“It’s okay.” He reached for the door handle, and he held his focus on me for another moment before he climbed out.
I followed him, and when he rounded the front of the car and met me, he took my hand. He led me to the side of the building where the brambles were thick and met the side of the building. He led me through the twisted branches, holding them out of my way and taking my hand to help me balance as we picked our way through the mess.
It reminded me of our childhood in some strange way. We’d grown up playing in the woods between our homes. My family had moved to town when I’d been in junior high, but we’d traipsed through the wooded hills all the way up to that point, and even a few times after.
The gnarled branches scraped my bare legs, and thorns tore into my skin in a few places. I barely felt it, though, and I kept pushing my way through the tangles as Kane helped me. When we emerged, it was to the back of the strip hotel. There were broken and uneven concrete patios behind each of the ten rooms, and beyond that more trees, tangles, and brambles. The land dropped off steeply about fifteen feet past the patios, and it was a jagged rocky decent to the forest floor fifty feet below. The fog broke and moved through the trees, and garbage littered what ground I could see at the bottom of that steep hill. All around me I could smell mildew.
I didn’t like this place.
Kane led me to a patio just a few down from the end of the building, and he peeked into the unboarded window that looked into the hotel room, but he didn’t linger there. He turned, walking to the woods’ edge. There was a small outcropping of rock that jutted out from the ground like a small mossy cliff overlooking the drop off. He stood there, staring down at the forest floor far below, and when he released my hand, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. I remained quiet, watching him, confused and horrified at what was going to come next.
“I did something,” he said quietly.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kane
Eleven Years Ago
I shut my headlights off as I pulled into the Sleepaway parking lot, and when I climbed out, I didn’t bother shutting my door all the way.
What was I doing? I just wanted to be with Helene. I could go to her place. That’s where I was supposed to be. She needed me there, and I needed me there too.
My feet had stopped moving, and I was standing there like a fucking idiot. I turned back to my truck, stuffing my hands in my pockets and even taking a step back toward it. My body ached, my lower back throbbed, and everything felt bruised inside and out. Every time I moved, I could feel the gash in my side seeping more blood, and I wanted to bathe as much as Hell had needed it.
I imagined going back to her. I was going to. I wanted to. I was going to touch her and hold her and do all the things she needed me to do and that I needed to do too. And tomorrow when we woke up … what? Would she ever be able to look at me again? Would I be able to look at her? Would she ever want me to touch her again? How were we supposed to go back to being friends?
I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering what I’d done to her less than two hours before. I’d raped her, forced to or not, I’d fucked my best friend against her will. She’d opened her eyes. She’d seen me doing it. She’d looked at me even. And I’d done nothing to stop it. I hadn’t even tried. I hadn’t refused to touch her. I hadn’t fought back. Instead, I’d cried like a baby and bent over like a bitch.
My hands were balled into fists by the time I opened my eyes again, and I turned back toward the hotel. The light in the one hotel room was still on, and I walked up to the side of the window, peeking in. It was empty. The bed had clearly been slept in, and the only light on was one bedside lamp. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe the stranger was long gone. Maybe he’d never been here at all.
Knowing just how quiet the Sleepaway usually was, it was entirely possible this light had been on for days, and the owner of the neglected old place had simply not gotten around to cleaning the room since the last occupant. I turned around, facing the parking lot and resting my back to the wall next to the window. I inhaled deeply, slowing the race of my heart as I let my eyes close again.
This had been a mistake. I should be with Helene right now—not out in the middle of nowhere looking for strangers, so I could do … what?
Hurt him.
I took a step back toward my truck, and that’s when I heard it. A cough. Nothing more. It was far off and distant, but it was outside somewhere. Then I heard something else. Twigs snapping, branches moving, and something being tossed off into the forest, rattling as it hit the ground and came to rest.