The next few days found everyone settling into a rhythm that felt normal.

Well, normal if I didn't think too much about the unsettling ways the crows seemed to watch everything or the oily black smear of a lake that barely even rippled in the wind. It was close enough that, on some nights at least, my nervous system allowed me a few hours of sleep. The low-grade hum of tension I'd felt since arriving became background noise in my day-to-day life.

Every time I saw Griffin, my body reacted with a myriad of unresolved issues. My muscles tensed. My pulse skipped. My brain replayed memories best left forgotten.

But more often, I was able to pull my comfortable, familiar blanket of numbness over my thoughts. A couple of times, I found myself smiling and realized I wasn't even forcing it.

Our first group of teenaged campers arrived Sunday, and by afternoon they were slick with sunscreen, raucous with enthusiasm, and swarming between stations in loosely organized packs. Their voices echoed through the forest.

Counselors made heroic attempts to establish something resembling order. Their efforts yielded mixed results.

I stood near the equipment table with a clipboard, checking bows back in as campers rotated out. Sweat trickled down my spine. Summer had apparently decided this was the perfect day to show up in full force.

Beside me, Sol quietly counted campers, giving no indication of being bothered by the stifling heat and humidity.

Mateo drifted past us with a grin, offering commentary on an arrow that had gone wildly off-course and lodged itself in a tree branch thirty feet above the target.

"Ten points for coming closest to the crows," he declared.

Mike stood absently fiddling with a silver ring on his left index finger. He watched over a group of boys who vibrated with pent up mischief.

Kayla walked along behind the girls in her cabin, reminding them their eyes belonged on the targets, not on the boys with Mike.

The boys, hearing her, puffed up their chests.

The girls all looked and giggled.

Sol scowled. Counted. Counted again, more quickly.

Unease fluttered through my stomach. "What's up?" I asked.

"Wolf cabin's one short."

I flipped a page on my clipboard. "Twelve."

"I've got eleven on lane three."

I turned toward Owen's group and counted. Eleven. Counted again. Muttered a curse under my breath.

Sol caught Owen's eye and waved him over. "You're down a man."

Owen glanced back at his group. "I counted all twelve when we first got here."

This was an inevitable situation. Kids wandered off. I'd read the protocol. I'd actually highlighted it. Rule number one was not to panic.

I climbed up on a nearby stump for a better view. Twelve girls with Kayla. Twelve boys with Mike. Eleven boys in lane three.

But maybe I was counting wrong. The kids were moving around, taking turns shooting, jostling one another.

I blew the whistle. "Everyone freeze! Counselors, head count."

Owen's gaze traveled over his group. His face paled, except for two red splotches high on his cheeks.

Sol put a hand on his shoulder. "Who's missing?"

"Evan," Owen said. "Small kid. U of M shirt."

A girl raised her hand. "I think he was next to me."

"When was that?" Sol asked.

"When I took my first shot. He said I did a good job even though my arrow just stuck in the dirt."

The campers had been there almost twenty minutes.

A splash cut through my thoughts. A sharp, startled sound halfway between squeak and scream followed it.

Every head turned to the lake.

The dock bobbed on the dark water as though some violent force had disturbed the calm surface.

Sol tossed his clipboard aside. "Oh, hell."

"Everyone sit where you are," Mateo said, all humor gone from his voice. "Do it now. Please stay quiet."

The campers dropped to the ground, eyes wide, fear spreading through them in a way that I felt in my bones.

Sol took off running for the dock, and I followed a split second behind.

Someone passed us.

Too fast.

Impossibly fast.

Griffin's feet pounded against the boards of the dock. He reached the end and dove without hesitation, his movements so smooth he barely raised a splash.

"Get Kirat," someone shouted behind me.

Sol and I reached the dock. The boards rattled under our feet.

Harold's deep voice repeated a single sentence over and over in my head. "The lake is a monster."

We skidded to a stop at the end of the dock and stared at the water. It was impossibly dark with no hint of life beneath the surface, except now it churned and roiled as if a fight were taking place in those depths.

Seconds stretched.

Too long.

I grabbed Sol's wrist, clamping down like I could hold on tight enough to keep reality from tipping sideways and dumping us all out into the worst possible outcome.

"Come on," he whispered.

The lake exploded.

Griffin broke the surface with a gasp and vanished again.

Sol and I dropped to our knees, reaching desperately toward the spot he'd gone under. Panic squeezed steel bands around my heart.

Griffin burst into view again. Coughing. Choking. One powerful arm locked around a small, limp body.

Evan.

His head lolled back. His dark, wet hair stuck to the pallid skin of his far-too-pale face. A thin stream of red traced down from his temple, dripping into the black water.

A sound, half relief and half terror, tore from me. I fisted my hands in the boy's shirt and hauled him upward.

Sol grabbed Griffin's wrists, and then we were all sprawled on the dock in a slippery, awkward pile of limbs and soaked clothes.

Griffin fought to get upright, shoving us away. He leaned over the boy so close it looked like he was trying to smother him.

"I've got him," Sol said, resting a steadying hand on Griffin's shoulder. "You were amazing. Let me take it from here."

Griffin froze, shivered, pushed away.

I couldn't look away as Sol lifted Evan and ran for shore. The blood. The way the boy's body hung loose and wrong in his arms.

Sol laid him at Kirat's feet.

She dropped to her knees, hands already moving. "He's got a pulse."

I planted one foot and pushed myself upward on trembling legs.

Griffin rose beside me. Water streamed from his hair and clothes.

Like Evan, he had blood on his face. Blood dripped from his hand. Not enough to be truly alarming, but enough to set my pulse stuttering.

"You're hurt." I reached for him.

He jerked back, hands raised, eyes wide and wild. "Did I hurt you?"

"What? Me?"

Was he concussed?

"I'm fine. You're bleeding." I pointed at his arm.

He stared at the spot near his wrist as if stunned. After several seconds he wiped it on his shirt. No wound lay beneath.

His eyes lifted to mine, something sharp and naked flashing across his face.

My fingers ached to touch him. To check. Some part of me just wanted to verify that he was real.

"Give me your shirts. Now," Kirat barked from behind us.

"Someone needs to call nine-one-one," a camper said.

"There's no working phones out here dumbass," someone else snapped.

Mateo and Sol peeled their shirts off as Kirat stripped Evan's soaked shirt away. 

"That water must be fed by a freaking glacier," she muttered. "He's practically hypothermic."

She wrapped the warm, dry clothes around the child's small frame.

When she lifted him, he coughed hard, gagged, and spat out a mouthful of water.

The crushing pressure in my chest cracked enough for me to drag in a shaking breath.

A murmur rippled through the campers on the beach. Their relief spread like a wave I could feel.

"You saved him, "I said softly, turning back to Griffin.

But he wasn't celebrating. His jaw clenched. Every muscle in his body locked tight.

"Griffin?"

His head snapped toward me.

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

His pupils grew wide and dark.

He licked his lips.

Heat flared low in my belly, sharp, immediate, and deeply inappropriate. A kid had nearly died. I should not be noticing anything about this man right now.

And yet...

The static between us thickened, buzzing so powerfully it felt like the moment before a lightning strike.

Evan coughed again.

Griffin tore his gaze away and I forced myself to do the same, to focus on the emergency.

Kirat rubbed Evan's back, murmuring reassurances. Sol stood to usher a few campers who'd crept close back to their groups. Owen reminded everyone to stay still and quiet for a few more minutes. Malik rolled up in one of the modified golf carts.

But Evan was already sitting up straighter. Color was flooding back into his face, and his bright eyes had an almost manic cast.

Stones crunched beneath my boots, and I realized that, at some point, I'd returned to shore without realizing it.

I was close enough that, when Kirat wiped the blood from the boy's temple to check the injury, I saw the unmarred skin.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Griffin give a small nod.

Maybe.

Maybe I imagined it.

But if Griffin was unhurt and Evan was unhurt, where had the blood come from?

I opened my mouth to ask what happened under the water, but Griffin was already walking away.

Typical.

What a complete jerk, I thought. But my traitorous eyes tracked every smooth, lethal movement until the shadows beyond the tree line swallowed him whole.

Kirat gently brushed Evan's hair back from his forehead. "Want to tell us what happened?"

Evan's puzzled frown was either genuine or an Oscar-worthy performance. "I slipped."

"Off the dock you weren't supposed to be on?" Owen asked, hands on his hips in a way that reminded me a bit of my grandmother.

A sharp, hysterical laugh bubbled up from my chest. I clamped a hand over my mouth and waved away their attention.

Evan's ears pinked. "I saw something. I just wanted to check it out. I wasn't going to jump in, I swear."

Malik shot an uneasy glance toward the lake.

"Did you hit your head?" Kirat asked.

Evan rubbed his unmarked forehead. "I don't... I don't know. I was standing there, and then I slipped." His eyes filled as he looked between the counselors and staff all surrounding him. "Please don't call my dad. He'll be so mad I didn't even make it through one day without screwing up."

Owen's shoulders sagged.

Kirat kept running her hands over the child as if reassuring herself of his wholeness. "We were scared for you."

"Nominating Kirat for the Understatement of the Century Award," Mateo muttered.

Owen crouched beside Evan. "You were out cold," he said gently. "And you were... well... cold."

Evan shrugged his bony shoulders, which barely peeked out from the two oversized shirts wrapped around him, burrito-style. "But I'm fine now."

"Kids are resilient, right?" Owen said, looking at Kirat, clearly hoping she'd agree with him.

She didn't reply, but I'm pretty sure everyone there was thinking the same thing: I sure hope so.

When no one insisted the boy be hauled back to the office to be sent home, the counselors began herding their campers away in subdued little clusters. Something quieter and heavier had replaced the earlier easy chaos. Evan stood a moment later and chased behind them, arms outstretched in front of him, joking about being a zombie.

Just like that, his terrifying experience turned into, "That One Time I Almost Died At Summer Camp."

Everyone disappeared down the various paths, but I just stood there with a hard knot beneath my ribs.

He was standing still.

And he slipped?

How does a kid wearing rubber-soled sneakers slip on a dry dock when he's not even moving?

The question lodged under my skin like a splinter.

I shoved it down and forced myself to return to the abandoned equipment table. Hanging the bows on racks that Malik would have to haul into storage later, sacking arrows tip-down in buckets, collapsing folding tables, and generally keeping my body busy helped quiet the noise in my brain.

"Emmilyne."

Griffin's voice slid out of the shadows at the edge of the clearing, low and rough as a predator's growl.

I jolted upright and spun toward him.

He stepped into the light wearing clean, dry clothes. His hair, still damp, had been brushed back. "Are you really okay?"

My hands suddenly didn't know how to exist. What was I supposed to do with them? Were they always so heavy? I planted them on my hips. Thought of Owen looking like Grandma. Let them drop. Stuffed them in my pockets just to trap them into stillness.

"I wasn't the one in the lake," I reminded him. "Again."

His left eyebrow twitched.

Why had I added that last word? What did I care if he enjoyed recreational drowning in murky muck?

"The lake can't hurt me," he said.

"I'm guessing the monster doesn't eat you because you taste like jerk...ey," I shot back.

He blinked.

Then he grinned.

Actually grinned.

That obliterated an equilibrium my inner chemistry had achieved.

"She's here all week, folks."

I laughed, despite myself. "Don't encourage me."

"No, for real. That was genuinely funny," he said.

I dipped into a tiny stage bow. "Be sure to tip your server."

Shaking his head, he bent to retrieve an arrow that had gone rogue into the bushes. Then another.

Unsure what else to do, and deeply aware that standing there staring at him like an idiot was not a great look, I joined him.

We worked side-by-side in silence. He held the plastic cover while I zipped the bow rack closed.

Then the work was done and there was just us, facing each other.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

His gaze slid, infuriatingly, to my mouth before he looked away, tracking the path of a squirrel scrambling up a nearby tree. "For the way I've acted with you."

The invisible pull was back, tugging on the barbs sunk into my chest. "What's happening here?"

He frowned. Shook his head. "I don't know." Then, softer, "I meant what I said before. You'd be better off far away from me."

His foot shifted toward mine.

Mine shifted toward his.

We were suddenly closer than was strictly necessary.

"That's not exactly what you said, "I pointed out. "And for the record, you don't seem like a totally terrible guy. I've seen you save two babies from the lake monster now."

He leaned down, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him.

"But the monster can't hurt you, right?" I whispered.

"That's right," he said.

But he had been hurt.

The memory snapped the moment in half. "You were bleeding."

He swallowed hard and leaned away from me. "It wasn't my blood."

"It wasn't Evan's," I said. "He wasn't cut."

That strange, tense edge flared in him again. He smoothed it away with a slow roll of his shoulders. His voice stayed gentle, almost pleading. "Emmilyne, let it go."

He dragged a hand through his dark hair. "I should go."

"Right," I agreed. "Because the pattern is you show up, get in my personal space, say something intense, and then tell me to stay away."

He cocked his head. The humor returned to his expression. "I should go because it's almost time for games on the quad. I'm in charge."

Ah. Right.

If embarrassment could kill, I'd be the official camp ghost.

"I'm glad you're okay," he said. "I just wanted to be sure." Then he turned and walked away.

The pull between us stretched, thin and taut, and then snapped.

The pang in my chest felt real.

I winced and rubbed a hand over the ache as I stared at the place he'd been. Two things I knew with absolute certainty:

Nothing about Camp Black Crow was normal.

Griffin had something to do with the weirdness.