The glimpse of his reality made her feel twice as naked, yet strangely … a little stronger, too.
He exhaled, and at the same time, slowly brought her b
ack against him. Her nipples brushed against the taut skin covering his ribs, and she relented, sinking against him. His hand spread again at the back of her skull. Those magical fingers …
“Why do you say you don’t believe it?” he asked quietly after a full moment of silence.
“Because … of who you are,” she whispered brokenly. “You’re so …” Brilliant. Special. Wonderful.
He cradled her chin with his hand and lifted. She was glad for the cloak of darkness when she raised her face to his.
“Thanks. And so are you, Alice,” he said as if he’d heard her thoughts. “We define who we are with our everyday lives. Not by our parents. Not by the circumstances to which we’re born. You’re living proof of that.”
She gulped thickly, despised tears filling her eyes. “But what if …” She broke off because emotion was closing off her throat, and she sounded so weak. So helpless.
“What if what?” Dylan asked.
She closed her eyes. Tears spurted down her cheek. “Nothing,” she managed thickly. She pulled away again, desperate that he not feel the wetness of her tears, the evidence of her weakness.
“Alice—”
“I’m not leaving. I’m just going to the bathroom,” she reassured through a congested throat.
He let her go, but she felt his eyes on her as she moved through the darkness.
DYLAN had an overnight trip planned to New York on Friday. He instructed her—a little too sternly for Alice’s liking—to return to her cabin on Friday night after her shift was finished and lock the door.
“Why are you so paranoid?” Alice demanded as they left the darkened castle early on Friday morning, walking out into a humid predawn. “Did you find something out about that person following me in the woods?” she asked, recalling how he’d said he’d look into the matter.
“Not really,” he said, taking her hand and leading her across the dewy side lawn toward the woods. “I asked the sheriff of Morgantown to come out and I reported the incident. I like to keep him apprised of what goes on here, especially when camp is in session. His name is Jim Sheridan. He’s an old friend.”
“What did he say?” Alice asked.
“That it was more than likely someone else taking an early morning jog, just like you.”
“So why are you so worried about me being attacked or something?” she asked with amused puzzlement.
“Because I saw how afraid you were that morning,” he replied simply.
She’d wanted to thank him for that—she had been terrified that morning—but didn’t know how to without sounding stupid. She gave his hand a warm squeeze instead. He kept his gaze trained ahead on the shadow of the tree line, but she thought he’d understood when he squeezed her back.
FOR the last event before supper that night, the scheduled mandatory camp activity was a group discussion about trust along with an exercise. At the last moment, Kehoe announced that two assigned teams would participate in the event together. Alice didn’t think it was chance that her campers got paired up with Brooke Seifert’s Silver Team. She worried several of the Durand managers had noticed how the chill factor went to negative territory whenever Alice and Brooke were around each other.
Alice gritted her teeth and dove into the task.
The guided group discussion went all right, seeing how she and Brooke basically had only to follow a loosely structured script designed for group leaders. They didn’t really have to interact personally with one another. The hitch came afterward, during the activity.
It was the standard organizational trust activity, where team members were asked to let go of control and fall backwards into a peer, trusting to be caught and kept from harm. Brooke and Alice demonstrated using members from their team how to safely catch, slowing the fall and gently guiding the person to the lawn. The kids practiced on members of their own team. Then, the circle of trust was widened to include less familiar members of the other team. They were nearing the end of the exercise, and dinnertime was drawing near, when Terrance Brown suddenly called out.
“Hey, Alice. You’ve got to do it now. Counselor to counselor, Red Team versus Silver Team, Alice versus Brooke,” he said dramatically, putting up his hands into claws like he was announcing Godzilla versus Mothra. Alice glared at Terrance. Several of the kids laughed, but she didn’t think they understood why entirely. Leave it to Terrance, the walking social barometer, to have picked up on the dislike between Brooke and Alice.
“Yeah,” Judith said, tossing her long dark hair over her shoulder and smirking as she glanced between Alice and Brooke. “I’d like to see that.”
I’ll bet you would.
Judith’s sneering contempt of Alice hadn’t eased up a bit. Alice glanced at Brooke, who was watching her with bitchy wariness.
“Well?” Alice asked, shrugging and moving into position behind her. Might as well get this over with.