Naomi jerked away before Patrick’s mouth touched hers, and they both stood under the sudden deluge from Ryn’s sky.
In that instant, the kiss, the lovemaking, the wedding, children, and even death itself—all were swept momentarily away.
“I— I should go,” Naomi said.
“You don’t have to.” Patrick offered her his hand. “We’re not getting any dryer.”
She shook her head. “Let’s talk again tomorrow.” Together they ran for the trail, shadowed by a monster from the treetops.
They were stopped at the firepit by Jane and the male counselor, whose name might have begun with a T.
“You two have a fun stroll?” Jane asked.
“Nice of you to escort her to the restroom,” T-counselor said.
Ryn dropped to the wet ground and stayed in the forest.
“It’s not like that,” Naomi said. “We just talked. Nothing happened, relax.”
“You can’t wander around in the dark. It’s dangerous.” Jane glanced around. “Where’s that little angry kid?”
“Ryn’s not in the bunk?” Naomi asked.
Not good.
“Of course not.” Jane folded her arms. “That kid’s never where she’s supposed to be. You didn’t see her out there?”
“No.” The word was angry enough that everyone took notice of Naomi. “She’s only seen when she wants to be. But I’ll bet she’s been with us all along.”
“What?” Patrick spun to look around. “Seriously? Who, that short one with the attitude?”
Naomi turned to the forest and folded her arms. “Get over here,” she called sternly.
Ryn froze, confident no one had spotted her.
“Ryn! Get your ninja butt out here! Now!”
The deva slid from wet brush; Naomi fixed on her and everyone else startled back at her presence. Rain pounded her as she approached.
“You have a lot of nerve.” Naomi’s voice was coldly furious.
“Wait, was she following us?” Patrick asked.
Ryn glared at him, but Naomi ignored her boyfriend. In spite of how bad this was, Ryn liked it when she ignored him.
“All right,” Jane said. “Everyone’s alive. Todd, get Patrick to his bunk.” Todd the counselor did so, and that left the three of them in the rain. Planting hands to hips, Jane took note of Naomi’s aggressive posture. “Whatever this is, settle it. I mean in the next five minutes, ladies. Then get to your bunks, sleep, and tomorrow we’ll raft the crap out of that river. Naomi? If you had sex, go talk to the nurse.”
“I didn’t have sex!” Naomi shouted. “We never even kissed.”
“She didn’t,” Ryn confirmed.
“You’re not helping your case.” Lightning flashed again and lit the outrage in Naomi’s eyes.
Shaking her head, Jane went into the cabin.
Naomi wheeled on the deva. “How could you! After scaring me to tears, after filling my nightmares for weeks, how could you do that to me again?”
“I didn’t frighten you!” The accusation hit Ryn hard, because she never wanted to do that again to her friend.
“It doesn’t matter. You invaded my privacy. It’s creepy and wrong.”
Ryn bristled. “I was guarding you.”
“From what? My boyfriend?”
“I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.” Ryn straightened, saying the truest, most damning thing of all: “His smell is wrong.”
“So? You don’t get to sniff all my boyfriends and grade them pass-fail! You’re not responsible for guarding me. The people my dad hired do enough of that!”
Now the deva smirked. “They’re not a tenth of what I am. You think they kept the monsters from your room every night? No.” I did that.
But Ryn had not concealed those last words cleverly enough. They must have been in her eyes, because Naomi froze and a look of horror filled her face. “Wait. What do you mean you kept monsters from my room?” She took a step back. “You were there, weren’t you? Outside my house at night.”
Tired of the lies, Ryn nodded. “Every night. Except once, the night they sent Casper Owens. That night I… failed you.”
“You failed me,” Naomi said, eyes gleaming too bright, “when you stalked me every night for months. When you came in through my bedroom window, it wasn’t the first time you were on my roof. You’d done that before; you do that almost every night. Sit on my roof. ‘Guard’ me.” Now her eyes were sad. “Oh my God.” She blinked and looked away. “God, you’re insane. You’re actually insane.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re a deluded, insane stalker.”
“I’m not.”
“Then leave me alone!” she shouted. “Leave us alone! He’s my boyfriend.”
“He’s not right!”
“He’s right for me!”
“No!” she hollered, the loudest she’d ever dared to be in front of Naomi—energy shot through her, heels to shoulders, her face buzzing.
But Naomi stood her ground, eyes narrowing as though she saw something she’d missed. “How do you know?”
Ryn covered her mouth with one hand. Had yelling displayed her canines? She whispered, “He is fake. He hides his aggression and smells wrong and is not right. Not… right for you.” She clenched her eyes shut. “You want this thing. With… with a first kiss, and six months before mating, and a wedding in a church where I cannot go, and fine. Do that. If you don’t want to be with one like me, be with Horatio. Just… don’t be with Patrick.” It made her feel lower than a worm to grovel, but she peered up into her friend’s eyes and whispered: “Please.”
Rain drummed on them and Naomi’s face was still with shock. “What did you say?”
Her pulse quickened.
“You said… if I don’t want to be with you.”
It had been said too fast and she’d therefore said too much. But she just nodded. “I did.”
“Ryn. Oh Ryn.” Everything in her friend’s face was gone now except pity, and pity had such a bitter taste. “I’m so sorry, but I’m not—”
“Don’t.” Ryn shook her head.
“I want to be your friend, but I want you as a friend. Not as a competitor who wants to wreck my relationships so she can get a date with a straight girl.”
“You want to hold hands with boys in front of me? Fine. Laugh at their jokes, because they’re funny and I’m not? Do it. But not that boy.”
“But you understand, right?” she asked. “That I’m straight? That we can never work?”
Ryn shrugged.
“Tell me you understand.”
“I do not.”
Her friend’s anger flared. “You need a chart or something? It’s a Venn diagram of ‘women’ and ‘people I date’ that’s two circles, never touching.”
“Let me tell you what I understand,” Ryn said. “I won’t call you any words—straight, gay—I don’t care for them.” She edged forward. “I know this.” She tapped her nose. “I smell how your body changes when I’m close. It changes even now. I didn’t recognize why, because your smell is different—special. But you have desires, and they’re stronger when I come close.”
“Ryn, I don’t— And how would you— You can’t smell desire, that’s crazy.”
“I can. Don’t lie to me and don’t tell me what I can’t do.” She was close enough now to touch her friend, and the girl had gone rigid like prey. “I can smell the sun in your hair, the rain on your skin. And when I step very close, like this, and when we stare at each other like we are now, your scent changes. I like that change.” Now she was near enough their breath spilled together. “It changes now.”
Naomi exhaled sharply, lips parting. She shook her head, but so minutely it barely registered. Then she shook it harder, stepping forcefully back. “I’m not gay. Okay? I like boys. I’m going to fall for a guy, I’m going to marry him in the same church as my mom and dad. Denise is going to be my maid of honor and you—you were going to be a bridesmaid. That’s how it goes.” Her eyes gl
assed with tears.
Ryn frowned and suddenly didn’t want to push her, didn’t want to so much as nudge her friend for fear she’d crack in half. “I cannot do that with you. But you should do as you wish.”
“Leave me alone,” Naomi whispered.
“Very well.”
“Not just tonight. Leave me alone, Ryn. Leave me alone forever. Stay the hell out of my life! Stay away from Patrick. Just… stop ruining my plans, stop ruining everything.” Her voice trembled, and though the words stabbed Ryn’s heart, they must not have penetrated nearly as deep as they had through Naomi, because she wilted before running for the cabin. The door slammed shut behind her.
Standing in cold rain until her skin went as numb as her insides, Ryn wandered indoors to lie wet on her bunk. It didn’t matter. When she turned her head, she saw Naomi with her back presented, shoulders quaking. She cried until she slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY: The River
Dark dreams held Naomi underwater until first light. The soggy chill reminded her she was at camp, the memory of her fight with Ryn tightening the knot in her stomach. She rolled over and Ryn’s bunk was empty. For a brief, terrifying moment, she wondered if the raven-haired girl had actually left her alone—forever—as she’d demanded.
No. Her bag is still there.
So what if she had? After what she said, maybe that would be best. Ignoring the jittery panic, she packed her bathroom things, put on sandals for the long trail to the showers, and hoped to trek it alone. She needed a broody walk.
Except Denise waited for her in the cold, gray wet, leaning on the cabin’s outer wall with bathroom gear in hand.
Without a word, Naomi strode up the trail. Without a word, Denise followed.
Halfway there, Denise asked, “So what’s this Patrick thing about?”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“I heard your blow-up last night. Everyone did.”
Naomi winced. “What parts?”
“Not all of it. Just the loud parts. And where Ryn yelled that he’s not good enough for you. She’s right, by the way. Patrick’s… shady. He’s got some deep-seated anger below the surface.”
“I know.”
“You know he’s sketchy and you’re still dating the guy?”
“Yes.” Naomi stopped, facing her oldest friend. “You don’t think I know? I can tell he buries his anger; squeezes it off when I bring up his mom. He’s broken, just a little bit. So is Ryn. So are you. We’re all a little damaged, so don’t talk to me about fake. That’s none of Ryn’s business.”
“Okay, okay.” Denise started walking again.
She had to jog to catch up, arriving at Denise’s hip before she realized she’d spent her anger giving chase and didn’t know what else to add. She did that on purpose, Naomi realized.
Denise had on her clever smile, which Naomi hated. “I just didn’t think you were doing the boyfriend thing yet. Not so soon after, you know…”
“Horatio?”
Denise snorted. “No. After that striptease you did for Ryn the other night.”
She guffawed. “Striptease?” Her voice came out sharper than she liked.
“First bad thing you’ve ever done, and with a girl no less. I was proud.”
“I was changing clothes. You change in front of me all the time. It wasn’t like that.”
“It was so like that, and you know it was. And you know you liked it like that. So no, I don’t understand this Patrick thing. It’s like you’re trying to win back your straight cred. You know you can tell me, right?”
“Tell you what?”
Denise stopped, so she had to as well. Her friend looked Naomi straight in the eyes. “Tell me you’re gay.”
The words caught in her throat. “Denise.” She shook her head. “I’m not gay.” She’d built the list of reasons already, but knew if she went through all eleven, Denise would try to shoot them down one by one. “Didn’t we both go through that Tom Hiddleston phase together?”
“Not saying you wouldn’t fuck Tom Hiddleston. I’m simply saying you’d prefer to fuck his sister.”
“Denise!”
“Do you have, like, a physical list of reasons you’re not gay, because it’ll be faster if you just give me the piece of paper.”
Her ears burned. “Of course not.”
She raised her hands. “Tell me Ryn doesn’t turn you on.”
“She doesn’t.”
Denise cracked a smile. “Liar.”
It wasn’t a lie—there were aspects of Ryn she found thrilling, but she just needed to find those aspects in a boy. “Ryn and I are through.”
“Ryn’s the kind of girl who—if you tell her to leave you alone forever—she’s going to. So I hope you’re sure about that.”
“I am!”
“…she said, with not a hint of fear in her voice.”
“It’s not fear, it’s anger. Stop telling me how I feel. You don’t know.”
“How much you want to bet?”
Naomi spun and strode back toward the cabin.
That forced Denise to stop. “Hey. Where you going?”
“What, you don’t know? Guess you’re not omniscient, Denise. I’m going back!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s away from you.”
Her friend quieted, which was highly unusual to say the least. Guilt gnawed on Naomi’s stomach. What if she’d actually upset her? Pausing, Naomi glanced over her shoulder to check.
Denise stood there with a huge smirk.
She knew I’d look back. Her whole face burned.
Denise winked.
~*~
Ryn kept out of sight until they loaded into two vans for their rafting trip. She avoided the one with Naomi in it. During the long drive to the river, it sank in: her time with Naomi had finally ended. Only dealing with Saxby remained.
They arrived at a boat launch and boarded yellow, rubber vessels suitable for whitewater, the plan being to raft downstream, camp overnight, and raft again the next day to a rock-climbing locale.
Naomi joined Patrick in the forward raft; he guided her into the boat, even though it wasn’t a challenging step for someone with her superb balance. Ryn boarded the second raft with Denise and their group pushed into the brisk current. Rain had fattened the river until it hissed and spat and beat on their vessel.
Jane plunged her oar into the stream, angling them with a white-knuckled grip. “I know this river. You do what I say and no one goes for a swim. Trust me and listen to me, because you don’t want to fish our tents and food out of the drink. Copy?”
Everyone else cheered. Ryn stared ahead at Naomi’s bobbing raft, sensing she was near to never seeing the auburn-haired girl again.
The rapids tossed them around, but Jane kept their raft true. Ahead, Naomi’s jarred over rocks, washed down sluices between stacked tablets of stone. Their boat trailed, rarely losing sight of the other. Campers shouted and squealed their delight, and even Ryn savored the spray of cold water against her body, its flavor alive on her tongue.
When the river later flattened into a stretch of glossy, unbroken ribbon, Denise scooted closer, whispering, “It’s not so bad, you know. It’s not you she’s really mad at.”
“She wants me to leave her alone.”
“So you’re going to run off again?” Denise asked. “Just like that?”
“I’ll protect her until she’s safe.” Staring grimly ahead, she added, “It won’t be long now.”
“That’s how it is?”
“That is how it was always going to be. And it’s what she demanded.”
Denise leaned closer. “Let me tell you a horrible secret. I’m planning to kill her.”
She twisted on the mortal, eyes wide.
“Oh yeah. It’s because she won’t come clean about how she feels. So unless she convinces me I’m wrong, I’ve got diabolical plans to end her life. In a slow, agonizing manner involving a crate of weasels. So with that in mind, I don’t think she’ll be safe for
a while, and you’d better keep a close eye on her.”
A smile tickled the corners of Ryn’s mouth. “Denise?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t desire to kill you.”
“Aw. I love you too, weirdo.”
Ahead the river narrowed, funneled into churning whitewater that roared louder as they approached, misting over the edge of their boat. Jane shouted orders, tensely focused as they whisked down a steep slope, sank abruptly off waterfalls, and cracked their raft off dense stones with whip-snap force. She’d call for them to paddle or crowd different parts of the boat to manage the impacts.
“These are class-five rapids,” Jane announced. “Ahead’s the Devil’s Drop, so I want you razor sharp. This is dangerous. People have died at the bottom of that waterfall. So do not fall out. We’re going to try zagging across the river to miss it, but the best route down’s like threading a needle. If we have to flip, crowd right and we’ll at least flip away from the waterfall.”
Todd steered their craft from the left bank, across the river, and Ryn tensed—Naomi leaned out to paddle on the side with the falls.
Their boat turned, swept close to the lip of Devil’s Drop, but Todd stabbed his paddle into the water and cut their vessel to the side. It slid onto a sloped rock and bobbed wildly on its way past the waterfall. They’d done it.
“Look out!” Patrick pointed to the right side of the boat. Everyone glanced that way, the passengers in Ryn’s own boat focused on Jane’s commands.
In that moment, Patrick grabbed the strap on the back of Naomi’s life jacket. She’d already leaned partway out, facing the river instead of her boyfriend. He heaved her over. She tumbled into the water, disappeared without words or commotion. Gone.
The deva tore off her life vest, straps busting with a loud rip, and dove into the river in the same clean motion. Kicking beneath the rapids into the dark, cold underworld, she heard only the roar of the moving water. Her glasses washed off her face; she ignored it.
Beneath the surface, away from air and light and in the sanctum of crushing water, she surrendered any pretense of humanity. Body flexing along her powerful spine, she kicked both feet together, careening through the water in a frantic search. She couldn’t hear Naomi’s telltale heartbeat over the thundering of the river, so she dove wildly and wound between the stones, following her into the deep.
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