by Riina Y T
A NineStar Press Publication
Published by NineStar Press
P.O. Box 91792,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199 USA.
www.ninestarpress.com
Paradise Lodge
Copyright © 2018 by Riina Y.T.
Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2018
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at the physical or web addresses above or at [email protected].
Printed in the USA
First Edition
December, 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-1-949909-52-4
Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers.
Paradise Lodge
Riina Y.T.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter One
DECEMBER 26TH
KY
I blinked.
Already landed. I’m waiting out front :)
I read the text message from Azariah a third time, my heart accelerating. Was I ready to face him yet? I swallowed thickly, the taste of cheap airline coffee lingering on my tongue. Okay, so we were going to do this. I could do this. Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I headed straight for the exit. The airport was cramped like the kind found in small cities, with only a few kiosks open for business and nothing so grand as a restaurant. A welcome relief from the Los Angeles crowds.
Locating Azariah was as easy as spotting an oasis in the middle of a desert. I immediately caught sight of him sitting on a bench on the other side of the large glass doors, engrossed in one of the many books he always carried. I pushed my way through the crowd of holiday travelers and came to a halt at the curb, my suitcase by my side. A thick paperback was balanced on his crossed legs, and a bright-pink backpack and matching suitcase sat between his feet and the stone wall, half hidden by the wooden seat. I couldn’t fight the quick smile growing on my face, replacing my frown. Yeah, I could do this. It was still Azariah, one of my closest friends. We’d get it sorted, and everything would go back to normal.
Perhaps it was so easy to pick Azariah out of a crowd because we’d been close friends for so long. Being in a band together had us literally in each other’s face for most of every day. I remembered the first time we met and the instant connection I’d shared with him. While it took me longer to open myself up to Parker, Azariah’s childhood friend and now our bassist, Azariah and I had been close from day one. Luke, our drummer and producer, and I had been friends since high school. With me as the lead singer, and Azariah on the guitar and backup vocals, our band Moving Insignia had become everything to the four of us over the course of five years.
I walked up to Azariah and whistled. The sound made him look up immediately, the quirk of his coralline-red lips sending a familiar thrill through my stomach. He was dressed in a white winter coat with golden studs all over the front and arms, dark jeans, and black combat boots. I admired the way he rocked those artfully ripped pants. His naturally wavy dark hair was tied in a bun at the back of his head, his brown eyes hidden behind his favorite D&G sunglasses. As I sat beside him, Azariah uncrossed his legs and leaned against the wall. I always found it trippy to see my own face reflected back through the bright colors of his mirrored aviators.
“Hey you.”
“Hey you too.”
It was crazy how pleased I was to see Azariah smiling again, especially after the way our last band meeting had ended. We’d met to discuss our upcoming summer tour, and before everyone went on their respective vacations to spend Christmas with their families, Azariah and I had gotten into yet another argument that, for the first time, had ended in silent tears on my part. Tears I’d felt unable to repress for once, tears I hadn’t thought Azariah would ever cause. They’d been born of frustration, of hurt and heartache, of disappointment. Whether I was disappointed in him or myself, I still couldn’t tell. I’d shed them in the privacy of my hotel room, curled up underneath the heavy duvet, unable to stomach having a witness to my weakness, but they’d been tears, nonetheless.
Two weeks apart and quality time spent in the company of my family, people who love and care for me as much as I love and care for them in return, had done a fantastic job of helping me get over being butthurt because of a few dumb comments my best friend had made in the heat of the moment. I was still hurting, but I never liked holding a grudge, so I told myself I could be mature about this. And so far it seemed to work.
“You been waiting long?” I asked Azariah, who pushed his aviators farther up his nose with the tip of his middle finger before closing his book. Maybe he was willing to work on his own attitude as much as I’d planned to work on mine. I couldn’t even recall what exactly started our arguments in the first place, nor when. It felt all so silly right then.
“Not really, got here about an hour ago or so.” Azariah pulled his backpack onto his lap, stuffed the book he’d been reading into a pouch, and closed the zipper. I noticed how exhausted he looked. The long flight from Halifax, Nova Scotia, must have been one hell of a trip.
“You look beat,” I said. Azariah was one of the very few people I knew who ate as healthy as possible and maintained a perfect posture. He had a thing for yoga and meditation, and went to the gym regularly, which was something I’d always admired about him. Azariah was fit, but had a hard time gaining muscles, unlike me. Lifting weights once or twice a week seemed to be more than enough. To get the same results, he’d need to double my routine and then some.
“Yeah, I feel like hell. I’ve been on my feet since three in the morning, I barely got any sleep since yesterday,” Azariah told me with a tired smile. “Thirteen hours on a plane full of sick people and crying babies is the worst.”
“Yikes.” I imagined I could feel a shudder run down my back, remembering my own flight from LAX. I’ve never been a fan of airline travel, but Christmas made for the worst travelers. “Don’t get me started on this; I hate flying around holidays.”
“Yeah.” Azariah nodded. “I’d rather be trapped in an elevator full of pigs all day.”
I snickered at the images popping into my head. “Have you heard anything from the guys?” I asked him as I pulled my phone from the pocket of my leather jacket, watching Azariah mirror the action.
“No, nothing yet.” Azariah stood as we both went through the seemingly never-ending list of notifications on our phones. I was scrolling through my Twitter feed when a new message from Luke came through. A glance at Azariah confirmed he’d seen it, too, so we both opened our group chat with a flick of a finger.
There’s a chopper waiting for you guys! it will bring you to Paradise Lodge
What chopper? I typed back.
Where are you guys? Azariah asked in the chat.
Luke replied, The one we rented, obvs
Then, Parker joined the conversation, saying, For you. We won’t be traveling from Medfort.
Why are we taking a chopper? I typed back quickly, really not liking this. I adde
d angry little smileys for more effect, and, Where the hell is this place that we need to fly in?
Luke typed, Dude, no roads to the lodge unless you wanna hike
Parker said, Or swim =D
Luke again: Just ask one of the staff people there for the Moving Insignia chopper. They’ll be waiting for you guys
I could easily picture his face with the impatient twitch of his eye.
Just…not a helicopter! I groaned and squeezed my eyes shut, blindly shoving my phone back into my jacket. I hated helicopters. The noise gave me goose bumps and made the hair at the back of my neck stand up. And the less-than-smooth transit not only freaked me out but also triggered my motion sickness. I found out firsthand what it did to me last year when we shot part of a music video in one. I swore I’d never set foot into a helicopter again if I could help it.
I muttered a curse. Apparently, I had no other choice. A hand landed on my arm, causing my eyes to snap open and collide with a familiar brown gaze. Azariah had pushed his aviators up as if he knew what those eyes did to me. Don’t be a chicken shit! Put your game face on, O’Sullivan. You got this.
Forcing my lips into a smile, I stood up straight and pulled back my shoulders, trying to appear like the confident leader I was supposed to be. Like, we were going into battle and our survival depended on me. I hated nothing more than disappointing my friends, and I so didn’t want to feel the mortification when Azariah realized I was afraid of a harmless, more or less, helicopter ride.
“Yeah.” I cleared my suddenly dry throat. Azariah’s hand fell away, and he took a step to the side. “Hold just a moment. I’ve got to…” I lowered myself onto the bench and slid my backpack down my shoulder and onto my lap. I rummaged for the little motion sickness pills, my best friends when it came to traveling. I popped one out of the crinkly blister pack and into my mouth.
When I lifted my head, I found Azariah watching me with a strange expression. Somehow, Azariah knew. I had no idea how, but there was no mistaking that look in his eyes as he searched my probably ashen face. Those all-seeing eyes had detected my fear, found a silly little weakness I wasn’t proud of having.
Azariah being Azariah, he didn’t call me out on it, and instead gave me one of those achingly sweet smiles. His eyes disappeared behind the multicolored lenses of his sunglasses again, and he said, “I’ll get us a coffee at the little shop, then find someone who’ll know what’s going on.”
I nodded, a silent thanks on my lips, feeling mortified Azariah knew I’d rather swim a million miles through the Atlantic Ocean than ride five in a chopper supposed to bring us to some deserted vacation lodge in the middle of nowhere, probably on top of a mountain surrounded by creepy woods with even creepier animals lurking in the shadows.
Why couldn’t we have rented a beach house in Hawaii instead?
Chapter Two
AZARIAH
From Rogue Valley International Medford Airport, we took a rented helicopter to our final destination. The thirty-minute flight felt unusually strained, our easy camaraderie tainted by past arguments and tense conversation, a problem I’d feared since leaving Halifax. For months I tried to put a lid on the misplaced attraction and jealousy slowly consuming me. Every time I figured out how to approach Ky to apologize, something else had happened to make me pull back again, or worse, lash out.
I tightened my hand until my fingernails bit into my palms, feeling annoyed at myself for how I’d dealt with the situation. It had escalated fast, and I’d been sure Ky would never find it in his heart to forgive me. But then, earlier when he got off the plane from LA and we met in front of the airport, he seemed so much like his old self, smiling and approachable. As if the cruel things I said the last time we met had never happened. I can’t say I wouldn’t blame him for clearly holding on to the hurt he left with as we parted ways two weeks ago. I could barely live with myself these days.
Ky shot me a nervous look, his blue-gray eyes searching, roaming all over my face like they were looking for an answer to some unasked question. Ignoring the nervous tap-tap-tap of Ky’s foot, I sipped the hot latte I picked up at the coffee shop from the thermos we often shared. Knowing Ky’s lips had touched the lid only moments ago did not make my stomach flutter with something I refused to give a name to. Definitely not. Okay, maybe a little. My lips curved into a silent smile against the hard plastic. Hey, I could enjoy these messed-up feelings a bit even though I absolutely shouldn’t. I didn’t deserve to.
My gaze fell to the windowpane and the beautiful scenery on the other side of the plexiglass. The temperatures were in the midthirties, and the area hadn’t seen any snow yet, which wasn’t unheard of for December. Or so I’d been told by Lucy, our manager, who’d set up this little end-of-year retreat for our band. She’d also reminded us a million times over text and voice message to pack accordingly and bring enough clean underwear for the week. It was hard to tell whether she simply enjoyed the teasing or honestly worried about our hygiene. It wasn’t like I forgot anything important these days. No need to mention the guys wouldn’t let me live down the one time I’d left my passport behind. It happened to the best of us, right?
The chopper dropped us off at a cleared patch of grass that had seen better days, most of it brown from the change of season. It took a five-minute walk to reach the arched wooden sign, which declared we’d arrived at our destination: Paradise Lodge. My thermos in one hand and suitcase in the other, we marched on.
It was startling how eerily quiet everything was. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and the only visitors appeared to be smaller than Frodo, the thirteen-and-a-half-pound tabby living with my aunt and uncle, but equally as furry, running up and down the trees. The parking lot stood empty, and in the distance, surrounded by a multitude of plants in all kinds of shapes and sizes, the cabins didn’t light up the forest as I’d expected.
Ky and I shared a look, confusion crossing his features. The chilly breeze ruffled the brown curls sticking out from under the navy-blue beanie that matched the scarf he wore. The thick black-rimmed glasses moved when Ky scrunched up his nose. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words seemed to come out. I tried to ignore the adorableness of the moment.
I cleared my throat. “It’s not just me, right?” I said and shook my head. “Look around…” I spun in a circle, taking everything fully in. No lights, no sounds, no familiar scents like burning fire or cooking meat, nothing. “This is so not what I thought we’d find when we got here.”
Where were all the people? And most importantly, why weren’t Luke and Parker here?
“Yeah, no kidding.” Ky let his backpack slide off one shoulder and drop to the ground. Following suit, I placed my own next to Ky’s.
Looking back up, my eyes found Ky’s. He cursed, scrunched up his nose again, his phone pressed to one ear. I gave Ky a questioning look to which he responded with a grimace. “The call dropped. I can’t get a proper signal.”
“You’re joking, right?” Could we possibly be without cell reception up here?
“What about their Wi-Fi?” I asked as I located my own phone. My jaw literally dropped as I swiped down from the top of my phone and tapped on the Wi-Fi button, searching for a list of available networks, but there were none.
“Maybe the network is hidden,” I told Ky who just grunted and leaned down to pick up his backpack. I watched my pink one topple over into the grass. “It’s possible, right?”
I remember Lucy saying we’d have Wi-Fi and everything so we could update our social media pages with progress on our songwriting, add Snaps and Instagrams and the usual stuff. The lodge perhaps had SSIDs and passwords to keep non-guests from sticking their noses into their system. I thought simple password security should be sufficient enough, though, so maybe there truly wasn’t any Internet up here. The thought sent a shiver up my spine. I rarely went completely off the grid—it just wasn’t imaginable. When everything you did in your daily routine connected you in some way to the cyberworld you couldn’t just drop off the f
ace of the earth for a week or two.
“What if for some reason the power is out?” Perhaps there’d been a storm or an animal bit through the wiring.
“Yeah, maybe. Let’s go find out.”
I hurried after Ky who was walking up the path, heading for a two-story wooden cabin looming in the distance. Everywhere we looked stood tall trees with needles and scales, many of them bearing cones in various shapes and sizes. The path lay under a blanket of leaves, soft and easy to walk on.
“Did you hear that?” Ky slowed his pace. Farther up, gravel crunched under my feet, and a stray stick snapped as my boots connected with the wooden stairs.
“What? I didn’t hear anything!” My heart started to race. The third stair creaked as Ky stepped on it. My steps faltered and a cold shiver went through me. I wasn’t afraid of nature and its inhabitants but it hit me then: We were in the middle of a forest, likely on our own for god knew how long.
Ky glanced back at me, his expression apprehensive. “Probably nothing,” he said and waved me closer. Peering through the curtainless window I saw nothing but darkness. I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat and sought out Ky’s eyes.
“Let’s check out the inside then, shall we?” Ky said as he reached for the door handle, clasping it between his fingers for a moment—our eyes met again, and I nodded—before he pushed it down and slowly pulled the door open.
I held my breath and leaned closer toward Ky. My shoulder and chest brushed against his back, and all of a sudden, I missed how we used to casually touch at the most random times, or cuddle on a thousand different sofas. Gods, I especially longed for the cuddles.
I stayed close as Ky entered the room. It was quiet and the air smelled earthy and stale. With the light shining in through the windows, it was easy to make out the wooden furniture, minimalist decoration, and neatly made beds. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t seem like anyone was home after all.