeah.” She was sitting on her bunk, scrolling on her phone. The click of her turning off her screen startled me more than it should have in the quiet room. “He stormed by Heather and me earlier with all his stuff. He mumbled a bunch of weird shit.”
“Wait—he was here?” My voice was high-pitched, unlike anything I had ever heard from myself. I sounded like some other guy, like one who’d already watched everything he loved bleed out.
“Yeah, I was shocked to see him after everything that happened. I cannot believe he showed his face after stabbing Mackenzie. He should be in prison.”
“Where the hell did he go?” I asked, my voice dropping, sounding strangely deep now. The rage pulled it lower, made it rougher.
“I have no clue. He said Mackenzie was his, that they had a history, and then he just took off into the woods. It was really weird.”
The words “Mackenzie was his” scraped down my spine like claws.
It was hard not to react, but something in my expression must have given me away, because inside I was detonating. There was a hollow, echoing space in my chest where logic used to be.
Megan’s frown deepened. “Do you have any idea what he meant by that?”
I just shook my head. “Probably just more of his twisted bullshit. He hurt my wife, and I’m going to fucking kill him.”
She stared at me for a moment but didn’t press.
“He’s creepy,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, like even saying his name too loud might summon him. “I can’t believe they’ve been sleeping together.”
I spun around, surprised.
“Who?”
“Heather and Jackson. They’ve been hooking up all summer. It’s not serious—that’s just what Heather does. She loves psychotic guys,” she sighed. “Jackson’s into some weird shit, too.”
I nodded absentmindedly, wrapping the cord around my charger. My mind was racing. Did Jackson have something to do with the initiation I received? I had tried to trace the source of the text, but couldn’t get through. Was this part of my game? Part of hers?
“Hey, I think Heather and Jackson are up to something,” Megan warned. “I really think you and Mackenzie should leave.”
“What?” I asked, shoving the charger into my shorts pocket.
“Heather likes you,” Megan said, throwing her legs off the bed and sitting up on the edge.
“Okay?” I replied coldly. I was being a total dick now, but I didn’t understand what she was getting at.
“Heather always gets what she wants. She won’t stop ’til she does. You need to be careful.”
I leaned in close to Megan, my voice dropping a few octaves, the threat threading through it. “Tell Heather she can dream as much as she wants, but she doesn’t have a fucking chance. I’m a married man.”
I walked out, heading toward mine and Mackenzie’s room in the cabin, my nerve endings buzzing. I couldn’t wait to get out ofhere and start over with Mackenzie. We’d go somewhere no one knew us. Somewhere, the woods didn’t feel like they were listening. California, maybe. This place felt too small, and everything felt wrong now.
I started shoving our clothes into my duffel bag, my hands shaking. Mackenzie was going to bitch about the way I was packing our shit, but I didn’t give a fuck. She could deal with it.
We were leaving tonight.
I shot West a quick text.
Something is wrong. Jackson was seen at camp today. I’m packing our shit. Send safe coordinates.
I waited a few minutes and got no reply.
That was not like West. The panic settled even deeper in my chest, thick and heavy, like someone was pressing a boot down on my ribs.
Later that afternoon,the screen door creaked before I saw her. The sound sliced through the cabin’s silence. The place seemed to inhale with me when she stepped in, as if even the walls were waiting to see what she’d do.
I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t know what to do without her. I’d been staring up at the ceiling, tossing a baseball, waiting and pretending that we were a normal married couple, that our lives weren’t a fucking disaster stitched together with secrets and fear.
