Dead of Summer - Page 136

“Maybe we’ll find out if that’s true tonight,” he threatens under his breath. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Summer, get out of here!” Kinsley’s voice is shaky, and it’s clear that she’s riding the wave of terror and adrenaline, just like me. Her feet scrape in the dirt, and she struggles with the ropes on her arms keeping her and Liza against the tree. “He’s fucking crazy and this whole time he hasn’t stopped talking about you. Just—” she breaks off when Shawn lunges for her, but I’m not far behind.

“No!” I grab his arm, the one not holding the knife, and only belatedly wish I’d grabbed the one in my shorts to stab him with. “Shawn, no!”

He switches direction mid-motion, whirling on me with a white-toothed grin. “Okay,” he agrees, grabbing onto the front of my t-shirt and yanking me off balance. “Okay, Summer. You want to be the center of my attention? Fine.” He leans in close while dragging me closer to him, though I fight to keep my footing in the dirt. “I’d much rather hurt you, anyway.”

It occurs to me, way too late, that maybe him turning on her was a ploy to put me off guard. And that maybe I’m an idiot for forgetting that Shawn is surprisingly smart behind his crazy mask of insanity.

Those thoughts are knocked out of my head, however, when Shawn’s knee slams into my stomach. I gasp around the pain, my body folding inward, and he lets go of me so I can fall to my knees in the dirt in front of him, lungs burning again in exasperation at this new method of attack.

His knife suddenly finds my throat, and I try hard not to give him any response as he forces me to tip my head back and look up at him. “Here.” Bending down, he grabs a coil of rope from the pile of hunting supplies near the tree. “Put your hands behind your back, Summer. And if you try to run I swear to God I’ll gut Kinsley while Liza watches.”

That’s not an option. Putting my best friend in danger has never been an option, but this feels like an awful turn of events. When he walks back to me, however, I can’t do anything else except what he tells me to, and I can only pray he doesn’t find the knife at my back.

Somehow, that’s my one bit of good luck. He doesn’t find it, and his tying of my arms is sloppy and overdone. It still sucks, and my arms are still held fast, but he doesn’t notice the bit of space between my wrists, just as he doesn’t notice the outline of the blade I’m hiding.

Now if I can only use that to?—

I don’t see his punch coming. Not until his blow knocks my face to the side as both Kinsley and Liza make sounds of shock and protest. My face burns, tears threatening to fall, but I force them to go away by squeezing my eyes shut, then look up at Shawn around the burning pain in my jaw.

“Feel better?” I ask, bracing my legs on the ground under me. “Did you get that out of your system—” This time I have enough warning to brace for the hit, but God, it still hurts. Pain washes through me; it’s the same kind of pain I remember from the bad times, when I’d been a kid and my Dad was too keen to hurt me when the alcohol hit.

It doesn’t feel any better now to be punched in the face than it did back then. I groan and crumple to the ground, my hands jerking against the ropes holding them captive.

But I can’t try to slip free. There’s no way he won’t notice, when he’s this close. “So…the dreams?” I push, wondering if I can get him talking. Bored Shawn seems like a recipe for disaster, and he’s mad enough at me, or so it seems, that I’m hoping I can distract him enough to wait this out.

Even if that means getting punched a few more times.

“Darcy should keep her fucking mouth shut,” Shawn spits, quite literally, and I flinch when it lands on my cheek. It’s decidedly less hot than when Kayde does it, and I rub my face in the dirt to get it off. After all, dirt and blood is better than anything of Shawn’s. "But okay, you want to know?” ?He bends down and drags me back up into a sitting position, eyes brighter than I’ve ever seen and filled with sparks of what might be anger.

Because it can’t be anything else, but he seems positively unhinged right now.

“I dream of how fucking stupid you are,” he purrs, leaning close. “I’ve dreamed of killing you since that first summer, when you had a crush on me. Fuck.” He looks away and scoffs a laugh. “You know that year, I thought maybe I had a crush on you as well. I thought that had to be it, because what else could it mean when I couldn’t get you out of my head?”

Kayde would say that’s some form of obsession. I’d say Shawn was dropped on his head at birth. His hand tightens in my shirt and he sneers in my face before continuing. “Then I started dreaming of you dying. Of me killing you. Isn’t that just so messed up?” His laugh is cruel, and I stare at him, unimpressed. “Bet you never thought you’d meet someone who wants to murder you for the fun of it, huh Summer?”

Well, actually…I glance away from him, still unimpressed and wondering how I can fake it. This would’ve been a lot more impactful a few weeks ago. Shawn is just late to the game. But I can’t hide that I’m afraid of him. I can’t hide that I really don’t want to die tonight. Especially by Shawn’s hand.

“I, uh, certainly didn’t,” I answer, eyes squeezed shut as I try to chase away the rest of the pain in my face, or at least bury it somewhere in my mind. “Any particular reason? Any, I don’t know, trigger? I’ll be honest, Shawn…” Eyes widening, I lean forward until we’re only a few inches away. “I really thought all this was over Darcy not getting Kayde.”

“Maybe it’s over Kayde getting you,” Shawn purrs, mirroring me by leaning in. Kinsley whimpers somewhere behind him, but neither of us look at her.

Which is great, because I don’t want him to. I’ll do anything to keep him over here with me, instead of there with her and Liza.

“Is it? You just said you don’t like me like that,” I remind him, head tipping to the side. “So what does Kayde have to do with it? Hell, what do the kids you almost killed have to do with it?”

“I wanted to see how it would feel. Nolan and Alec really were an accident…mostly,” he admits. “But Emily? Well, she looks a little like you, don’t you think? Same eyes.” He reaches out to tug on a lock of my hair that’s fallen from its ponytail. “Same hair. I looked at her broken little body on those rocks and thought to myself that it might be you. And do you know what that was like?”

“I can guess, seeing where we are now.”

“It was perfect. But it wasn’t enough. It’s not enough to just push you off a cliff. And I’m kind of glad that weirdo in the woods stopped me from killing you. But I was so close, wasn’t I?” His fingers curl in my shirt, tugging pointedly, and I try to hide the horror I feel from my face. “Does your chest hurt? You breathed in so much water I swore you were a goner. Any bruises? I tried to make that fall hurt.”

There’s really, really something wrong with Shawn. He’s not like Kayde, or Grey, or maybe Melody…No, he’s something else entirely.

Something that really doesn’t deserve to be breathing.

“Could’ve been worse.” I shrug, trying to keep my cool. “I’m honestly still a little unclear on how this whole thing started. Could you try explaining it again? In simple words, please. I am post-almost-drowning.”