In the past I'd always watched Victor from a distance, occasionally he had crossed that distance to talk to me, sit with me sometimes, talk to me out of pity.
I'd always been attracted to him, and been worried that I made that obvious somehow, but Victor had always maintained the slightest wall between us, one that reminded me I probably couldn't call him a friend. Even when he protected me from the others it seemed to be more out of kindness than a personal closeness.
Every time in the past, when I saw him wink at me, smile a certain way, or nudge my shoulder and sit real close, when I got hopeful and started to freak out internally, he would suddenly get a call or text from his girlfriend, or bring her up out of the blue, or ask me what sort of girls I liked, or punctuate that feeling of mine by asking me why I was staring at him like that, sometimes looking genuinely discomforted.
I would always turn red with embarrassment, stammer through some kind of excuse and curl up emotionally.
But I couldn't help feeling jealous of his girlfriend, she had it all, everything I didn't, the most handsome guy I would probably ever see, protective and bound to be successful, and most likely never saw her face swollen twice the size, or had someone piss on her head while her head was being smashed into the urinal.
If he saw how jealous I felt I could only hope he thought I was jealous of him, not his girlfriend.
As we headed back and stopped by the food hall to have dinner, with pretty much the same food options as for breakfast, I felt my hair stand on end as I walked ahead of most of the slow moving kids in our year, Patricks lot.
They were staring at me and it made my skin crawl.
They didn't do anything during dinner though, and the camp leaders took us back to our rooms and warned us not sneak out because there were a high number of snakes in the woods, adders especially, and let everyone know that a bite could leave you getting a limb amputated.
"The woods are no joke, okay guys?" She told us all as we walked. "There are nettles and hogweed and ticks, we want to be careful moving through there which is why we never go through it at night and only ever with adult supervision! Same goes for the rest of the camp after lights out!"
I wondered if this would only enthuse the other kids to sneak out though, even at risk of blisters and a snake bite.
But when I got back into the room and the others filed in after me and laughed about having brought back dinner to their room I remembered that I wasn't alone.
As long as I wasn't alone I was fine.
Colin laughed as he climbed down from one of the top bunks and accepted a fried egg from Hudson. "You're nasty man where did you put it?"
"In my pocket." He grinned. "Does anyone want sausages?"
There was some laughter as George stretched out his hand to accept it. "Rank, I bet you didn't even put it in your pocket."
"Well it ended up there, who cares what its journey was."
Even I ended up laughing as George entertained us by giving the sausage make shift eyes and making it dance around like a puppet with his hand under the bunk. People laughed so much, I didn't have the energy for it even when I did find things funny, but bubble of laughter that escaped me felt good.
That night passed seamlessly, albeit with the smell of breakfast in the room leaving a gnawing hunger in my stomach.
I looked forward to the next day. I'd try to stay close to my roommates even though they weren't in my group, and Victor as well.
More and more I felt a soft fuzzy feeling when I looked at him. I wanted him to come back with me to my place, spend the night in my room with his arm around me.
Milk would love to get to know him, he'd probably be all over the guy. Milk loved whoever I loved. And he did so with all of his tongue and slobber.
Even so after the peace of the following morning quietly passed, and I felt pretty greasy and cold getting up without showering to leave. I felt the warning of the day slowly descend on me.
So many possibilities. The most important thing was staying away from anyone who wanted to put me down.
As I was learning from the people immediately near me, not everyone wanted to hurt me.
The teacher was right. The trip was a good idea.
Hopefully they'd still remember my name after we got back to school.
Despite my concerns this day passed relatively quietly too, and even though I got the distinct feeling Patrick was still annoyed nothing showed on his face and he seemed fairly relaxed as he hung around with his friends, and even as I stared at him he didn't glare back.
I perked up as Hudson, Colin and George seemingly stuck by me all on their own. I wasn't even following them, they just happily chatted between each other and followed me.
We went on to do abseiling that day and one by one went on a short zipline after lunch as well. Really the waiting in line was what took up all the time and before we knew it, it was beginning to get dark again.
"Guys," Emma smiled at us all, stopping us as we headed back and stopped by a large clearing a little distance away from there all the buildings were. "This is our campfire site, you guys are in for a real treat because we're going to bring out some sausages and some marshmallows and we're going to really enjoy ourselves and relax. Sound good guys?"
There was a buzz of interest even though the more popular kids had seemingly abandoned the idea as boring. A kid called Hassan raised his hand.
"Hassan yes, I have some halal ones for you. Maybe you want to share because we got a whole pack. Okay guys this is how it's going to work! Listen up!" She clapped her hands together.
"You guys are going to go back to your rooms, wash up and get some warmer clothing on, it's going to get cold tonight, and come back here at the meeting area. We're going to light up the bonfire, everyone's going to get a chance to get up close if there isn't enough space. Okay? Go on then guys! Let's go!"
I was almost forgetting about Patricks lot, but something told me to look over and see a group of them, hanging out slightly further away from the group.
When I looked over, they looked back, and my heart slammed in my chest.
I hurried back with the others, but I'd somehow ended up last in queue for the showers. Some of the boys were sharing but there wasn't much room and I didn't know anyone well enough to share with so I stuck to waiting.
My roommates finished well before I even got in and washed up, the hot water was still on so I soaked in it for a bit, relieved from being a bit cold all day.
I didn't really want to go to a campfire, the darkness scared me.
The area was too far away from the room, and there were snakes that she mentioned so how was that safe? Would the fire scare them away from us?
I left the shower with my hair still wet and dripping onto my shirt as I headed back to my room.
Everyone was already at the campfire and I hurried to follow them.
I dried off surprisingly quickly in front of the flames for a while, where the male camp leader, whose name I had forgotten, told me to sit.
Warm crackling flames licked my face, safety in the cold dark space around us. I felt like leaning into it.
Someone suddenly shoved my head from behind and my hair just barely crackled as some of the fire touched it.
I swung my head back as fast as I could, gasping from shock, eyes wide.
Tariq grinned at me, Patrick close behind, and a couple of the others crowding around too.
I looked for Emma, she was just a little far away from us, walking over.
My heart pounded in my chest. They couldn't do anything for long, they couldn't do anything serious while she was around.
"Hey Ellie." Patrick put a hand on my shoulder, eyes lingering over my face.
I went very still.
"Is Victor your buddy now? Are you guys dating?"
My face burned, I tried to move away but I saw the others fanning out around us. Suddenly the fire felt deadly. My chest felt tight, sweat on my forehead, hot and cold at the same time.
"No." I said quietly. "Camp leader is coming."
He blinked at me. "Excuse me?"
"She's coming." I said, my voice growing quieter.
He laughed loudly, and slugged an arm around my shoulder. "And we're just hanging out. Are you still mad about the desk incident? Are you so fucking emotional? It was a joke."
"It wasn't funny." I bit out, but if he looked down he would see my hands were shaking.
"This is why no one likes you." He scoffed. "You can't take a joke. It's honestly sad. You're more emotional than my sister. She fucking cries like you all day too."
My face felt hot, my eyes suddenly stinging from the fire. "I'm not crying."
He just smiled, a weird smile, and shoved my head. "Sure you aren't Ellie bitch." My head went close to the flames but not close enough to burn this time.
"Guys! No getting that close to the fire, back up, back up guys!" Emma told us off as he approached with the cooler, setting it down.
The others reluctantly pulled back behind me.
I breathed a sigh of relief and moved to sit with George, the others somewhere else I couldn't see.
Hassan came over laughing and offered first George and then me some from the laughably massive package of sausages the camp leaders had got for him, letting a couple of us dig in and roast them over the flames.
The bullies didn't bother me after that, hanging out amongst themselves laughing and passing a bottle around I was pretty sure was not water. They got pretty red in the face some of them and headed back early.
After a while I realised my phone was vibrating in my pocket and pulled it out to see Irene was calling me.
I got up and moved away to accept the call.
"Going already?" George asked.
"Yep, see you back at the room." I nodded with a smile.
"Hey?" I answered.
"Elliot! I've been trying to call you for ages now!"
"Sorry, we're in the middle of a campfire, why are you calling me?"
"Did you lock the door behind you when you left?"
"Yeah?" I thought I did anyway.
"I don't think you did!" She sounded angry and my heart jumped in my chest.
"Why? What happened?" Did we get robbed?
"Milk got out! And now we've been searching for him for ages while both of you kids are gone having fun on your own. We're supposed to have a nice weekend to ourselves. Do you know how dangerous it is for a dog to be out on its own like that?"
I couldn't breath. "Milk is out? Wh- When-"
"We don't know! We were trying to have some time for ourselves. I've told you so many times over that he needs the baby gate up... Did you lock the back door?!"
My heart went cold. "No..." I felt breathless. "I need to go back."
"You can't go back! And now we have to drive four streets over to see if its your dog that got run over!"
"No!" I wheezed. "He can't have, he wouldn't have-"
"I just wanted one night to enjoy our reservations and he's gone and we can't find him. Just one night. You stupid boy, I am so sick of you not listening to me! You're going to look for him. I'm sick and tired of this. SICK AND TIRED!" She screamed over the phone and hung up.
My heart was pounding in my chest, I felt sick. I'd never heard her scream at me like that before.
I hurried back through camp grounds, my heard pounding at the darkness and my fingers clammy at the signs of any moving shadows. I hated being afraid like this but I couldn't control it, the way the wind curled around me was enough for me to feel lost for breath.
I got inside the small building where my room was, the lights were off as I stepped inside.
I gasped as someone grabbed my head, and then my arms and my legs and I screamed and someone shoved something fabric into my mouth. My heart slammed in my chest and I flailed wildly.
Fingers digging into my sides I swung and panicked and tried to move but there were multiple people grabbing me. I got one leg free and they still had the other, got that one free and someone punched me in my stomach and kicked me while I was on the ground, I tried to cover myself but my arms were held over my head.
I spat out the fabric. "Help! Help!" I screamed.
The light switched on and I could barely see for a minute as my eyes adjusted to the light, and the entire group of boys in the room filtered into view.
Maybe eight of them.
I couldn't breathe, I was probably hyperventilating in hind sight but at the time I thought it was because of the punch and wheezed, cold from fear. Terrified.
"Let me go!" I screamed and struggled but I felt myself getting weaker.
Weaker because I was afraid, my fingers had that feeling in them, the feeling you get when your feet sleep on carpeted stairs, the feeling you get when you try to clench your fist just after waking up.
My heart pounded like I was a second away from a heart attack.
"Let's go!" Patrick announced, taking a leg of mind off of the floor, the other dragging on it as they pulled me.
"Let me go! Help, help me!"
He clicked his tongue and someone kicked me from the side, someone else punched from the top and it was so unexpected and painful that I saw stars for a moment, my nose was cold and I was pretty sure I was going to get a nosebleed. I continued screaming though, I didn't want to die.
They beat me for a while, and then shoved something in my mouth again and wrapped me up in my cover.
I tried to shout a random name over the gag. "George!" And Patrick laughed.
"Who do you think told us where you were?"
I'd never felt so suddenly winded before.
I practically let them carry me the rest of the way.
My sides hurt really bad, and my nose was definitely bleeding into the cover.
When we went into the woods I had a feeling I knew where they were going, and eventually we went up onto inclined ground and they started to unravel the blankets.
Two of them held my arms behind my back and I cried.
I cried loud and with tears streaming down my face, the light of the phone torch someone was using the show the way illuminated them.
"Today we're going to make an offering to lake Ransom. Come on Elliot, get up!"
"Get off me!" I screamed. "I'm sorry! Please Patrick I'm sorry! Let me go!"
He laughed, but his look showed something almost startled on his face. "What are you sorry for asshole?"
"Everything!" I couldn't even get up, my legs were too weak.
As they pulled me up and held me over the bridge railings my stomach went cold and I started pissing myself, looking down into that dark black lake. I couldn't see anything, my pupils dilated but there was nothing but darkness down there.
How far till I reached the water? How deep was it? How far was it from land? I could barely see anything at all.
"Help me! Help me! Save me!"
I screamed until my throat felt raw, I barely had a voice as they pushed me further over the edge and my stomach filled with butterflies. My mouth was full of saliva and blood and my tears dripped directly off of my eyelashes into the lake below me.
"Please I'll do anything please don't do this I'm so sorry I'm begging you please, please please I'm begging you. Why are you doing this to me?!"
I barely had a voice anymore.
"Lake Ransom demands a sacrifice." Tariq laughed, and the others did too.
Patrick was a little quieter. "What do we want, hmm? I'm thinking a nice cold coke."
"Is that too much to ask in exchange for this shitty sacrifice?" Someone else laughed, the one with their hand on my back.
"Lets see! Ready to go swimming Ellie?"
I didn't have a chance to reply before everyone shoved me over.
I felt my entire stomach flip, my brain pausing to understand what was happening, and for far too long I fell, my arms flailing, the bottom of the cover still twisted up in my feet releasing only a second before I hit the water.
I smacked into my face like I'd driven face first into a wall. Like a solid, nearly shattering my bones, my brain felt like it jolted in my head, and then it became water again.
Thick, icy, black unrelenting water. The shock drew the remaining oxygen from my lungs.
I tried to gasp for air to collect some before my head went under.
I didn't remember ever not being able to swim.
I should have been able to.
But the water was so cold that my arms and legs went into shock and stiffened up and the water rushed around me as I slowly sank down.
The world felt quiet as I floated to the bottom, suffocated by a chilling cold I had never felt before.
It penetrated me down to my blood stream, my heart. I felt the warmth leave like a ghost from my body and wondered if it was my soul, taking the first life raft out of me.
On my last breath, floating there face down, I felt a profound sense of emptiness, sudden and strange. Too exhausted to fight for another breath.
I breathed out, half a breath, and felt the bubbles escape my lips but there was nothing else left to feel. Everything that shade of pitch black. No division between water, land or sky, nothing but darkness.
It was the first time I ever recalled relaxing like that, tensed from the cold, but calm from my surrender.
I felt nothing.
No sadness.
No relief.
A feeling of vacancy sinking into my bones, both loud and piercingly quiet.
It occurred to me then, in that strange peaceful space, where even stars seemed extinguished in the darkness, that if I did not feel anything at all, there was really no shame in living. It was a terrible miscarriage of justice that my heart went cold only moments before my life would end.
I considered this for longer than should have seemed possible, floating to the bottom of the lake.
My feet touched the floor of the lake. Compact dirt, sticks and mud and larger stones, slightly slippery, my feet barely moved as I lowered down slowly, and my arms reached out to slow my descent.
My lungs were burning, my stomach seemed to want to throw up but I wasn't even sure how to accomplish that. All my limbs seemed to be frozen stiff, down to my nose and throat. And just as a splitting headache screamed like the loudest alarm bell, tearing through my head, I realised that if I tried I might just survive.
In a last ditch effort I kicked my feet against the ground of the lake, felt the water try to wrestle me back down as I fought against it, moved my heavy frozen limbs like a toddler and drank in the water by accident as I tried to gasp for air that was not there, and then a moment before losing consciousness, as black holes opened up in my vision, flaring and twisting, growing bigger, nearly swallowing my vision in a whole, I broke the surface.
Water grabbing me for a moment, reluctant to let me go, finally released its hold on me.
Even colder air whipped my face when I pulled up, and as I tried to break air and I choked on the water I had already swallowed. I vomited some of it immediately, water running out of my nose, I continued to vomit as I slowly inched my way towards the bank.
I couldn't see the division between land and water, it was too dark and my vision was too blurry from the dirty water, but I saw the silhouettes of the trees, stretched up like grand monsters above me, and I pulled myself closer to them
Only barely did I manage to drag myself out of the water, only moments before I saw the lights in the distance, the flickering of flashlights as people moved through the woods.
I vomited once more, but less came out this time, my stomach heaved and tried to force me to throw up more but there was nothing to give. I sat back against a tree and waited, the adrenaline was still pumping through my veins, my my alive and bright, but the energy was gone, I laid there like a dead person that had escaped his grave.
Most peculiarly, the cold did not go. My heart was still frozen. My mind still blank.
As if the lake had lent me a sort of psychopathy. Taken ransom my soul.
If those people searching with flashlights were the bullies or camp employees coming to look for me, it was all much of a muchness, I simply didn't care.
The dark night I stared into, the bottomless lake I had touched the bottom of, even the sky I had once feared falling into as I laid back and watched it, I was not afraid of them.
I was afraid of nothing.
[A/N] Waarm thank you to the WCP and my patrons...
And now we are officially one chapter away from the two main characters meeting....