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“I’m not a good person, Nokosi. She knows it. I know it. We accept it and move on. I’ll never be the daughter she wanted.”
“You sound just like—” His lips thin to a white line as his words cut off abruptly.
“Like who?”
Thunder rolls in the distance, seconds after a flash of blinding white light over the sea. I smile and move towards the cliff edge again but Nokosi pulls me back.
“Let’s go make camp.”
I look around us. “Can’t we camp up here?”
“Away from everybody?”
Nodding, I try to move to the cliff edge again.
“I want to watch the storm, Nokosi.”
“Can we stay on one topic? My brain is fried.”
I look at him and think about us staying up here, alone. But then I see him glance over his shoulder, his body language telling me that he wants to be back with his friends as much as he wants to stay with me. I need to stop selfishly taking up all his time.
“Let’s go back,” I state, deciding now is as good a time as any to turn over a new leaf and relieve my body of its selfish ways. For the most part. Some things are better left kept as they are.
“Good, because I have a surprise for you…” he mumbles, taking my hand and leading me back down the cliff towards the others.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
It takes thirty minutes, but we greet the others with enthusiasm, relieved to see tents up and crates out.
“What are we thinking about the storm?”
“It should stay out.”
Both Bobby and Joseph speak amongst themselves as I lift myself into the bed of Nokosi’s truck as he builds the tent upon it. He has a truck bed tent. That’s so fucking cool. When he said he had it handled he really meant it.
“Did you have fun?” Nash asks, pulling himself up beside me. “You were gone a while.”
“I was testing my ability to fly,” I joke and Nokosi grunts and starts grumbling under his breath about crazy bitches, meaning me. My smile only gets brighter. “Your brother worries about me. It’s cute.”
“Everyone worries about you,” Nash replies, nudging me with his shoulder. “You’re a headcase.”
“I am not.”
“I bet if I told you to swim to that buoy and back, you’d do it.”
“Nash,” Nokosi warns.
I shake my head. “Even I’m not that dumb. Those waters are feral, man. I’d sink faster than the Titanic.”
“The Titanic didn’t sink fast,” Bobby argues so I throw an empty can at his head. “Ouch.”
“Your surprise is here,” Nokosi whispers in my hair and kisses my ear.
I turn, looking around him to see a car pulling up. My excitement rises. But then Mackenzie gets out of the car and with her comes another girl I don’t know.
I can’t even fake a smile. “You shouldn’t have, Nok. You really shouldn’t have.”
“Hey!” Mack cries, waving animatedly. She races over to me and hugs me like we’ve been friends for years.
The evil shit chuckles under his breath like he’s hilarious.
Nash grabs my hand because I’m legit about to rip her head back by her hair.
“Be nice,” Nokosi warns but his tone holds his amusement. Nash releases my hand but he looks as entertained as Nokosi does. “I thought it would be good for you to socialize with your own species.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I mouth at him, eyes narrowed and hands gripping the truck, so I don’t stick my thumbs in his eyes.
He just whistles casually and gets on with making the truck tent while Mack chats excitedly about being a part of something awesome in senior year. I only perk up to her chipper arrival when she tells me she has more FBI intel.
Bobby who had already sidled up to her looks as excited at the news as I feel. Nash helps Nokosi finish the tent and the rest of the people all put plastic sheeting on the ground between the few tents standing in the small clearing. They pin it all down with heavy rocks and put lanterns on top of those. These people don’t mess around.
“Tell us then,” Bobby begs, looking at Mackenzie with round, lusting eyes. He’s like a puppy eyeing a juicy bone. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “What’s new that we don’t know already?”
“Well… they think they found the killer,” she whispers excitedly, her eyes as round as saucers.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know for sure, I couldn’t get that info, but…” She wets her lips and bounces from foot to foot. “The killer, if it’s this person, has already been declared dead. They found the body in Vegas a few weeks ago but only just connected it with the murders.”
“Vegas?” I ask, frowning with confusion.
She nods, her eyes still wide. “Yep. I’ve been trying to figure out a timeline while checking over everybody declared dead that month but there are so many to go through. It’s a needle in a haystack.”
