31. Grayson

31

GRAYSON

T he crumbling stone building was dark and foreboding. A rusted iron gate barred the entryway, the metal warped and twisted, ivy twining through the bars. Behind the gate, all I could make out was a gaping black hole. Cruz gripped the bars, pulling at them. There was a metallic creak, but the gate remained closed.

"Come on. Let's keep going," I suggested, moving around the side of the mausoleum, following the faint trail that led into the trees behind the structure. We ducked under the overhanging branches—the trail clearly not made for people of our height.

"What the fuck was that?" Cruz muttered from behind me. I assumed he was referring to the building, but I had no answer. Chills were running down my spine, harder and harder to ignore the farther we went. The trees were becoming thicker, and as I sidestepped a tree root, Cruz knocked into me.

"Watch where you're going," I hissed, letting a branch I'd brushed past snap back toward him.

"Fuck you, Cross." He shoved past me, stomping ahead of me—as much as he could through the thick undergrowth. The trail we were on now was barely wide enough for us to walk in single file, but the earth was well trodden, suggesting it was in semi-regular use at the very least. I had no fucking clue what happened around this part of the lake. I'd always hung out at the main beach area, with the jetty and the facilities, where students always gathered. Other than that, the only other part of the lake I was semi-familiar with was the part where the lake houses were. The lake itself was huge, and it shouldn't have been surprising that I wasn't familiar with this part. But in my head, the rest of the lakeshore had been wild and uninhabited. Not this.

"Fuck," I wheezed as all the breath was knocked from my lungs because fucking Martinez had come to a dead stop right in front of me. I shouldered past him, shooting him a glare, and then I realized why he'd suddenly stopped.

Right ahead of us was a high wooden fence, easily ten feet tall, topped with barbed wire. The fence boards were rough wood, weathered with age, and where the path ended, I could see a small gap where I assumed a section of the fence opened up.

I'd never seen Cruz look unnerved before, but now it was written all over his face, his eyes wide as his gaze went from me to the fence and then back again. What the fuck is this? he mouthed, and I had the same question. First the cairn, then the trail, then the mausoleum, and now this?

No clue , I mouthed back, curling my fingers around his wrist and tugging him into the dense undergrowth. Branches scratched at me, snagging on my clothes, but I ignored them. When I'd managed to push through enough of the trees and bushes to get us back to where the mausoleum was, I ducked back into the clearing and headed for the path that led to the lake. I could hear Cruz right on my heels, but I didn't stop until I reached the small beach where we'd left the Jet Ski. I crouched down to examine the stone cairn again—or what looked like a cairn. I knew fuck all about them, just that stacks of stones that looked like this were often some kind of burial marker. It made me shiver all over again.

"Get on," Cruz barked, having straddled the Jet Ski while I was studying the stones. Straightening up, I waded into the lake and climbed on, and Cruz made a beeline for the boat where Ava and Micah were waiting.

"See how there's an unobstructed view of the boat from here?" he said, slowing down as we approached the center of the lake. "All the way from the beach to the boat. And from there, you can also see the lake houses from a distance. Someone on that beach could've easily seen us, especially if they had binoculars."

"Oh, fuck," I whispered. He was right. I'd heard him before, but seeing it from our current vantage point…yeah. It made the whole thing a hundred times creepier, especially after the things we'd found since we'd explored the shoreline.

Back in the boat, I avoided explaining things to Ava and Micah until all four of us were safely back on shore, and even then, all I suggested was that we headed to campus. Nowhere was safe right now, but at least on campus there was a semblance of security. I managed to smuggle everyone into the hockey house by using the upcoming Halloween party as a distraction, drawing my teammates into a discussion while Ava, Cruz, and Micah snuck upstairs to my bedroom.

By the time I'd managed to escape my teammates and safely make it upstairs without being followed, the three of them had made themselves at home in my room. Someone had closed the blinds—thank fuck. Cruz was sprawled across my bed on his back, tossing a miniature football into the air and catching it. Micah was seated at my desk, Ava perched on the desk next to him, both of them intent on my laptop screen. When I moved closer, I saw a series of images of stone cairns.

"Did Cruz tell you what we saw?" I began, and both Ava and Micah shook their heads. I shoved Cruz's legs off my bed, making him glare at me, before taking a seat. The two of us filled them in on everything we'd discovered, and by the end of it, both of them were clearly disturbed.

"What now?" Ava said eventually, voicing the question we all wanted to ask but none of us had the answer to.

"Now…" I exchanged glances with Cruz. "We try to find out what's behind that fence. It might not even be anything to do with our situation, but my gut's telling me that some shit's happening back there. In the meantime, we keep acting normal and research everything we can."

"Could we fly drones over the fence?" Micah suggested. It was an idea…but I wasn't sure if it was a good one. Drones could be spotted, even if they were small, and we had no idea what was there. It could be some government place, for all we knew, and the last thing any of us needed was to get into trouble with the law.

"What about the Halloween party? The text you got?" Ava interjected while I was trying to think up a reply for Micah.

"We go. We stay together as much as we can. Even if we can't all stay together, if it's too suspicious or whatever, we stay in pairs. Okay? And we all stay in costume. We don't want to be instantly recognizable. I mean, fuck, I'm not gonna be able to be incognito because I'm the fucking host, but the three of you can. I'll wear something that'll blend in. Masks. Fuck—maybe I'll see if all the hockey team wanna dress the same in masks and some kind of Halloween costume, so we all match. Something that'll make it harder for whoever's watching us to work out who I am."

"Good idea." Ava gave me a small smile. Hopping off the desk, she reached out and slipped her hand into mine, squeezing it. I tugged her gently and her smile widened as she allowed me to pull her toward me. When her legs touched the side of my bed, I tugged again, and she fell into my lap with a huff of laughter. I wrapped my arm around her and dared to press a kiss to the side of her head.

She let me.

And that warmed me all over.

Despite the shit we were facing, maybe something had changed between us today. Maybe I wasn't as alone as I'd thought.