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CHAPTER FOUR
It happens sometimes, though I hadn’t expected this problem to hit tonight. Not when things have been exhausting since the new kids arrived, not even forty-eight hours ago. Normally, when I’m here at Camp Crestview, I sleep better than I do at home. Even though my tiny room is much smaller than the one in my mom’s house. Even though I’m constantly listening, making sure the kids aren’t actually performing a seance or planning a murder.
So I hadn’t expected to not be able to sleep tonight. Especially to the extent where the room in my cabin feels claustrophobic; the air seems stale even though I have every window open as far as they’ll go. The room is tiny, with just a bed, nightstand, trunk, and small table by the door. But over the past three years, I’ve gained an appreciation for having a private, mostly quiet place to sleep.
Yet tonight I can’t even stay in bed, let alone fall asleep.
I pick at my nails, wincing every time the skin of my cuticles pulls in a sharp, twisting way under my motions. My knees are pulled almost up to my chest as I sit on the stairs outside of the door to my room, and I stare out at the trees and the mostly dark camp. The only people up this late are the counselors and any kid that’s planning a coup.
I hope when someone does, it’s the kids from Coyote cabin. Just so they can make Kayde’s first time here memorable.
Wincing particularly hard, I set my teeth against the pain in my thumb; staring down at my hand in the dark, even though I know I won’t really be able to see the blood that wells on my skin. Tomorrow my fingers are going to look like I stuck them in the trash disposal. But there’s nothing I can do about the way I absently pick at them whenever I can’t even close my eyes to stare at the backs of my eyelids while I wait for sleep.
Footsteps crunch on the gravel that runs from one cabin to the other, and I glance up from my thumb with a frown on my face at the bobbing flashlight coming my way. It’s not one of the kids. The flashlight is too high for that, and any child sneaking out wouldn’t just be walking up to me like this.
But my brows lift by increments when I see Darcy’s face, illuminated by the faint light from my cabin as she approaches. “Tell me you aren’t just getting started with your walk,” I say plaintively, not quite asking. Walk arounds, which are done nightly by one of us, start way earlier than now, when I know it’s at least eleven, if not midnight.
Darcy stares back balefully at me, none of the friendliness from earlier at the lifeguard throne on her face. We’ve never been the greatest of friends, and I doubt her love for Kayde Lane is going to change that this session.
“So what?” Darcy mutters, one hand folding under her chest as she shines the flashlight a few inches under my eyes. It’s a little aggressive, and I feel like she’s trying to make a point that she could blind me, if she wanted to be less kind.
But Darcy really isn’t that kind, so when the light jerks upward to burn my retinas, I’m smart enough to see it coming and shut them fast.
“You know you were supposed to start hours ago.” My words remain quiet. I don’t want to wake up the kids in the Redtail Cabin, and if Darcy does, I’m going to dunk her in the pool and hold her there until the chlorine burns her extensions. “Fink lets us get away with a lot, but?—”
“Fine.” By her clipped, irritated tone, Darcy isn’t in the mood for my shit tonight. I fidget, reminding myself that there are kids only maybe sleeping nearby, and I don’t want to expand their vocabulary while they’re here by telling Darcy exactly what words are itching at my tongue. “You can do it then, if you want to be so anal about it, Summer.” She doesn’t even give me the flashlight. She drops it to the ground, causing it to flicker.
“You’re ridiculous,” I hiss, already on my feet. “If you wanted to swap for a different night, why not just ask at dinner?” I swipe up the flashlight from the gravel, brushing it off and returning her earlier favor by shining it straight in her eyes from two feet away.
She squints, chin jerking to the side as she holds a hand up between us to block the light. “Because earlier it was fine.”
“Yeah?” I can’t help how grumpy I sound, but I turn off the light. With the few lights sprinkled around the camp and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I don’t need it all the time. Mostly just when I’m in the woods. “What changed?”
“I saw Kayde hanging around my cabin with Daniel,” Darcy sighs, rubbing her arms. “Come on. You’ve seen him. Why do I want to do the stupid night walk when he’s still up and apparently looking for something?” She fixes me with a look that I turn away from. Whatever she wants to do with Kayde is her own business. And if he wants to follow her back to her cabin like a lovestruck deer, then good for him.
Shifting my weight from foot to foot, I pretend she isn’t looking at me with a mixture of irritation and pleading. I could tell her no. She’ll do the walk around herself, even if it is rushed and half-assed.
“Fine,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You’re lucky I can’t sleep. Go get your man, or whatever.” If she thinks Kayde is into her, then he probably is, I assume. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so eager to hunt him down again.
Even if I had been interested in him, I’d forgotten about the primal force that is Darcy. No crush of mine could ever stand a chance against her being here to swoop in and get whoever she wants.
But I’m not interested in summer love, anyway. The day I meet my forever-person at a kid’s summer camp is the day I check myself into the psych ward, or figure out how I ended up in a shitty Hallmark rom-com.
Darcy’s grin turns wolfish, and even as she speaks, she’s already walking away from me. “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow,” she assures me, but I shake my head.
“Do me a favor and don’t.” I take a moment to dip back into my room for my phone, and by the time I’m down the stairs with it in my back pocket, there’s no sign of Darcy. She’s probably running back to her cabin by now, and instead of bothering to look, I set off on the normal route to check the camp for anything out of place, or any kids that should be fast asleep by now.
While this isn’t the most exciting part of my job here, I enjoy walking the campground at night. It’s peaceful, for one, and this is the only time I ever get to say that about Camp Crestview. My flashlight flicks over cabin doors and the doors of the larger buildings in movements that are muscle memory by now. As per usual, there’s no one sneaking around or even out of bed that I can see. Wherever Daniel and the other counselors are, it’s nowhere I need to go, it seems.
Most likely, they’re getting high at the staff house. Those that aren’t asleep, at least. I know for a fact Kinsley is dead to the world, and knowing Liza, she probably is, too. Though she doesn’t have a cabin full of kids to watch out for.
Once I’ve done my circuit of the main camp and ended up back at my cabin, I change direction. Checking on the camp facilities is only half of the job. The second part of this task is walking around the perimeter of the property, close to the woods and the lake. I don’t know what anyone would be doing that far out, and certainly any animals that I come across will run away long before I can see them.
But I’m not Darcy. I don’t cut my walk short, or forget the second half of it altogether as I traipse down the trail just behind the cabins.
Once I’m in the trees, I do actually need the flashlight. The light from the buildings is faint—when I can see it at all—but most of the time I’m walking through almost total darkness.
It’s so quiet out here. Quieter than my brain is at any given time. And quieter than both the main camp and my mom’s house are. I wish I could keep this calm, and the darkness is definitely an added bonus as a breeze ruffles the leaves of the surrounding trees.
