“Did you like it?”
“Hell no.”
She squeezed my hand.
“My parents are loaded, and after the divorce, my mom fleeced my dad for every drop she could. She didn’t need the money, but she needed to punish him. They hated each other.”
“It must have been hard for you,” she said.
I shrugged. “It was my normal.”
I couldn’t say I missed anything because I didn’t know what to miss. I grew up with parents who hated each other’s guts. I thought everyone’s parents were the same.
“We stayed here the longest, but she hated it here too.”
Talking about Raven twisted something in my gut.
“The only reason we stayed here was because she met a man. But I was…” I searched for the word. “Content here.”
“Did you have a lot of friends here?”
I chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “I don’t do friends.”
“You hang out with Caleb.”
A small laugh came out, and this time it was real. “He didn’t give me a choice.”
“Best friends forever, huh?”
I gave her a smile. I pushed her back gently behind me when I saw tree branches in the way. I shoved them back and gestured for her to go on, holding them back so they didn’t scratch her.
“The boys in my class talked about this place a lot. They said it was haunted and anyone who entered the maze would be cursed. The people in this town believed it, so no one came here.”
“But you did.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I did. It felt like mine even when it wasn’t. I felt safe here. And it was the only time I felt happy.” But I felt my body go numb when I said, “A boy in my school came here too.”
She sensed what I was feeling because she pulled me closer to her, as if she were trying to protect me.
“I first saw him behind the school grounds. He was getting beat up by these bullies. Three to one. I hated seeing that shit. Fucking cowards. So I beat them up.”
“You beat up three bullies? How? Bet you were big back then too, huh?” she teased.
I knew she was trying to lighten the mood, and I appreciated it, but nothing could make this better.
“I wished I was bigger when I was a kid,” she went on. “It would have been easier to defend myself.” She gave me an approving look. “That’s pretty awesome of you though.”
She wouldn’t think so after she heard everything. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach.
“How old were you then?”
“Eight,” I replied.
“And your friend?”
“Same age as me.”
“And how old were those bullies?”
“One was in my grade, the other two were older by a couple of years.”
“It’s easier to assume the bigger and older bullies were the worst, but that’s not always the case.”
I looked at her, waiting for her to tell me more, but she shook her head. I studied her face. It sounded like she had dealt with bullies when she was younger. The thought of her getting bullied made me angry because I wasn’t there to defend her. But I bet she fought hard and defended herself pretty damn well.
“I’ll tell you about my childhood woes next time. Keep going, Cam.”
I wondered if she was aware she’d called me Cam. She did before too, when we were kissing. I would have smiled if we were elsewhere.
“So you defended this boy against these shitheads. What happened next?”
I could see the bend now. A few more turns and we’d be there.
“He wanted to be friends. I kept avoiding him. I didn’t want a friend and told him I’d beat the crap out of him if he kept at it, but he wasn’t intimidated.”
“You did save him from those assholes. You were his savior, so that automatically made you his friend.” She smiled, encouraging me to keep going.
“Probably. In any case, he kept following me. Until one day we just started hanging out.”
“Sweet.”
I clenched my jaw. There was nothing damn sweet about it.
“He found out about the maze from me. I showed it to him. He was scared at first, like most kids, but I told him I’d been hanging out here almost every day for the past few months. I didn’t want to show him at first. I was selfish with it, but he wanted to hang out with me. I wasn’t going any place else. I was addicted to this place. I wanted to find out every secret door, every nook and cranny. I was going to memorize everything about this maze. I had a map.”
She didn’t say anything, just listened.
“But he was better at it, though.” I smiled a little, remembering, but it felt stiff. “He found more hidden spots than I did. He was smaller than me, thinner, almost malnourished, really. It was easier for him to squeeze through the bushes. I found out later on he was a foster kid and his foster parents didn’t feed him. Sometimes they’d kick him out and make him sleep outside.”
I heard her gasp of outrage. She was quiet for a while and then she asked, “You let him stay with you, didn’t you? You gave him food. You took care of him.”
“I shouldn’t have. I should’ve made him stay away from me. I shouldn’t have let him be my friend.”
“Why?”
Her eyes were direct and nonjudgmental as they searched my face.
I could see the exit now. A few more steps.
“We’re here,” I told her.
I pushed open the secret door hidden behind thick vines and debris—and stepped out into an open wide field. There was nothing but fields of grass.
“Cameron,” she said softly. “Tell me why. Tell me why you don’t think he should’ve been your friend.”
I could feel my body harden, then go numb. And when I faced her, I knew she wouldn’t see any hint of emotion on my face.
“He’s dead,” I told her coldly. “He’s dead because of me.”
Chapter 27
Kara
“He’s dead because of me.”
Cameron’s voice was flat. My eyes snapped to him, horrified by what I’d heard. His face had gone blank, devoid of any emotion.
I waited for him to tell me more, but he had gone silent. He was staring intensely at a spot in the distance, but when I looked over, there was nothing there but an empty field.
“Cameron,” I said as gently as I could, but he didn’t react. As if he had already retreated to a place where I couldn’t find him.
I reached for his hand, to hold on to him, but he pulled away.
I stepped back in response. I didn’t think he’d moved away from my touch before. I understood that he needed space right now, but still, his reaction stung. It was clear that he was in great pain, but he was trying his damnedest to hide it from me.
He was still staring at the same spot in the distance, as if he was watching a scene play out in his head. Maybe he was.
I don’t know how long we stood there in silence. It could have been a minute or a half hour. I didn’t say anything, just waited for him.
I looked at him and saw a tall, beautiful man with a broad back, carrying the weight of the world on his strong shoulders. But a body and heart could only take so much. One of them was bound to feel exhausted sooner or later. And someday his strength would give out. What would happen to him then?
“Cameron,” I said. “Tell me what happened here.”
When at last he looked at me, his eyes glistened with intensity. I couldn’t explain why I felt his pain right there and then, as if it were a solid thing floating in the air. It wrapped around us, covering the field with sorrow.
“We were supposed to meet that day,” he began. His voice, unlike his sad eyes, was hard and cold. “But I couldn’t get away.”
I could tell it was hard for him to talk about it. I looked back at the field again, wondering
why he bought the land if something horrific happened here.
Was it out of a sense of guilt? Of responsibility? A self-imposed punishment? But he said he’d been content here too. That it had been the only place where he had been happy.
“Why couldn’t you get away?”
He stepped forward, his back to me. He curled his hands into fists. I could tell it was in anger. I just wasn’t sure if it was directed at himself or something else.
“I couldn’t get away because I was locked up,” he answered.
My head snapped up. “What?”
“Raven locked me up in the house. And this time I couldn’t get away because if I tried and she caught me, there would be hell to pay.”
“Your mother locked you up?” My heart started to beat fast and that familiar feeling of anger rushing in my veins was taking over. I imagined Cameron as a kid—alone, lonely, hungry, locked in his house. What kind of mother would do that to him? What kind of childhood did he have? “Did she hurt you?” I asked.
“Not really,” he replied, but he sounded impersonal. As if he were answering an interview question. “She’d hit me sometimes when she was drunk, but that was because I was in the line of fire. She never hit me while sober. She said she loved me too much.”
“No, she didn’t!” The feeling of wanting to hit something was getting stronger by the minute. “How could she love you too much when she abused you? She—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
It doesn’t matter? “How can you say that?”
“It’s over. She can’t control my life any more, even if she tried.”
I seethed. “Where is she now?”
“You’re amazing, do you know that?” Now he smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re so angry for my sake.”
“If you were in my shoes, wouldn’t you be?”
He nodded. “I would.”
“Tell me the rest.”
“There was an abandoned car here before,” he started, gesturing at the place he’d been staring at. “Right there. In that exact spot. I see it in my head. It’s been years, but it’s still so clear in my head. It’s so fucking clear.”
There was only an open field there now with sparse dry grass. That car only existed in his memory now.
I knew what it was like to keep pain and anger inside—knew it so well. It would fester until all you felt was anger every damned day. It ruined everything, and it wouldn’t give anything good a chance.
He needed to talk about it—this pain he’d been keeping for a long time. It was time to let go of it, or at least start letting it go.
“Tell me about that day,” I said. “Did you manage to get out? Did your friend go back to see you at your house?”
“No,” he said.
Suddenly he looked tired. He crossed his arms and lowered his head.
“Sit down, Cam,” I said. He needed to get off his feet. He’d been working nonstop. I could tell. I could tell he had lost some weight. His cheekbones were sharper, his jaw more prominent. He said he ate a lot, and from what I’d seen in his cooler, he was right. But he was probably working a lot too, burning all his energy, not getting enough sleep. Worrying.
I sat on the dry grass, waiting for him to do the same. Eventually he did, just a little ways from me, as if he needed space to think, to gather his thoughts.
“He was supposed to come to my house,” he began after a moment. “We were going to eat first, maybe watch some TV, play some video games. Then go to the maze to finish the rest of the map. It was almost complete.”
The wind blew, whipping his dark curls against his forehead. I shivered.
“Raven was supposed to be gone that day. Another trip to an exotic resort. Whatever. She’d usually be gone for days. That’s why I asked Pete to meet me at my house.”
Gone for days. That meant he was often by himself. Just a little boy. Was it a wonder he closed himself off to the world? He’d said he knew I was attracted to him, but he never thought I cared for him. It made sense he would think that. My heart hurt.
“But she didn’t go. Her boyfriend broke up with her and she blew up. Just another one of her normal tantrums, I thought, but I realized that it was beginning to be a bad one. She got drunk, broke things in the house. She locked me up in a room down in the basement. She didn’t want me to leave. She hated being alone. She thought I wouldn’t be able to escape and no one would hear my screams if she locked me down there.”
I let the anger roll through me. There was no goddamn excuse for anyone, especially a mother, to do that to her child.
“She didn’t physically hurt me. Just locked me up,” he added. As if that would change what I thought about the whole thing. As if that made it okay.
It was still abuse in my book. A child shouldn’t be exposed to that kind of treatment or behavior from an adult who was supposed to protect him. I had my dad to protect me and Dylan. Cameron didn’t have anyone.
“Pete came to my house. They’d never met before. I could hear them. Raven was screaming at him, asking him things, cursing him. She said I wasn’t home, so I assumed he went straight to the maze. A few minutes later, I heard Raven leave. And then I escaped.”
Dread filled my limbs. I knew something bad was going to happen. I could hear it in his voice, the way it lowered and hardened.
“He was about to leave when I got to the maze. And I asked him to stay. I remember he was holding this green notebook. It was just something I had lying around my room. I gave that damned notebook to him and he took care of it. He said it was the very first present he’d gotten. He fucking cherished it as if it were priceless. Like it was…” His voice broke. He lowered his head.
“It was a gift,” I said hoarsely, my heart aching for him. “From a friend.”
“A friend,” he said in a mocking tone. Full of self-hatred and blame.
It was dark now, and the stars had started to come out.
“We stayed a few hours in the maze, exploring, mapping. He was getting tired and he wanted to go home, but there was only one section of the maze left. If we kept going it would all be done. I told him I was staying until I finished it. And I knew he’d stay too. I knew he wanted me to be his friend enough that he’d stay.”
“And then what happened?” I asked when he stopped.
“We never got to finish it.”
“Why?”
“He found another exit. Another hidden door. The same one you and I came out of. At the time, I thought there was only one exit, which led to the lake on the other side of the property.” He rubbed his eyes. “We were excited. All these possibilities. Maybe there were more exits. He’d already found this one, the one behind us, so maybe we could find more.”
I nodded, picturing two young boys enthusiastically exploring and mapping a secret maze.
“He found the secret door,” he went on, “and I opened it. And here we are sitting right where it all happened.”
“What happened, Cam?”
“We found an abandoned car. It was just there in the middle of the damned field.” He gestured absently. He looked so alone. So lonely. So damn sad. An angel who’d lost everything he held dear.
“He didn’t want to explore it for some reason,” he went on. “He felt uneasy about it, but I dismissed his concerns. I’d driven once before, stolen my dad’s car, wrecked it even. My dad nearly killed me for that. Raven was on him before he could slap me. She hated anyone hurting me.”
Except for her, I thought bitterly. No wonder Cameron had his emotional scars. He grew up with a monster.
“We climbed inside the car to explore. There wasn’t much inside—no keys, so we couldn’t start it. But eventually, I did find something very interesting, a box of road flares in the trunk.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“I wish I’d never open
ed that trunk,” he said miserably.
“You were a kid. Any kid would’ve explored an abandoned car. I know I would have.”
He turned to look at me, and I wanted to kiss him so badly. I wanted to chase away the horrible memories in his eyes.
“Those kids that bullied him showed up, the ones I beat up. There were five this time.”
A chill went down my spine.
“They were still a few yards away when we spotted them. I wanted to go back to the maze. We knew that place inside out. We would lose them in there easily. We would be able to escape. But Pete was scared. He locked himself in the car.”
“Did you…did you leave him and go to the maze?”
He shook his head. “I stayed there, screaming at him to open the door so we could both go.”
I should have known he wouldn’t leave his friend.
“But he wouldn’t listen. He was paralyzed with fear.”
He stared at the spot where the car had been.
“What happened next?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
He shook his head to shake off the memories. “I fought them. I didn’t just do it for Pete. I didn’t want them to call me a coward if I ran away and left my friend in the car.”
He looked so angry, and I knew it was targeted at himself.
“I’d beaten them before. Surely I could do it again. But I didn’t. They beat me up. And they found the flares.”
I held my breath, terrified to hear the rest of his story.
“They weren’t there for Pete. I knew that. They were there for me. For me. They wanted to get their pound of flesh, scare me, beat me up some. But it got out of hand.”
His hands fisted, the veins in his arms popping in anger.
“One of them lit one of the flares, but it burned his hand, and when he dropped it, it rolled under the car. It was the middle of summer. All that dry grass and heat.”
A horrified sound came out of my throat.
“It burned the dry grass around the car and it filled it with smoke. Lots of smoke. I screamed at Pete to open the fucking door, but he wouldn’t. I could hear him coughing, gasping for breath. I tried to break the windshield, the windows, but I was too weak. I could see my hands bleeding, trying to break the glass, but it was no use. I grabbed a rock, anything, but nothing worked. Pete was looking at me, just looking at me. He wouldn’t move. He wouldn’t fucking move.”
Spitfire in Love Page 29
