*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—chapter twenty-nine: reunion

August 23, 2021
Hackett's Quarry Summer Camp
Upstate New York, New York

THE FOUR OF THEM HAD SAT IN SILENCE THE ENTIRE WAY BACK TO CAMP. When Travis pulls the car into the camp entrance and parks it, none of them get out right away. The Lodge is ahead, but the boys were nervous. Cassidy and Ryan didn't know what to expect once they got out and went inside. Neither of them knew if the others had survived the night. Silas didn't know what to expect once he could properly meet the others. But in the end, the three of them knew that they, and the others, would have to take a moment to talk about what happened during the night. Along with Travis most likely not letting them tell the rest of the police what the fuck happened and that they'd have to make up a story to tell. Cassidy was not going to like that.

It's officially six-twenty-five when they finally get out the car. As they are closing the doors to the car, a light from inside the Lodge turns on, and the front doors burst open and the sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs follow. A relieved sigh leaves Cassidy when he realizes that the people who just run out were Emma and Abi.

Both girls had dried blood on their faces and in their hair. The blood coating their hair made Emma's blonde hair look much darker than it was, and it made Abi's brown and pink hair matted. Parts of Emma's green turtleneck were torn. There were blood stains all over Abi's clothes. And from what the boys could tell, both girls seemed to be okay, apart from these things.

"Thank goodness you guys are okay! Emma was trying to convince me that you two had died," Abi exclaims.

"I did not," Emma replies with a frown as she crosses her arms. "You convinced yourself. You worry too much, Abi."

"Okay, Emma," Abi replies, rolling her eyes. "Whatever you say..."

Emma gives her a playful shove before turning back to face Cassidy and Ryan giving them both a hug. It's only then that she realizes that something was wrong when Cassidy winces. She quickly lets go of him, brows furrowed in confusion as she notices the two entry wounds on the upper right part of his chest and the large blood stain on his shirt. The blood was still seeping through the fabric.

"Those are bullet wounds, oh, my fucking God... You got shot..." She says with a look of concern crossing her face. Whatever adrenaline he had from earlier in the night must've finally faded, and he must've been in shock now, because he looked completely out of it and very exhausted to the point he could pass out, his pupils are dilated, and his skin is cold to the touch. The Mountebank girl gently places her hands on his shoulders to steady him in case he really were to pass out from fatigue and dizziness. "Do you feel okay? Do you need to sit down?" she asks him.

"I don't know. I mean, I'm tired, but I-I feel fine otherwise, I think..." Cassidy quickly glances down at his shirt before his eyes glance over toward Ryan and Silas, who were standing just a few feet away, and then looking at Abi. All three of them were giving him concerned looks. The Hackett boy looks back over at Emma, a pained smile on his face. "The only other thing that's— My arm... hurts really bad— Look, nothin' else hurts, I don't think, but—" He gives up trying to explain what did and didn't hurt. With a frustrated sigh, he shakes his head and frowns. "Shit, I ain't really makin' any sense, am I?"

The four of them all shake their heads.

"You need immediate medical attention," Ryan says, a slight frown on his face.

"I think he should rest first," Silas says. "He's really tired and it's not helping that his injuries are that painful..."

"Yeah, Cass, why don't we get you inside the Lodge for now, and then you can rest and we can get you patched up?" Abi suggests.

Cassidy shakes his head. "Not now. I gotta..." There's a slight pause as he takes in a pained breath. "I gotta find the others... I need to find Sawyer..." He turns away from the four of them and makes his way to the stairs.

"Cass, wait—"

He ignores Ryan's call and heads up the stairs to the balcony. Reaching the landing, he goes up to the doors and pushes them open.

Entering the Lodge, he stumbles, nearly falling face first into the wooden floor. He stops abruptly, wide-eyed, as he puts his arms out to correct his balance. Glancing down, he notices a tarot card under the sole of his left boot.

"What the actual fuck..." he mutters, bending down to pick it up. The card was labeled The Hierophant. He flips it over.

TAROT CARD FOUND
21 OF ??
THE HIEROPHANT

Raymond Brandt was noticeably more irritated with Travis Hackett. There were a lot of instances where he, as the deputy, was utterly pissed off by the sheriff. One of those reasons being that Travis was a piece of shit, and everyone knew it, but no one ever did anything. So, Ray had taken it into his own hands.

Now, it had come as a shock to just about everyone in North Kill when Ray was found to be the suspect of a crime. A great shock, really. Some could say Ray had betrayed the police. Others would have sided with him. He had been caught red handed, though. Literally. Blood was on his hands—not his blood. Travis' blood. Ray had killed him and had been caught on purpose.

On the floor, painted in Travis' blood, were the words "Long live the king."

Who would've thought that the deputy would be the one to kill the sheriff? And in plain sight, at that.

Cassidy makes a noise of disgust and slight annoyance at the fact that this card could've made him break his face just now. As he slips the card into his pocket, he hears something in the distance, something that gave the others' location away.

Coming from the opposite side of the Lodge, possibly from the kitchen, were three distressed voices shouting for help. If he listened close enough, they were saying something about Caleb being trapped in the freezer. The voices sounded like—

Sawyer, Dylan, Kaitlyn, and Gabe.

By the time he enters the kitchen, the four of them had given up on trying to call for help. Gabriel was standing in front of the freezer door, wiggling the handle, but it wasn't budging. Kaitlyn was pacing around the kitchen. Dylan was sat on the floor, back resting against one of the counter. His knees were pressed close to his chest and he was hugging them close, rocking back and forth. Sawyer had gotten up immediately when she had heard Cassidy's footsteps.

The other three look up at Sawyer for a moment before realizing why the girl had gotten up. They look over toward the door of the kitchen to see Cassidy.

Sawyer meets Cassidy at the entrance to the kitchen and embraces him in a hug. "Oh, my God, you're okay," she sighs in relief, throwing her arms around him in an embrace. "I-I was worried that you'd died or something."

"I was worried the same for you," he murmurs into her hair. And when he speaks, Sawyer starts crying. Cassidy rubs her back comfortingly. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm okay."

"I just... Shit, I shouldn't be crying, it's stupid, I know," Sawyer sniffs, pulling away from Cassidy. She wipes the tears from her eyes. "Sorry. I just don't know if you got... Ah, forget it." She glances toward his shirt, eyeing the blood stain. "What happened? How'd you... How'd you get...? Did someone shoot you?"

"Oh, that, yeah, um..." Cassidy looks at his shirt before looking back up at Sawyer. "My dad shot me like half an hour ago and I coulda died. Ain't like the almost dyin' part's anythin' new..."

"Cass, what—"

"Uncle T did what?" Gabriel's voice was filled with utter disbelief and anger. "I'm gonna gut him. He has no right to—"

"I'll tell you later," Cassidy replies, walking further into the kitchen. Sawyer goes to follow him to where he was going, wanting to explain what she, Dylan, and Kaitlyn went through at the scrapyard that resulted in them getting here, but Cassidy wasn't listening. He was already heading to the freezer.

One of the shotguns that Dylan and Kaitlyn had was discarded on the counter nearest Cassidy. He picks it up as he nears the freezer. Once close enough, he peers through the small glass window on the door to see inside.

Caleb was still covered head to toe in blood from after transforming back earlier. He was sitting on the floor, knees drawn close to his chest, arms wrapped around himself to try and keep himself warm. Cassidy seems him look up at the door.

A look of realization crosses Caleb's face and he gets up, staggering to his feet. Watching Cassidy through the window, he mouths the word key to him and signs it, while pointing at the wall.

Cassidy glances toward the wall to the left of the door where the thermostat for the freezer was. Beneath it was a small clear-plastic box screwed onto the wall. In the box was a key. The key to activate the thermostat to be able to use it. Without the key, the thermostat wouldn't let anyone change the temperature.

The box to get the key wasn't easy to open. And Cassidy struggled with it for a full minute before just decide to break the box. The plastic scrapes his hands as he pulls the key out. Ignoring the slight, burning of the cuts on his hands, he outs the key in the slot in the thermostat and turns it.

He then lets go and starts pressing one of the buttons to lower the temperature of the freezer, watching as the number increases from 0° to 36° degrees.

He takes his hand for the thermostat and, looking back toward the window, he asks Caleb, "Can you get the door open?"

Caleb tries the handle, and when it still doesn't budge, he shakes his head.

"Okay, well, here goes nothin'," Cassidy says, holding up the shotgun and aiming it at the handle. Then he pulls the trigger. A loud bang follows and both the handle and lock fall off the door and onto the floor. Setting the gun down, he grabs the sides of the hole where the door handle once was, tugging on it, trying to pry the door open. "Hey, a little help here!"

Sawyer hurries over to the door to help him get it open. A high-pitched noise accompanies the door opening as the steel slides across the wood, making both of them wince.

They stop a moment later, breathing heavily. But the door was open now. What mattered now was making sure Caleb is okay.

Cassidy takes a few steps into the freezer. He ignored how the sudden drop in temperature made him feel as he helps Caleb out of the freezer and shuts the door.

Once Caleb was out—he was still shivering from the cold and the sudden warmth from being in room temperature, mind you—Sawyer grabs a blanket and wraps it around him, helping him warm up even more and get his core temperature back up to where it needed to be.

Cassidy lowers the temperature of the freezer back to its original temperature—0°. Then, he removes the key from the thermostat and puts it back into the now-cracked clear plastic box on the wall.

Caleb's already spewing out questions once he realizes this wasn't a dream.

"H-How'd I...? What the fuck?" Caleb splutters, glancing around the kitchen with a confused expression on his face, before looking at the others. "Can s-someone explain to me wh-what the f-fuck is goin' on and where the hell everybody is?"

"Everyone's somewhere, either here at camp or on Hackett property," Cassidy answers. "We're here, in the Lodge kitchen. Ryan, Silas, and my dad are outside with Emma and Abi. I think Chris and Bobby are still at the house, I don't know, haven't seen them in hours. I don't know where Jacob and Nick are. Laura's dead—"

"What about that one counselor... Laura's boyfriend? What's his name? Max Brinly?"

"I don't know... Why are you askin'?"

"'Cos I last saw him at the— Oh, shit, but I was a werewolf at that time... Fuck... No, no, no..."

"Saw him where?" Cassidy presses further, an eyebrow raised as he looks at Caleb.

"The boat docks... I-I remember seeing blood... Lo- Lots of it, on the d-docks. I think I... I think I killed Max... Oh, shit, I killed somebody, oh, shit... Oh, fuck..."

"Caleb—"

"I-I ripped his throat out... Oh, shit..."

"Hey," Cassidy sits beside him on the floor. Caleb turns away, shaking his head as he pulls the blanket tighter around him, "Caleb, it's not your fault. It was out of your control. Whatever happened happened. There's nothing we can do."

Caleb nods in understanding, not saying anything else, though he was still mumbling about how he had committed a murder.

"Where's Kaylee?" Gabriel questions, looking at Cassidy. "She was s'pposed to be with me and Caleb all night. Where is she? And where's Gammy and Pappy?"

Gabriel's eyes flick toward the other counselors snd Cassidy. The others are silent. Cassidy shifts nervously on his feet, not meeting either of his cousins' eyes.

"They're dead," he answers, his voice wavering. "All three of them..."

"What?"

"Let's... Let's talk about everythin' outside," Cassidy changes the subject. "It'll be... It'll be better if we all tell our part of the night's events. It won't make any sense to... Goddammit... Let's just go outside and regroup."

The others don't try to argue. They follow Cassidy out of kitchen and back into the main part of the Lodge.

But this time, he doesn't lead them out. Caleb and Gabriel had wanted to go outside first. After all, they had to see if the rest of their family was all right, and, they needed to know if their best friend, Ryan, had survived the night.

Sawyer stays behind with Cassidy while Kaitlyn and Dylan head out next. She's standing by the front doors, waiting patiently while he hesitates to head out, trying to stall some time first.

Cassidy wasn't ready to go outside and finally get this damn weight off his shoulders. As much as it seemed had was, he just simply wasn't. After everything he and the others had gone through, he didn't want to go out there and start a discussion that would probably cause a lot of problems. And trust and believe, no one needed more problems that the ones they already had that night. They all needed a break.

As Cassidy paces the area by the two staircases in the Lodge, he finds a card over in the rubble of the fireplace. Picking it up and dusting it off in his shirt, he sees that it was labeled The High Priestess. He furrows his brows in confusion as he examines the card some more before flipping it over.

TAROT CARD FOUND
22 OF 22
THE HIGH PRIESTESS

Hearing hushed voices from behind him, he turns around to see Ray talking to Travis. It seemed that the deputy wasn't happy with the events of the night. But it also seemed he was in an even worse mood now than before. Cassidy can hear Travis mention something to Ray about Mary, and that's when all emotion from the deputy's face fades.

Raymond Brandt had just found out Mary Martin was dead.

As Cassidy puts the card into his pocket, he realizes that this might be the last card he would ever have to find. I think Eliza only ever had twenty-two of these things, he thinks as he remembers something that was written on the old Harum Scarum posters.

Dismissing the thought, he and Sawyer finally head outside where the others, and Travis, were waiting.

✧ ✧ ✧

The cool, morning air felt a lot nicer now that he was back outside. Though, tension still lingered in the air.

It seemed that Nick and Jacob had finally found their way back to the Lodge. Nick was immediately embraced in a hug by Abi, who hadn't cared about all the blood on the Furcillo boy. As for Jacob, he was greeted with a harsh slap to the face by Emma.

"What the fuck, Emma!" Jacob hisses, backing away from her as he rubs his cheek.

"Kaitlyn told me what you did the van yesterday!" Emma replies. "I can't believe you!"

"Emma, I'm sorry, okay! I... It was stupid of me, I know. We wouldn't have been in this mess for the past, what? Like, fourteen hours or so, if I hadn't sabotaged the van."

"I am so, so glad you acknowledge that, Jacob, but an apology isn't going to make me be nice to you," Emma mutters, turning away from him.

"Are we gonna talk about the elephant in the room?" Ryan questions, glancing between his friends. "And no, I'm not talking about Silas."

Silas just grins at this.

"I'm so glad that that asshole ain't even here," Cassidy mutters, crossing his arms. Ryan had been indirectly referring to Travis. "God, he's so fucking annoying, and he tried to kill me. Where'd he even go?"

"Probably left to go get Mr. Hackett and, uh, Bobby. That's his name right? Your uncle—not Mr. H—but the one that poured blood on Jacob. His name is Bobby, right?" Dylan says.

"Yeah," Cassidy sighs, going over to sit down on the stairs. Some of the others had opted to lean against the wooden supports of the balcony. "So, uh, since we're all back and totally not tired and traumatized," he grimaces, "why don't we start the—" He's interrupted by the sound of sirens in the distance.

"You know what?" Dylan starts, looking around the group. "If I'm correct and those are police sirens, ambulance sirens, and fire trucks, I can already see the headlines for when we end up on the news. 'Teens Charged for Camp Massacre'."

"Dylan, shut up," Ryan and Cassidy say at the same time.

"Sorry. Jeez," the Lenivy boy outs up his hand and his stump in surrender. "Just trying to lighten the mood a bit more. It's not even just that, though. Like, that might actually end up being the headline or some shit. I mean, we're- we're literally about to be interrogated. I don't... I don't like interrogations."

"I feel like it's not going to end well," Abi admits.

"Interrogations never end well, Abi," Emma replies.

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

author's note
AHDVWHEVSVEV
THIS CHAPTER'S
KINDA MESSY BC I
DIDN'T KNOW HOW
TO WRITE IT AND
THE ENDING OF THIS
CHAPTER SUCKS ASS

also, i need to stop making
promises to people

i told tala i'd publish
this chapter, like, idk,
THREE DAYS AGO.
that was tuesday. it's
now friday 💀💀

10.21.22