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I shifted through the tent material, trying to find the lock. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can find a key now.” I wasn’t sure where it was, either. There was no way I’d find it in the dark.
A massive body shifted on the tent nearby. “Hang on, Aggele,” he said. “Don’t move. I’m going to cut it open.”
My heart sank. Victor’s gift! Silas was going to break it more. Still, it couldn’t be helped. I was freezing. I couldn’t stay out here looking for a little key in the dark.
Before I could protest, I heard the slash of the knife breaking through the material. The air grew intensely colder through the sudden opening. Hands reached in for me, wrapping around my body and tugging me through the hole.
Silas picked me up though I couldn’t really see him or Nathan in the darkness.
“You okay?” Silas asked, holding me close, his body warming me up.
“Yeah,” I said, hanging onto him, wrapping my legs around his waist to let him carry me. I finger-combed my tangled hair away from my face. “Gabriel broke my tent.”
“I didn’t really break it,” Gabriel said. “Actually, I might have. I just pulled the stake out, but there was a snap to one…”
“Sorry,” Silas said. “We’ll get you another one.”
Nathan fished into the tent, pulling out the heater and making sure the power was unplugged, and then shut off the stereo. He stepped back, looking things over. “Was that all you had turned on? What should we do with it?”
“Leave it for now,” Silas said. “Let’s come back in the morning for her stuff when we can see.”
Nathan picked up the lantern and started on the path back to the other campsite. Gabriel followed behind Silas, his lips twisted into a smug smirk.
I pushed at Silas, urging him to put me down. “You mean.... Meanie,” I called after Gabriel. “You ruined my tent.”
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and shrugged. “Got you out of there, didn’t I? Now the bears aren’t going to eat you.”
“I was fine!” I lunged toward him, but Silas held me back. I couldn’t believe that after all that effort I’d put into putting up the tent and the guys’ putting together the nice set up for me, he had come by and ruined it. “You broke everything. How am I supposed to do the rite of passage thing now?”
I nearly slid off of Silas when he redoubled his arms around me. “Easy, Aggele Mou,” he said. He pulled me up until I was dangling over his shoulder. “It’s cold. You can fight him tomorrow. Maybe he was right. You can’t fight a bear.”
“I want him to sleep out in my tent,” I said. I didn’t care if Gabriel was right, I just wanted to argue. It felt like a defeat. “Gabriel, go sleep in my tent since you busted it.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “I’m going to the big tent.”
“I thought you were my camping buddy.”
“You can’t be my camping buddy if you’re sleeping in another tent. I tried to get you to let me in.”
He was so frustrating! “How am I supposed to be part of the group now? You said I had to sleep by myself!”
Silas marched between the trees toward the other site. Dangling over his shoulder, it was hard to yell at him, so I let my anger smolder inside me.
When we got close to the other tent, I heard North calling after us. “What happened to her?”
“Gabriel broke my tent,” I said through clenched teeth, so angry that it felt good to tattle on Gabriel. Silas set me down until I was standing. I threw my arms over my chest quickly to block out the cold.
North was in the opening of the big tent, looking out at us. He wore all black, and in the darkness, it was like his head hovered in midair. “He did, huh?” North said, his head tilting to gaze over my shoulder at Gabriel. He threw Gabriel a wicked eye, his lips tight. He side-stepped, taking part of the folded door with him, to allow the rest of us in.
“Yeah,” I said, pausing outside, not caring about the grass at my feet or how cold it was. Tattling just felt too good. “He broke it so I had to come back. And then he sat on me. And then Silas had to cut it open to get me out. But it’s Gabriel’s fault.”
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry, baby.” He turned to Gabriel. “You ass. You broke her tent.”
“Sorry,” Gabriel said though I didn’t believe he meant it.
North shot out a hand, giving his head a chop. “Well don’t break her shit.” I started walking past North to duck into the tent when out of the corner of my eye, I caught North leaning into Gabriel. He patted him on the back and stage whispered. “Good job.”
Gabriel smiled quietly to himself.
I huffed. They sent Gabriel out to bring me back. I bit my tongue, too angry and cold to argue. I’d beat them all up in the morning. Maybe I’d sleep in my own tent the rest of the week.
Not that I really wanted to sleep out there anyway. The more I thought about it, the more I was pretty sure if Gabriel had concerns and told North, North would have made the call to bring me back, due to cold and threat of bears.
If it had been Gabriel, I might have broken his tent, too, to make sure he was safe.
I was still mad, though. I couldn’t help it.
The lanterns were on the floor in the tent, casting long shadows against the nylon walls, but it was enough to light up faces. The air was warmed by a similar battery powered heater.
“Sang?” Victor said, sitting up on one of the cots in the middle, sliding his sock-covered feet to the floor.
I shot a glare, ready to throw accusations, assuming they’d all been in on it.
He raised an eyebrow, lifting himself out of the cot quickly. “What happened?”
I realized he might not have known anything about what had happened. Underneath the anger, I was disheartened and sad that they had broken something Victor had paid for and had been set up so nicely for me. “They broke the tent.”
“Aw,” he said as he stood, holding his hands out. He came forward, enveloping me in his arms. It was a cozy hug, full of sympathy and warmth. He kissed my cheek. “I’ll get you a new one.”
“She doesn’t need a new one,” Gabriel said. I threw him an angry glare and he skirted around cots, looking at the floor with a frown, avoiding my eyes.
I didn’t want to say more while I was still angry
.
Nathan was sitting on a big, king-sized blow-up bed pressed against one wall. Luke was sitting up on one of the cots. Gabriel headed toward an empty one.
Luke patted his cot. “Come sleep back here, Sang. I can make room.”
Nathan scooted until he could tug my arm while I stood next to Victor. “No way,” Nathan said. “She’s sleeping on the air mattress with us. There’s room even with Silas on it.”
Luke grunted. “Naw, let her come back here with us.”
Silas entered the tent with my pink sleeping bag slung over his shoulder.
“I’ll sleep next to Nathan and Silas,” I said.
Luke pouted. “Aw. Why?”
“They’re the ones that came to save me,” I said. “And I don’t want to go back there with Gabriel.”
Gabriel had already climbed back into his cot, clothes still on. His hat was still on, too. He curled up, facing the wall of the tent. It almost made me feel sorry for him. He was the one willing to face the cold and bears to make sure I was okay and now he seemed so dejected.
Luke stretched out and kicked Gabriel in the head with a toe. “See what you did.”
“Shut up,” Gabriel said, his voice muffled. “You would have done it if I hadn’t.”
Silas chuckled. He dropped my sleeping bag on the air mattress between Nathan’s and his own. “Finder’s keepers,” he said.
“I thought we were going to sleep,” Kota’s voice came from outside the tent. A moment later, he stepped in, dressed in pajama pants, a jacket, and a long sleeve shirt underneath. “It’s cold, and it’s late. Let’s sleep.” He blinked in surprise at me standing at the foot of the air mattress. “You came back?”
“Gabriel broke her tent,” Victor said.
“Oh,” Kota said, and then sat down on the cot farthest from the air mattress and took off his jacket.
He said nothing else about it. Had he been in on it, too? Or was he not surprised by it? I smothered a sigh. Maybe none of them really wanted me to sleep out there alone, either. Gabriel was just sent to be the bad guy.
I missed them, too.
North came in, zipping up the tent behind him. “Are we all here now?”
