Chapter 12
517words
Tension stretched so thick it could choke. Campers swarmed in clusters—eyes wide, voices sharp, accusations flying like knives in every direction.
Jarred was dead.
Not just dead—butchered.
Someone screamed about finding his intestines spread across the dirt, but no body. Just a head, eyes glassy, jaw twisted in some final silent scream.
Zee stood still, her breath caught behind her ribs. Not from fear.
From the pressure behind her eyes—the emptiness she’d felt all morning.
Jarred’s mind was gone. Not asleep. Not silent. Gone.
Something erased him. Something inhuman.
"Do you think it was Lucas?" someone whispered nearby.
Zee's head snapped toward the sound.
A girl, biting her nails, eyes wild. “I saw him in the corridor last night... near Jarred’s cabin. Everyone knows they almost fought yesterday. He was being gross to Zee... remember?”
A few heads turned. Some began to nod.
Zee didn’t flinch. She felt the shift—panic morphing into suspicion, suspicion curling into a mob.
She didn’t need to guess where this would go.
But Ben stepped forward first, cutting through the circle of voices like a knife.
“Lucas didn’t do it.”
The murmurs paused.
Someone scoffed. “You sure about that?”
“Yeah.” That was Alex, voice calm, firm. “We were with him most of the night. He was pissed, yeah, but murder? That’s not him.”
A boy muttered, “Doesn’t mean he didn’t sneak out.”
Zee moved now. Slowly. Deliberately. Into the center.
All eyes found her.
She looked calm. Too calm.
It wasn’t Lucas.
A hush, sharp and immediate.
You don’t know that, someone said cautiously.
Zee met their gaze. “No?” She tilted her head. Then tell me—how does a guy kill someone and still come back without a scratch? Without blood? Without a single tremble?
The girl who’d spoken blinked.
Zee stepped closer. “Did he seem shaken this morning? Panicked? Guilty? Because I was with him. I saw him. And none of you know him like I do.”
They don’t need to know how she knew. They just needed to believe she did.
I’m not asking you to like him,” Zee continued, voice dropping lower, sharper, slicing through their doubt. “But don’t let your fear blind you to facts.
Ben added, Someone’s trying to make this look like rage. Like a fight gone wrong. But that wasn’t a fight.
Alex crossed his arms. That was a message.
Someone whispered, What kind of message involves tearing someone open like that?
Another voice trembled, We didn’t even find the body. Just… his head. And guts.
Zee stayed quiet this time, watching them squirm.
She knew what they were thinking.
Who could do that?
What kind of human leaves only a head and a pile of organs?
She didn’t answer.
But in her mind, a voice whispered:
This wasn’t murder. It was feeding.
And Lucas… whatever his darkness was, he hadn’t been hungry.
Ben, Alex, and Zee stood together—silent, steady—as the camp slipped further into fear.
Lucas had no idea how close he’d come to being ripped apart by suspicion.
But Zee did.
And she was already planning what to do next
