“Ripper,” I wrote across the top, then paused again. Why hadn’t I said I love you when I had the chance? Risked hearing him say that he didn’t return my feelings. That he liked me well enough. That he enjoyed hooking up with me. But love? Nah. Why had I kept my mouth shut? Was I afraid of his brutal honesty? I knew Ripper would tell me the truth, even if it devastated me, so I’d played it safe and waited for him to say it first. A total wimp.
You’re no wimp, Mac. I heard Ripper’s deep voice echo in my memory. He’d believed in me before I’d believed in myself. I wished I’d been bolder, acted in a way worthy of his confidence in me. Regret bit deep.
My vision grew hazy and the room wavered. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall for a moment, then sucked in a breath and opened my eyes.
Writing zapped every last bit of my strength, and my headache roared back with a vengeance. When I finished, I folded the letter neatly into three parts, wrote Ripper’s name on the outside, then placed the clipboard and letter on the small nightstand. I slid back down onto the dirty sheets. As soon as my head hit the pillow, sleep rushed in to take me. Before I gave in, my body jerked, jolted by a terrifying thought.
The next time I woke up, would I still be me?
ELEVEN
Kenzie
“Wake up, Kenzie. Wake up!”
Hands seized my shoulders and shook me back and forth, rudely ripping me from sleep.
“What’s...what’s going on?” I mumbled.
“We’re evacuating to the camp. We’ll be safe there.”
I pried my eyes open and stared up at a panic-stricken Nicole. “Safe from what?”
“Never mind that now. Pastor Bill gave us five minutes to pack up.”
I rolled into a seated position and wobbled, supporting my weight on my hands. My head still hurt, but not as badly as the last time I was awake. Of course, I’d witnessed the flu run its course in Miles. He’d rallied a couple of times. His temperature had dropped, his headache had lessened, and he’d carried on coherent conversations. We’d hoped that he might be getting better. He wasn’t. Hope was a cruel bitch and the flu an implacable monster.
This wasn’t a reprieve, only a pause in my death spiral.
I glanced at the nightstand. The windup alarm clock said that it was 11 in the morning. That meant that today was Tuesday. My letter to Ripper, which had been under the clock, was missing. Nicole or Pastor Bill must have tucked it away while I was sleeping. Good. I wouldn’t want to leave it behind if we were heading to some camp.
“Do you have my backpack?” I asked Nicole.
“Yes. It’s on the porch, ready to be loaded into the van.”
I fumbled at my throat for my necklace and Ripper’s dog tags and sighed when my fingers wrapped around the cool metal. More than ever, I needed this tangible connection to him. I slipped them into my shirt, so they lay against my skin. I’d have to remember to tell Nicole to give them back to Ripper if I died before he returned. If I died. Crap. I swayed, then pushed thoughts of my death out of my head.
Nicole wrapped an arm around my waist and hauled me to my feet. “I can ask Deacon Morris to carry you to the van if you’re too weak to walk.”
I took one tentative step. “As long as you’re helping me, I can manage.”
“Good.”
We shambled across the room. I almost tripped over one of those old-fashioned rag rugs as we made our way toward the front of the rustic log cabin.
“Is Ripper back yet?” I asked. “Will the guys meet us at the camp?”
Nicole froze midstep. Her gaze darted to my face before she resolutely turned her eyes toward the open cabin door.
“There’s Deacon Morris.” She nodded at a lean, middle-aged man who was slinging my backpack into the open side door of a paneled van.
I clutched her forearm, preventing her from moving forward. “Where’s Ripper? What’s going on?”
Deacon Morris stepped into the cabin, smiling broadly.
“Kenzie wants to know where Ripper and her friends are,” Nicole said.
“All your questions will be answered once we get safely to the camp,” Deacon Morris said, his smile not faltering. “Right now, we’re in too much of a hurry to talk.” He took my arm and helped me into the van, lifting me onto the bench seat.
Nicole climbed in after me. “What’s going on?” I whispered.
Deacon Morris watched us in the rear-view mirror, a frown line denting his brow. He started the engine and pulled away from the cabin. Nicole pressed her lips together and shook her head, taking her cues from the deacon. We drove in silence. Half an hour later, the van came to a stop outside a sliding gate. The Golden Rule Church Camp a sign next to the gate proclaimed, an odd juxtaposition of idealism and reality, given the two heavily armed guards standing outside the gate. Do unto others with AK-47s? The deacon rolled down the window to speak to one of the men, who opened the gate and waved us through.
“Why are there men with guns at the gate to a church camp?” I asked.
“Shhh,” Nicole said.
I shushed and looked out the van window as we drove past a baseball diamond, a basketball court, tennis courts, twenty or so cabins, a chapel, a dining hall—it said so on the sign—and other buildings. More armed men milled about. Two women wearing long dresses carried laundry baskets onto the tennis courts, where clotheslines stretched from one side to the other.
Deacon Morris parked in front of a large, low-slung structure. He jumped out and hustled around the van, then very solicitously offered me a hand to climb out of the vehicle. He took my elbow as we climbed the three steps onto the porch. A placard next to the door identified the building as the offices for The Golden Rule Church Camp and listed staff names. I caught only Pastor Derek Heywood, Executive Director, as the deacon whisked me inside.
Just past the reception desk, a short hall led to a series of offices. I scanned the door signs as we walked up the hall: Program Director, Youth Ministries Director, Food Services Manager, and others. Nicole trailed a few paces behind us. At the end of the corridor, we halted outside a pair of double doors with the words Executive Director engraved on a plaque. Deacon Morris rapped on the door.
“You may enter,” a familiar voice called. With a polite bow, Morris ushered me into the office.
“It’s good to see you on your feet, Mackenzie. I’ve been praying for your recovery,” Pastor Bill said from his chair behind a large oak desk. On my feet was an overly optimistic description of my condition. The short walk to and from the van had wiped me out, and toppling over was a very real possibility. Couldn’t he see that I was half dead on my feet?
Manners be damned. Without waiting for an invitation, I dropped into one of the visitors’ chairs facing the desk.
“Please, take a seat,” Pastor Bill said smoothly.
I raised a brow. Little late with the invitation, wasn’t he?
He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the desk, and steepled his fingers.
“Where’s Derek?” I asked when he opened his mouth to speak.
Pastor Bill looked at me, his expression vacant. “Derek?”
“Yes. Pastor Derek Heywood, the Executive Director of The Golden Rule Church Camp. The man whose office we’re sitting in.” I pointed to the framed pictures hanging on the wall behind him. In one, a tall, bearded man held a little girl in one arm, his other arm around the shoulders of the smiling woman at his side. In another photo, the man stood on a dock, making a face at an empty fishing pole, surrounded by a group of campers pointing and laughing at his empty hook. He was instantly likable, unlike the man who sat across the desk from me. “Him,” I said emphatically.