Page 74 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“I did. But that doesn’t mean they were completely wrong either. It felt good to snitch on her. She’d been insufferable ever since getting in, and maybe my physics grade will help me get into Von Leer in a couple weeks, but if not, I got the consolation prize of watching Linsey get humbled.”
“And what does this have to do with the woods?”
I scratched listlessly at the paddleboard.
“One of our classmates threw a party at his parents’ summer cabin after the graduation ceremony. I don’t usually get invited to those sorts of things, but when Linsey said I should come, I figured it was an olive branch. I didn’t want to go, but I wanted things to get better between us, so I said sure.”
“You didn’t,” Liam groaned. I hated that he could already see what a terrible idea it had been. I hated that I had no way to go back and tell myself not to go.
The summer cabin in the mountains, Linsey, and all her friends felt so far away as I floated on the ocean with Liam, but the memory of that night churned in my stomach. My heart hammered at the thought of Linsey’s friends gathered on the front porch as I pulled up the gravel drive.
“When I showed up, her friends were upset. Linsey had sent them a text about how embarrassed she was about Von Leer, how her life was over, and that she’d gone into the woods to…”
I swallowed the end of the sentence, but Liam could tell where it was headed. I’d already told him, after all, that this was the story of how I thought I’d killed her.
“Did she—”
“It was a trick,” I spat, “but obviously I didn’t know that. I told her friends to call the police, and then I ran after her. There was an overgrown trail behind the cabin. I didn’t know where it went, but I figured it was better than sitting around and waiting for cops and paramedics.”
“And she wasn’t in there.”
“No.” A sea star stretched out beneath our board, but neither of us pointed it out. “But there was a mannequin in a tree.”
“Wren.”
“It wasn’t her.” I forced levity into my voice. “Of course, I couldn’t tell that at first. The sun had set by the time I found it, so it looked like her. They’d put a wig on it and some old clothes. I didn’t realize it was fake until I was right under it. They’d painted the word ‘snitch’ on its chest. I think it was supposed to be me.”
“What did you do?”
“I cried,” I admitted. Liam had already seen me blow up at him and Sabrina. It wasn’t so embarrassing to admit to crying in the woods. “It was out of relief at first. Linsey wasn’t dead. Then, I cried out of anger. And then I realized I didn’t know the way back to the cabin and that it had gotten very dark very fast.”
“But the trail—”
“It was overgrown, it forked a lot, and I hadn’t paid attention to the way I’d come. Plus, it all looked different at night. I walked for hours with no cell service and only the flashlight on my phone to light the way. When my phone died, I gave up and curled against a big tree.”
“Were you scared?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I could hear coyotes nearby, and there’s cougars and bears in those woods too. I kept waiting for someone to show up. They had to be looking for me. Except that they weren’t, so no one ever came.”
The paddle dipped back into the water, and Liam sighed as he pulled us forward.
“I hate them,” Liam said so matter-of-factly that he might have been pointing out another sea star. “Wren, I hate every single person who was at the party that night.”
“Eventually, the sun came up, and I was able to find my way out,” I explained. “There were still a few people awake at the cabin. They didn’t say anything. They just watched me get in my car and drive away. Linsey was one of them.”
A wry smile tugged at my lips. Mom had been up all night too, waiting for me to get back. At first, she’d looked so angry with me, waiting on the porch in her robe, thinking I’d deliberately stayed out so late without texting or calling, but she’d been able to tell something was wrong before I’d even put the car in park. She was there at the door to catch me when I stumbled out from behind the wheel, sobbing and covered in dirt and sticks.
She’d made sure I was okay, then had driven off in her own car, still in her slippers and robes. I still wasn’t sure where she’d gone, but she returned a short twenty minutes later, drenched in water and promising Linsey would never bother me again.
The paddleboard lurched, and I stiffened as arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind.
“What are you doing?” I asked Liam as his dark blond curls pressed into my cheek. He smelled like sandalwood deodorant and sea spray.
“I’m hugging you.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much. Why?”
“Because you didn’t deserve any of that. You deserve someone who would go into the woods for you.”
