Chapter Three

Warren

The lake was cold. Not cool. Not brisk. Icy cold, but after the hike and camp chores, it was perfect. Warren burst to the surface with a gasp and a shout, shaking the freezing water from his curls like a wet dog.

“Holy shit! That’s colder than a breakup text at 3 a.m.!”

Zoe shrieked somewhere behind him as she inched in deeper. “You’re the idiot who cannonballed in!”

“Regrets!” Warren hollered back with a grin.

Sasha was already swimming with long, sure strokes like she’d been born in this water. Pablo treaded cautiously out into the water while staying near the rocks, making his usual effort to keep up without fully committing. Eden waded in slowly, teeth clenched, while Mark stood knee-deep and stared at the treeline like he was considering just living out the rest of his life dry and unimpressed.

That gruesome raven Sasha and Pablo had seen earlier had left the group buzzing with nervous energy. Even after the gummies, even after the whiskey, something in the air felt…off. But cold water had a way of blasting the unease off you.

Warren dove again, letting the chill punch the breath from his lungs, then surfaced beside Sasha just in time to catch a splash to the face.

“Ha!” she crowed.

“Oh, it’s on now!” Warren retaliated with a sweep of his arms that sent up a crashing wave.

Within seconds, it was war. A roiling, splashy mess of shouts and flying water. Eden joined in—tentatively at first—until she got nailed in the back by one of Sasha’s kicks and shrieked with mock outrage. Pablo finally edged out from the rocks to tread water near enough to them to get in on it. He even cracked a smile. Progress.

Sasha and Warren inevitably drifted into their usual head-to-head brawl. She moved like a panther, quick and instinctive, and he loved it. Not just the play-fighting. The way she laughed. The way she didn’t hold back.

Warren never said it aloud, but sometimes when he sparred with her like this, he imagined a different kind of contact. Less splashing. More touching. He could almost picture her lips curling in that same teasing smile as she—

—No. Focus. Splash fight!

Despite the mental admonishment, Warren’s instincts drove him closer to Sasha. He lunged to dunk her, but she twisted at the last second and caught his shoulders, dragging him under. They surfaced together, laughing and gasping, and Warren swore the whole world narrowed to just that moment.

Until Pablo swam away.

And just like that, the moment passed.

Warren watched his friend swim away and clamber up onto the rocks, water streaming off him, dark hair plastered to his head. Pablo looked away as soon as their eyes briefly met. Warren felt an uncomfortable twist low and hard in his gut.

“Hey, Pabs, where are you going?” Mark called from the shore where he’d been setting up his fishing rod, and sounded genuinely confused. Warren didn’t miss Zoe’s quick movement either; she was splashing up out of the shallows to the beach.

“Just takin’ a walk. Won’t go far.” Pablo called over his shoulder.

“Hold up! I’ll come with you!” Zoe called after him. “Pabs!”

It seemed like there’d been this chasm between Pablo and him lately that he couldn’t quite figure out. When they all moved back after school, he’d thought that Pablo had come out of his shell while away. Lately, though, it felt like Pablo kept retreating from them. Well, not all of them. Just Warren, and he just didn’t get it. He’d been pleased that Pabs had agreed to come on the trip to begin with. Sooner or later, they were going to have to figure it out.

Warren frowned and turned back to the lake. Something felt…wrong. Not just with Pablo. With everything. He let himself float on his back, staring up at the blue sky. The clouds had started to roll in. Not thunderheads, but something strange. Greenish tints flickered at the wispy edges, like the light didn’t know how to be sunlight anymore.

He felt Sasha float up beside him, and his heart hammered in his chest.

“You good?” she asked.

“Yeah. Just…weird vibe, you know?”

“Dude.” Sasha snorted. “You’re so high right now.”

They floated in silence for a while, then drifted toward the shore where Mark had laid out towels. Shirtless and in boardshorts, Mark was standing knee deep in the shallows, futzing with his rod still. Warren stretched out in the sun, muscles warm, skin tingling from the water. The tension that had crept into him started to ebb again. Maybe he was just overthinking everything.

Then Eden screamed.

Pablo

“Hold up! I’ll come with you!” Zoe shouted. “Pabs!”

Pablo just waved her off without turning around as he hung his head and trudged away along the shoreline. He just needed a minute to sulk by himself. Was that too much to ask?

He’d thought maybe the firewood collecting process had garnered him a bit of Sasha’s attention. Warren hadn’t cracked open a comic book in years; if it wasn’t for the movies, he’d know nothing. Warren only kept going to SFCC every year because it was a Fellowship tradition. But then, had Pablo really been dumb enough to think that a little superhero chat was all it would take to catch Sasha’s eye?

Then whatever moment they’d been having had been ruined by that damn bird! He’d been insane to think he’d made any progress at all. Especially compared to Warren.

Despondent and indulging in more than a little self-loathing, Pablo continued along the shoreline until he could only distantly hear his friends across the water. He settled down on a fallen log, pointedly facing away from their camp, and stared out into the surrounding wilderness. He was so lost in his own fruitless musings that he didn’t even notice Zoe really had followed him. Then there she was, sitting down on the log beside him.

“So, are you going to say something to one of them?” Zoe asked after letting them both marinade in silence. “Or will you just hide out and let it happen?”

Like Warren, Zoe had glacial blue eyes and naturally platinum blond hair. While she had a surprising wiry strength, she was razor lean. Before coming after him, she had thrown a pair of frayed denim shorts over her bikini bottoms. Her white top clung to her while exposing her array of tattoos. A stylized Gemini symbol on her upper chest, a demonic bat-wing on her left bicep, and a downy angel-wing on her right.

“Say what? To who?” Pablo drew back and then flung the rock in his hand out to skip across the little lapping waves of the lake.

“Don’t play dumb, Pabs. You’re too smart to pull it off.” Zoe chucked him on the shoulder just hard enough to jostle him and then went on. “You know if Warren realized you liked Sasha, he’d back off in an instant.”

“Right.” Pablo snorted dismissively at the notion. “He’s already got his targeting computer locked.”

“Sure, and I know he gets tunnel vision, but he’d veer off for you. I know he would.”

“You really think he’d just do that with a girl like Sasha?”

“Maybe not entirely.” Zoe shrugged, and it made the inked wings on her shoulders flap. “But he’d give you a little space and time. Room to shoot your shot.”

“So, he’d take pity on me?” Pablo couldn’t hide the contempt in his voice. “How generous.”

“Bro, Warren’s just having fun right now. But he loves you like a brother. Don’t be stupid and let this ruin a lifelong friendship.”

Pablo didn’t know how to respond to that, and silence settled again between the pair for several moments as they both just looked out over the lake. Finally, Zoe went on, “Besides, this isn’t about either of you. It’s about letting Sasha make a choice.”

“Can you give me a hint at least? What has she said about me?”

“Nothing. Not a damn thing.”

“Come on. You two are thicker than frozen butter.” Pablo laughed and shook his head. “She must have said something!”

“Seriously, she hasn’t brought it up, and I haven’t asked. She could be pining away for you as we speak. But for all I know, she’s not into either of you.”

“Pessimist.” Pablo snorted.

“Hardly!” Zoe grinned. “We’re all better off if things stay exactly how they are. Although I wouldn’t mind getting a job that doesn’t involve slinging lattes all day.”

“What about you and Mark?” Pablo asked after a brief hesitation, while not daring to do more than look at Zoe with his peripheral vision.

“What about him?” Zoe asked in an innocent tone while she shifted uncomfortably.

“None of us are blind, either, Zoh. If Warren wasn’t so focused on Sasha, even he would have picked up on it by now.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Zoe said with deliberate care. “We’re just friends. Like you and me. He’s like a broth—"

“—Eww! Don’t finish that sentence! Please, I'm begging you! You’ve never looked at me like you’ve been looking at Mark lately, and I really hope you’ve never looked at Warren that way!” Pablo finally forced himself to look directly at Zoe. Her cheeks had bloomed scarlet, and the usually self-assured snark machine was staring uncomfortably at her feet.

While the sun slowly made its final descent behind the mountains, silence fell between them for a long stretch. Finally, Zoe blew out a deep, reluctant breath and said, “I kissed him.”

“What? When? Where?” Pablo spluttered in utter shock.

“A few weeks ago. On the lips.” Zoe’s blue eyes flashed with delight at the little joke.

“That’s not what I meant!”

“I know!” Zoe’s shoulders sagged, and her jaw clenched for a moment before she went on. “It was when we all went out to The Red Hen a few weeks ago. Everyone else had called it a night. He hung with me till closing time and was sober, so he offered me a ride home.”

“And? What happened?” Pablo could barely believe his ears. How had Mark kept this a secret?

“I haven’t told anyone else about this. Not even Sasha.”

It went without saying that she hadn’t confided in Eden. While the two were cordial, they’d never become close over their years of acquaintance, even in recent months when Zoe had become a full member of the Fellowship.

“I know how to keep a secret.”

“I know you do.” Zoe flashed him her trademark lopsided smirk, then pushed on. “He walked me to the door and…I practically threw myself at him! Made a complete idiot of myself!”

“Did he kiss you back?” Pablo thought his head might just explode at this latest revelation.

“At first, but when I tried to move things inside, he stomped on the brakes! He said, we couldn’t. Since then, we haven’t talked about it. Before today, we’ve barely talked at—”

Zoe was cut off by a blood-curdling woman’s scream from back toward their camp. Expressions contorting with concern, Pablo and Zoe jumped to their feet and took off running toward the sound.

Mark

The scream hit Mark like a lightning strike. He dropped his fishing rod and sprinted toward the sound, heart pounding in his ears. Warren and Sasha were right behind him. Sasha shouted Eden’s name as they crested the slight rise that separated the lake from the tree line.

They found Eden frozen in place, her eyes wide, mouth still open mid-sob, one trembling hand pointing toward the underbrush. The other shot out and clutched Sasha’s arm like a lifeline as the other women drew near. Sasha pulled her in, and she collapsed into Sasha’s arms as Eden continued to sob and splutter. “It moved! It fucking moved!”

Mark’s chest was still heaving, his gaze peering into the underbrush, just as Zoe and Pablo arrived. Pablo’s face was pale. Zoe looked ready to start throwing punches.

“What happened?” Zoe barked. “Are you okay?”

Eden couldn’t speak. She just shook her head and pressed her face into Sasha’s shoulder. Sasha held her tight, eyes wide with a mix of confusion and growing alarm.

Mark followed the direction Eden had pointed. He took a step closer, and there it was. Mark dropped into a crouch as Pablo moved up behind him, both drawn by the same endless curiosity. Half-concealed in shadow and leaf litter, the shame was still unmistakable. A forearm. Human. Severed below the elbow. The skin had gone pale and waxy, the fingers frozen in a half-curled grasp. The torn edge at the elbow was jagged and gruesome. Whatever had removed it hadn’t used anything precise. A gold wedding band still encircled the ring finger.

“Fucking hell,” Pablo whispered beside him.

Mark leaned closer, studying the scene with the detached part of his brain that usually reserved itself for problem-solving. No blood trail, no prints, no animal tracks, no body, and no context. Just an arm.

Behind them, Warren cursed under his breath, and Zoe let out a shocked laugh that was all nerves and no humor. Eden kept sobbing into Sasha’s embrace, her shoulders shaking.

“Everyone, take a beat.” Mark glanced over his shoulder at them, then back down at the arm. “We need to think this through.”

“What the fuck, Mark?” Zoe was the first to snap out of the initial shock. “Take a beat? That’s a body part! We need to call someone!”

“We can’t call anyone. There’s no reception.” Mark stood and brushed off his hands.

“It was moving toward me!” Eden wailed.

“Look at it, Eed. That’s impossible.” Pablo gestured at the motionless limb.

“I saw it!”

“I’m sure it freaked you out. The brain can do tricky things when we’re shocked,” Mark said. “Let’s get everyone back to camp.”

“We need to go back! Go home!” Eden choked out. “We can’t stay here!”

“We can’t hike out now,” Mark said gently, but firmly. “It’ll be dark soon. That’s how people break ankles or get lost or—”

“—Lose their arms?” Warren asked.

Mark ignored him. “We’ll mark the location, bag it, and bring it down with us in the morning. First light. I’ll take pictures, record GPS if it’ll work. We’ll report it as soon as we hit service.”

Eden looked like she might throw up.

“I know it’s awful.” Mark turned to her, softening his tone. “But leaving now is riskier for us. I promise, we’ll keep the fire going all night. No one’s alone.”

She didn’t look convinced, but Sasha whispered something to her, and she nodded, still trembling.

“Could be a scavenger,” Mark said as much to himself as to the group. “Someone died out here, and an animal dragged part of them off. The body could be miles from here.”

Zoe made a disgusted sound. Warren swore under his breath. But no one argued.

“Let’s head back to camp,” he said. “We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

Moving as a group—closer together now than they’d been the entire trip—Mark couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulder one last time. The arm hadn’t moved. He was sure of that. Eden had just been freaked. But it felt like the world had.