The Camp (5 page)

“It’ll be fine.” He assured me. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think so.
Right now it doesn’t seem it’s the bears we have to worry about anyway.”

“Not funny.”
I scowled.

“So something tells me you won’t be getting any sleep if I leave.
Is that true?” His eyes softened as he waited for my answer.

I nodded. “
Positively true.”

“I can grab my ba
g and sleep on the other side of the tent if you want.”

I let out
a huge sigh and before I could stop myself, I lunged at him, wrapping my arms around his neck.

“Thank you
. I wasn’t planning on letting you out of my sight for more than thirty seconds,” I mumbled, letting go quickly.

“No sweat. I’ll be right back.”

I climbed into the sleeping bag and heard him zipping up his tent and watched as he climbed back into mine, bag and pillow in hand. He tossed them on the floor and zip tied the zippers together, creating a more substantial lock than my shoelaces.

My heart began racing as he unrolled his sleeping bag
on the other side of the tent. There was something so addicting about him. His forearm flexed as he adjusted everything, and I felt an entirely new set of feelings run through me, knowing he wasn’t one of the campers.

He turned
to face the wall of the tent and pulled his shirt over his head. I suddenly felt flushed as I watched him open up his bag. His shoulder and back muscles were so well defined I couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to be pressed up against him. He crawled in his bag, and I clenched my eyes shut so he wouldn’t catch me staring.

“Hope you have a good sleep, Emma. Thanks for sharing some of that stuff with me. I know it wasn’t easy.”

My heart flip-flopped as his words floated over to me.

“
It’s amazing what fear will make a person confess,” I whispered.

“Or finding the right person to confess to.”

A big gust of wind cracked a branch outside, and I took a deep breath in hoping to fall asleep quickly. But all I could think of was Liam’s caramel brown eyes as he listened about my father and the warmth of his embrace. It was going to be a tough night.

C
hapte
r
S
ix

I woke up to the sound of the other campers roaming around outside, asse
ssing the storm’s damage from the night before. I turned over to check on Liam, but his sleeping bag was gone. It was like he’d never been here. My heart dropped a little, which was ridiculous. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I forced myself on my back and brought the sleeping bag up to my chin. It was so cold outside of my cocoon that I wanted to stay curled up in my bag all day, but I knew I needed to get out and see if there was anything I could help with. And I wanted a shower and had no idea how that was going to work out. The bathroom situation was precarious enough!

I sat up and gathered my hair into a
loose ponytail and pulled on my boots, stringing the laces up again from the night before. I unzipped the door and was immediately greeted by Liam’s orange tent and chuckled at just how close it was, especially in the daylight. I felt exhilarated as I thought about running into him, and then the realization of what I probably looked like occurred to me at the same time. Climbing out of the tent, I walked over to Steph’s tent and she was inside, her door unzipped. Hopefully she could point me in the direction of looking decent and feeling clean.

“Hey,” I called
. She turned around to greet me, looking concerned.

“How are you doing after everything? Liam told me what happened. He said nothing like that’s ever happened
up here before.” She looked as on-edge as I felt the night before. Somehow the daylight made the night before seem surreal to me. I almost didn’t believe any of it happened.

I shook my head and smiled. “Not really looking forward to night two.”

“I bet. I think we’re going to rearrange the camp and everything,” she said. “It wasn’t only you who was taunted. Some of the other tents were targeted throughout the night.”

“Really?” I asked, feeling partly better that it wasn’t just me who was the target.

She nodded.

“So is there like a shower or something-somehow-please…”
my voice trailed off, waiting for her answer.

She nodded. “It’s not ideal, but we’ve got one. You’ll learn how to take the quickest show
ers of your life because they’ll be the coldest showers of your life,” she replied, laughing. “And just always grab me before you decide to shower so I can stand watch.”

“Awesome! I’ll go get my soap
and a towel and prepare myself for a chilly one.” I rolled my eyes and trudged back to my tent carefully since the ground was still pretty mushy and slipped my boots off before I stepped back into my tent.

I had wanted to ask her about Liam, but I didn’t want to sound too eager, especia
lly since they were related. I was sure anything I told her would get right back to him.

I grabbed
the shampoo, conditioner, and bar of soap out of my bag and noticed the Edgar Allen Poe book that looked completely undisturbed from when I packed it at home. I dug deeper in the bag and grabbed a towel.

“Ready?” Steph asked, peeking
in my tent.

“Yep.”

She grabbed the stuff from me while I slid my feet back in my boots, trying not to fall over. I wasn’t exactly my best in the morning, which only made my coordination even worse. Remembering back to the night before when I fell head first into the mud, I had to stifle a chuckle. Maybe I just wasn’t ever that coordinated.

“This won’t be your most pleasant bathing experience. I promise you that.”
She sighed. “Amazing how adventures like these can seem like a good idea from the comfort of your own home.”

“No kidding,” I agreed. “So where do you live?”

“In Colorado, but before that my family lived in Arizona.”

I followed her
to a line of tall, narrow tents and let out a sigh. Three of them were a dark green and two of them were bright blue.

“So the bathroom situation…”

“I’ve been eating and drinking very little just to avoid it,” I interrupted, shaking my head.

She started laughing and pointed to the structures. “Completely understood.”

“We also have portable washing machines, but I’ve had better luck just washing my clothes in the river.”

There was a makeshift hand washing station next to the structures wit
h a red hose leading away.

“That’s the direction of the river you’re talking about?” I pointed to the hose.

“Yeah.” She unzipped a dark green structure and placed my bottles on the floor of the shower. I balanced my bar of soap on top the bottles. “It fools you into thinking that it’s a regular shower with all of the knobs, but don’t fall for it.” She smiled. “I’m still traumatized.”

“My two showers a day sounds like it will quickly morph into one.”
I laughed, stepping into the structure. I folded my sweats and shirt in the corner because I planned on putting them back on before I walked back to my tent to change into something clean.

I stood to the side of the showerhead so that
I could psyche myself up once I turned the water on.

“I’m not hearing anything,” Steph teased.

“Here goes nothing,” I shouted back, turning on the water.

The droplets that splashed from the floor to my ankle were freezing.
I glanced at my shampoo bottle and quickly edged forward. I grabbed the bar of soap and lifted the shampoo bottle, flipping the lid and plopping the gel in my palm that also held the bar of soap. There had to be an easier way!

I took a deep breath in
and ran under the sprinkling water, gasping as it trailed down my back. Once my hair was wet I massaged the shampoo through my hair as fast as possible, pausing only momentarily to slide the bar of soap all over my body.

My body started adjusting to the frigid temperatures
, only marginally, as I let the shampoo run out of my hair. It felt amazing getting the dried mud out of my hair. Today was definitely
not
going to be a conditioner day. I rinsed all the suds off my body and turned off the water.

“Whoa,” I hollered, reaching for the towel. “That completely sucked.”

I dried off as fast as I could and slipped on my clothes, wrapping my hair in the towel.

I unzipped the shower door and grabbed everything, noticing that Steph was pacing.
She turned toward me and smiled.

“At least I warned you.”

“True enough,” I said.

One of the guys from yesterday was at the hand washing station, and I noticed something different about the energy running between us. He glanced at me, smiling politely, before concentrating back on his hands.
I was beginning to feel less like a piece of meat and more like a citizen in the world again.

“Which guy is that again?” I asked.

“That’s Erik.”

“So where’s Liam?” I asked, unable to hide my curiosity any longer.

“He took a couple of the guys and went out tracking,” her voice was edged with worry and my heart fell.

“Track
ing?” I asked. “Tracking what? It doesn’t have to do with last night does it?”

She nodded,
pressing her lips together.

“Are you serious? Why would he do that? The weather’s still horrible and —”

“I told him the same thing, but he wouldn’t listen. He was determined to find the guy who did that to you.”

My heart started racing
, and I began feeling lightheaded. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. If something happened to Liam because of me, I’d never forgive myself. Not to mention the thought of being at the camp without him was terrifying.

“When did he leave?” I questioned, reaching my tent and unzipping the door.

“A few hours ago, actually.”

“Who’d he take with him?”

She paused, not answering as she followed me into my tent.

“Who?”
I asked again.

She let out a huge sigh
, and I knew exactly who it was that Liam hauled with him.

Why would he do that?
Why would he take Luke? I felt sick. How or why would he trust a guy he clocked out the day before? Luke was probably looking for any opportunity to payback Liam.

“And a CL
, right?” I bit my lip, waiting for the answer. Two against one was always better.

She nodded. “Dan and Luke
.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Then why are you?” I quirked my brows,
and folded my arms in front of me.

I reached in my bag and pulled out a pair of jeans and another sweatshirt, this time teal. I shrugged off my sweats and sweatshirt and pulled on my new panties, bra and outfit. I unwrapped the towel from my hair and picked up a brush to run through it.

“I can’t even concentrate.” I told her, attempting to fight with my non-conditioned waves.

“I know. I was rearranging my tent for the third time before you came over this morning. Listen, I don’t know if this will make you feel better or what all Liam has told you about his upbringing, but he’s used to taking care of himself. He knows how to handle things, and he’s had a lot of practice using his fists to solve problems because —” she stopped, realizing she said too much.

“Because
why?” I prodded.

She shook her head. “It’s not my place to say. I shouldn’t have brought it up
even.” She was completely backpedaling now. “If he hasn’t told you, I shouldn’t either.”

“
Does it have to do with his mom’s death?”

“Partly.
” Her expression softened. “His father became distraught after his mom died, and Liam had to fend for himself and learn to defend himself, not only around the village he grew up in but from his own brothers. If he’s already told you about his mom, I’m sure he’ll tell you everything else. I just don’t feel comfortable…”

“I understand,” I whispered
. We all had secrets. My stomach twisted thinking how selfish I’d been assuming I was the only who needed comfort. My mind began racing, thinking of what could have happened to Liam. He’d only shown me such a wonderfully kind and soft side that it was hard to imagine him as anything but that. Although, he did take care of Luke in pretty rapid order.

My brush kept running into snarls and knots
, and I yanked the brush through anyway, the pain tearing at my scalp.

“I really should’ve used conditioner,” I groaned.

“Let me do it. I’ve got the technique down for curls.”

She grabbed the brush from
me and started sectioning my hair, from the bottom up, gently working the tangles out.

“I’m so frustrated. I can’t believe he’d be so careless to take off when there’s some crazy guy on the loose.”
I exhaled sharply and took another deep breath in.

“All done,” Steph said, tossing my brush on top of my bag. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m not either, but it will take up some time at least
. Nothing is simple in the woods, and you need to eat when you can.”

We climbed out of the tent and zipped it back up.

“Where’s Chelsea?” I asked.

“She’s collecting with Mark, one of the CLs you met yesterday.”

“Hi, Emma.” Justin waved at me, stepping back respectfully. That was the guy who thought his fingers had an all-access pass to me last night, interesting.

I furrowed my brow in confusion at Steph. “Why are they being nice all of a sudden?”

Steph smiled widely. “Word got around about Liam. Apparently it only took one example to set everyone straight, and Luke was the lucky one. Wait until you see him. He’s a constant reminder of what could happen if someone even looks at you the wrong away.”

A tenderness rose up
in my body. I didn’t want to think I was a damsel-in-distress chick, but it was pretty sweet to have a guy care enough to handle a problem if one arose, especially like that. The memory of Liam jumping over the bench and landing on Luke warmed my heart.

“You’re blushing,” Steph teased.

“Whatever.” I swatted at her.

We were standing at the base of one of the fir trees
, and she began climbing up to the platform where the bear proof vaults and containers were. My hands got clammy just thinking of having to hike up those tiny pieces of wood that she scaled.

She reached the platform and opened one of the containers.

“Cereal bars coming up,” she shouted. “Anyone else need anything?”

“Granola bar, please,” a guy
said from behind me. I turned to see who it was and realized how few people I knew here.

He lifted
his head in a knowing nod. “Hey, I’m Sam.”