Chapter Ten

CHAPTER 10

Idon't even breathe as the boards continue to creak. Bezi's fingertips dig into the skin on my forearm as a terrified grimace carves its way across her face. I press myself closer to her as we stare up through the boards. Dust from the floor above filters down.

Suddenly, Javier steps on the back of my heel as he shoves past me and takes off in the direction of the lodge. I grab Bezi by the hand and pull her along behind me as I race after him.

"Kyle!" I yell without looking back. "C'mon!"

I sprint down the tunnel, bumping my shoulder on the wall as I flail in the dark. I shove Bezi up the ladder and turn to see Kyle barreling toward me. I scramble up the ladder and Kyle follows. As soon as Kyle clears the hatch, I slam it closed. Kyle stumbles to his feet while Javier and Bezi drag a bunch of chairs and the coffee table over the top of the hatch to keep it shut. I quickly lock the front doors and pull the curtains closed.

"Who was that?" Javier asks as he struggles to catch his breath.

"Are we gonna talk about how you were gonna leave us to die?" Kyle says angrily. "I've never seen anybody run that fast."

"But did you die?" Javier asks.

"Everybody just calm down for a minute!" I say as I try to think straight. "Just wait. Okay. That security camera was smashed and somebody was definitely in the boathouse, right?"

Everyone nods in agreement.

"What is going on?" Bezi asks. "Do you think it was that lady—Ms. Keane?"

"Why would she come back?" I move to the window and peek through the curtains. "And if she's here, that means Porter, Tasha, and Paige won't find her at home. If she wasn't there, they should have come straight back." I have a clear view of the boathouse from the front window of the lodge.

Javier peers out the window beside me. "I don't see anybody."

I try to call Tasha, but I don't have a single bar's worth of reception. Shoving the phone back in my pocket, I look out the window again.

"Maybe it was a wild animal," Bezi offers.

Javier huffs. "Yeah, okay. A raccoon just happens to be standing on top of the hatch. What about the camera? A raccoon did that too?"

"I'm not saying it was a damn raccoon," Bezi says angrily. "I'm just saying. Who would do that? What for?"

A gust of wind blows through the pine trees, making their boughs rock and sway in the fading afternoon light. The front door of the boathouse bounces open as a blustery gale engulfs the structure. My heart pounds against my ribs so hard that it hurts, and my stomach sinks.

"You didn't lock it?" Javier asks.

I glance at him, then back to the boathouse. "I did."

With the door open, I can see that a decommissioned canoe has fallen out of its rack and is resting directly on top of the hatch.

Javier lets the air hiss out from between his teeth. "That explains that," Javier says. "We were running from a canoe. Nice."

"And the camera?" I ask. "And the lock on the boathouse? I know I locked it."

"You sure?" Kyle asks. "I forgot to lock the front gate. It's okay if it slipped your mind."

"No," I say adamantly. "I don't forget to do stuff like that."

Kyle's gaze traces down to the floor.

"Sorry," I say. "I'm not tryna make you feel bad. I'm just saying that I know I locked it."

Bezi tries to get Tasha on the phone, but she doesn't have a signal either.

"We gotta go to the office and use the landline," I say.

Javier's brows push up. "Who is ‘we'? I'm not going anywhere."

"It's almost six," I say. "You're not worried about them?"

"Not really," says Javier. "They're probably on their way back right now."

Bezi crosses her arms over her chest. "I guess Tasha has a soft spot for insensitive jerks. Her last boyfriend was a lot like you. She dropped his sorry ass."

Javier shrugs. "Good thing I'm not her boyfriend, then, huh?"

Bezi and Javier look at each other like they want to fight.

"Stop," I say to both of them. "We're not going to argue. Not right now. I don't have a problem going to the office myself, but Tasha has a cell phone. Things might work on my end but they probably won't work on hers." There aren't any other choices, and as I weigh my options, I can see the light fading from the sky. "We gotta go get them."

"Again," Javier says. "Who is ‘we'?"

I make sure my sneakers are knotted and I pull my hair up into a puff on top of my head. "Go. Or stay. I don't care what you do. I'm going to take a flashlight and go find them."

"I'm coming too," Bezi says.

Kyle sighs. "I guess I'm going too."

Javier glares at us. "You're just gonna leave me here? Alone?"

"Yeah," I say without hesitation.

He grumbles something I can't make out, then tilts his head and clenches his jaw. "Fine. We'll all go together."

Suddenly, my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I let out a little squeal as I scramble to pull it out. I breathe a sigh of relief as Tasha's name flashes across the screen.

I hit the green button and press the phone to my ear. "Tasha! Oh my god, where are you? I've been tryna call you, but the signal—"

Static garbles the line, and Tasha's voice breaks through in strangled yelps.

"Charity! . . . out there! I can't . . . please!"

Bezi grips my arm. "Where is she? What's happening?"

A fear unlike anything I've ever felt in my entire three years of working at Camp Mirror Lake, or my lifetime of horror-movie watching, grips my chest like a vise, squeezing it until I can barely breathe. I hold the phone away from my ear so that Bezi can hear what I'm hearing.

"Charity!" Tasha screams. ". . . gotta get away! . . . please . . ."

My breath hitches in my chest as I scream into the phone. "Tasha! Where are you? Tell me where you are!"

She's panting like she's running. Her ragged breaths tear through the line and embed themselves in my brain. "Help me!" she sobs. "Help . . . me . . ."

The line suddenly goes dead as the signal drops and a message flashes across the screen—"call failed." I stare at the phone in my hand like I'm not even holding it, like this isn't real.

"Oh my god," Bezi says in a whisper, her eyes brimming with tears. "She's out there."

"And something—something is happening." A knot claws its way up my throat. Her screams and sobs stick in my head. "We—we gotta go get her. Now."

I grab the extra flashlights we keep in the lodge closet and toss one to Javier, one to Kyle, one to Bezi. I turn mine on and off to make sure it works, then unlock the front door of the lodge. The early-evening sun slants through the trees, casting a hazy orange glow all around. The pine trees sway in the wind, and Mirror Lake watches silently.

"Do we even know where to go?" Javier asks.

"Porter said Ms. Keane's house was no more than two miles past mile marker sixty-eight," I say. "I know how to get out to that road, but I don't know if it's the same way Porter went. He knows the trail system better than me, but I think we should stick to the main road so we don't get lost."

"Should we drive?" Bezi asks. "We can take my car."

"We have to take the trail until we get to the main road," I say. "The car won't work back there."

Bezi takes a deep, wavering breath as she looks up at the sky. "We're going to be out there in the dark."

I grasp her hand. "Tasha is out there." I try to push away the sounds of her terrified screams and the thoughts of what might have caused her to sound that way. "We stay together. We move fast. No side trips. We go to the last place we know Tasha was headed; then we regroup and decide what to do from there. Agreed?"

Bezi, Kyle, and even Javier nod.

The path that twists around behind the supply shed isn't maintained as well as the other paths that snake through Camp Mirror Lake. It's overgrown with spider grass, and the gravel is heaped in uneven treads. Mr. Lamont mentioned that it used to extend all the way to Route 710 but that access was abandoned for the main entrance years ago.

The trees press in on us from either side of the trail, and the darkness descends like a shade being drawn across the sky. Kyle clicks on his flashlight. I save the battery on mine, figuring we'll need it for the walk back. The trail continues through the trees, and while a tall gate bars our path, I can see that it continues into a thickly wooded area. A rusted chain is looped through the gate, and it's secured with a large, equally rusted padlock. I yank on it, and bits of orange metal flake off on my palm.

"Great," Javier says. "A little tetanus on the way to meet a shotgun-wielding recluse. This was such a good idea, Charity."

I ignore Javier and push on the gate. The chain is only loosely securing the entrance, and by pushing hard, a gap opens, and we slip through.

"Come on," I say, gesturing for Bezi to go through.

She squeezes in and pops out the other side, then holds the gate open so I can slip through after her. We pry the gate apart for Javier and for Kyle, and when we're all through, I survey the path ahead. The dark is almost complete now, and long shadows lean across the uneven pathway. Snaps and clicks sound from the surrounding forest. The feeling of being watched from the deepening shadows stokes a sense of panic in me. I feel like I can't quite catch my breath or make my heart slow down. I have to beat back the fear over and over again as we push forward.

"This was such a bad idea," Javier whines as he steps on the back of my heel.

I round on him. "I know we said we were gonna stick together, but damn. Can you watch my foot?"

"I'm scared," he says, his voice cracking. "There are bears and shit out here, Charity. You think that's what Tasha was talking about?"

I don't answer him. All I want to do is find Tasha, and if I think too long about what was making her sound that way on the phone, I might lose my nerve. I turn back around and, keeping a firm grip on Bezi's hand, lead us to the end of the path that intersects Route 710 in what I guess is about the length of a couple of city blocks. The paved road is crumbling, and vining foliage runs along the cracks. It doesn't look like it's being maintained at all.

"This way leads to the next mile marker," I say, gesturing to the right.

"Two miles in the dark?" Javier asks. "No streetlights. Nothing. Just us and these weak-ass flashlights?"

"Maybe we'll run into Tasha or the others on the way there," Kyle offers.

I hope so. The less time we have to spend out here the better.

"We should go back," Javier says. "They never should've come out here in the first place."

All the frustration and fear that has been building in me spills out. "Stay or go! I don't care! Maybe you don't care about anybody but yourself, but my friends are out there, so get your shit together or get out of my face."

Javier shrinks away from me. "Damn," he says. "Sorry."

Kyle shines his light down the road. The dark swallows the cone of pale yellow light like a giant, gaping mouth. I still myself, willing my heart to find a pace that doesn't feel like I've had ten energy drinks. Outside the perimeter of the camp, without the comforts of my cabin or the routine of the nightly game, I feel painfully exposed. Tasha's frantic, broken words stick in my head. I push on with Bezi at my heel and Kyle and Javier trailing behind. I have to find my friends.

Thirty-five minutes later, the light from Kyle's flashlight illuminates mile marker seventy.

"Look for a driveway or something," I say, switching on my flashlight. The beam barely puts a dent in the darkness surrounding us, but I sweep it along the side of the main road, looking for any indication that Ms. Keane's residence is somewhere nearby.

"Over here," Javier says after a few minutes.

He's got his light on and pointed at a splintered wooden post with the numbers 5980 scrawled on the side in reflective white paint. It looks like a mailbox was affixed to the top at some point, but it's nowhere to be seen. Beyond it are two tracks that look like they'd line up with car tires, but to call it a driveway would be a stretch. It's just the remnant of an unpaved road snaking into the forest. Stuck in the ground is a makeshift wooden sign with the words no trespassing drawn on in red spray paint.

"You gotta be kidding me," Bezi says. "This is it? I don't even see a house."

"It's probably way back in the trees," I say as I try to peer through the tree cover.

Kyle points his light in the direction of the tracks, and still I see nothing. I grip my own flashlight and walk onto the road. Bezi lays her hand against my back as she follows me up the drive. Kyle and Javier stay close behind.

No trespassing signs line the drive on both sides, a repeated warning that begs me not to ignore it. After several minutes of trudging up the narrow drive, we see a muted light coming from a window on the upper floor of a house situated in a thick grove of towering pines. Javier stops dead in his tracks, his flashlight pointed at the ground.

"Oh my god, come on!" I say angrily. "You are not gonna—"

"Look," Javier whispers.

The beam from his flashlight is hovering over something on the ground. I crouch down and poke at it. It's caked in mud, but the bubble-gum-pink fabric underneath is unmistakable—it's Tasha's hair tie.

I snatch it up. "She was here," I say. "Good. That means this lady—Ms. Keane—probably saw her and can tell us how long ago she left."

"She probably got turned around in the dark," Kyle says.

"But she's with Porter," Javier says. "He doesn't really get turned around out here."

I move toward the house, and Kyle steps into my path.

I gaze up at him. "What is it?"

"I just—Something isn't right. I don't like this." Fear is plastered across his face like a mask.

I gently touch his arm. "We gotta find them. As soon as we talk to this lady, we can go."

He sighs, gives me a quick nod, and we continue on to the house.

The front yard is littered with trash, plastic pink flamingos stuck in the ground. Some of their legs and beaks are missing. Several burned-out vehicles are scattered across the front of the property. Even in the dark, I can see the splintering wood and curling paint on the main house. There are gaps in the siding and the roof is partially covered with a big blue tarp held in place by bungee cords and broken cinder blocks. The screens are caked with dirt, and from the sound of it, there is a colony of cats living under the dilapidated front porch.

"You seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre?" Javier whispers.

"This is not the time," Bezi says through clenched teeth. "Shut up."

I can't see Javier's face in the dark, but I can almost feel him roll his eyes.

I climb the front steps, praying that they won't collapse under me, and ring the bell. After a few moments and no answer, I knock. From inside, there's a muffled shuffle.

Footsteps.

I hold my breath and try to rehearse what I'm going to say.

"Remember me? You threatened me with a shotgun, but it's fine. I'm looking for my friends."

The door creaks open just enough for someone on the other side to peer out at me.

"Who's there?" she asks.

There's no mistaking the voice. It's the same one that was yelling at me the previous morning.

"Ms. Keane," I say in my most polite, sickly-sweet voice. "Ms. Keane, my name is Charity. I'm so sorry to bother you, but—"

"Didn't you see the signs?" she asks, pulling the door open a little more. Her tone mirrors my own—very sweet and very fake. It immediately sets something off in my gut. It's almost like she's mocking me.

"The trespassing signs?" I ask. "I'm sorry. I saw them, but I'm looking for my friends, and I know they came this way."

"Do you now?" She pulls the door all the way open but keeps her right hand behind the door itself. "And how do you know that? I haven't seen anybody."

"You didn't see anyone?" I ask. Tasha's hair tie is in my pocket. She was here. "You're sure? Please, Ms. Keane. I know what happened with you at the camp was probably just a misunderstanding." I hate placating her this way, but it feels like it's my only hope of getting any information out of her. "Please. We could really use your help."

There's a soft click, and before I can move away from the door, Ms. Keane levels her shotgun at my head. I stare down the barrel, and there's a noise from over my shoulder, a gasp as Bezi and the others register what I'm seeing.

"Get in here," Ms. Keane says.

My body begins to tremble so violently, I have to grab hold of the doorframe to keep myself from collapsing. The rush of blood in my ears blurs the noises around me.

"Now," she says. She glances past me. "You too. Get in here."

I walk on unsteady legs into the living room of Ms. Keane's house. It smells like dust and cat urine. Every square inch of the place is covered in trash. Framed pictures of Jesus hang crooked on the walls, and dozens of cats prance around like they own the place. Bezi and Javier follow me inside. I wait for Kyle to follow, but as I glance back, I realize he's not there. Ms. Keane slams the door shut and waves the shotgun around in front of me. I wince every time the barrel whizzes past my face.

"Can't leave well enough alone," Ms. Keane mumbles. "Sit down."

No one moves.

She pumps the shotgun once and levels it at me again. We all sit on a musty cat-hair-covered couch as she paces in front of us.

"Lemonade?" she asks.

"Wha—what?" Javier stammers.

"Lem-on-ade," she repeats, emphasizing every syllable. "Thirsty?"

"I—No," I say.

I don't think even the threat of catching a bullet could get me to drink or eat anything from inside this house. Ms. Keane turns her back to us and lets the gun rest on her hip but keeps her finger close to the trigger.

"Is she seriously offering us drinks?" Bezi whispers against my ear.

Ms. Keane spins around, and I wince as she points the firearm at us again. "It's the polite thing to do when you have guests, you know. Offer food, drinks. I'm a little rusty. Don't have many visitors but I have some lemonade."

Javier stifles a gag. "I think we're good."

"Ah well." Ms. Keane sighs as she sits down in a rocking chair directly across from us. She rests the butt of the gun on the floor. "You're the kids from the camp." She sucks her teeth. Her ragged salt-and-pepper hair is hanging around her face like a shroud, but her eyes, black as coal, stand out. "I don't like it. Not one little bit. It's not the way things should be."

"I don't know what you mean, but I want to," I say. I try sucking up to her again. "I'm looking for my friends. They came out here to talk to you about the camp, about its history. We really want to understand, and they figured you'd be the best person to ask."

Her beady eyes narrow and her mouth turns down. "Its history?" Her unkempt brows push up. "What do you know about it? Can't be too much or you wouldn't be here."

I try to judge how quickly I can get to the door, but Ms. Keane is positioned almost directly between it and us.

"Well, that's what my friends came here to find out," I say as I fight to keep my voice steady. "I heard what you said, Ms. Keane. You said we should be ashamed of ourselves, that if we knew what you know, it might mean something. What did you mean by that?"

Ms. Keane rocks back and looks up at the ceiling but keeps her fingers curled around the barrel of the shotgun. "That camp is an abomination. Distasteful if you ask me." She raises her face to the ceiling again.

"How?" I ask. "We don't know what you mean." I glance at Javier, who looks down into his lap.

Bezi slides her hand onto my leg and squeezes it. Hard. Her eyes are wide, and I realize she's trying to get me to look at something in her line of sight. I follow her gaze to a window at the front of the house. Kyle's shadowy silhouette is hovering behind the glass. He's wildly gesturing to the side of the house, but I can't make out what he's trying to tell me. Ms. Keane raises her head and I immediately lower my gaze to the floor.

"Did you know that this place is special?" she asks. Her voice has a hollow, faraway tone, like she's completely disconnected from the fact that she's holding us hostage. "It's old. Used to be a glacier lying over the whole place. That's why you have all these lakes. After the ice melted, the ground opened up like a bunch of starving mouths." She pauses for a moment before continuing. "Don't think they were out here when the land was all ice and snow, but the land was here. Sleeping under the ice."

I glance at Bezi, who has a look of utter confusion plastered across her face.

"Who is ‘they'?" I ask.

Ms. Keane stares at me for a moment without speaking. I feel my stomach drop. I wonder if I've made a mistake by asking questions, but she slips back into her rambling.

"They didn't used to have a name at all, I don't think." She pushes a loose strand of her greasy hair behind her ear. "Now they're owls."

Javier makes a small grunt, and Ms. Keane shifts the gun from one hand to the other and back again.

"Ever wonder how people come to power?" she asks in a way that tells me she doesn't expect me to answer. "Seems so random sometimes, doesn't it? How does a man like that become president? How does a person like that accumulate so much wealth? How does it all just seem to fall in place for some folks? Especially the ones who don't deserve it." She barks out a sickly sounding laugh, the phlegm snapping in the back of her throat like a firecracker. "No coincidences there, honey. Just knowledge of things regular everyday folk don't have."

"What's that mean?" Bezi asks. "What kind of knowledge?"

Ms. Keane coughs into her curled fist and wipes whatever came out across the front of her dress. "There are things in this world that aren't meant for everybody. These people, they knew that. Knew they couldn't just have their secrets blowing in the wind." She sighs but keeps her finger on the trigger of the shotgun. "The words, the things they do, let them be and do whatever they want. Politicians, movie stars, richest people in the world—they all get what they want because they're willing to do whatever it takes. Even if that means spilling a little blood."

My heart nearly stops. Bezi's leg trembles against mine, and I put my hand on her knee.

"An owl as big as a man roams these woods," Ms. Keane says. "Feathers white as a fresh snow, eyes like black glass." She laughs. "Those people out there, they know about it. They named their whole order after it. Ran all their business out of that big lodge out past the grove. They know about this place, this land, the things it can give you if you're willing to feed it. Nobody would ever believe it." She looks me dead in the face. "But they should."

"Does that have something to do with the campers who died out here back in the seventies?" I ask, trying to keep her talking. "We thought maybe you knew something about that summer camp that used to be out here." Keep her talking. Keep her attention on something other than shooting us.

Ms. Keane smiles. "What happened to them was a misstep. But the others . . . well, the owl got them."

"Others," Bezi whispers.

Ms. Keane smiles, but there is nothing but malice behind her eyes.

"The owl," I say. "What's that?"

Ms. Keane leans forward in her chair. She grins, and her mouth is like a void as the thin lips pull back over her teeth. "Oh, honey. You're going to die out here, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

I clench my jaw and grip Bezi's knee. I think if I rush Ms. Keane, she'll shoot me, but maybe it'll give Bezi and Javier a chance to get away.

Ms. Keane readjusts the gun on her lap, and I steal a quick glance at the window. Kyle isn't there anymore. My heart ticks up as Ms. Keane runs her withered finger over the barrel of the gun.

"Please," I say as panic grips me. "We just want to find our friends. If you say you haven't seen them, we believe you."

Javier nods enthusiastically.

"And we can just leave you alone," Bezi says. "We never meant to bother you."

"Well, you did," Ms. Keane says. "And I'm sorry, honey, but I can't let that go unpunished."

I try to slow my breathing. I'm going to grab the lamp that's perched on the table next to me. The shade is dusty and the bulb flickers on and off, but the base looks solid, like it's made of brass or something. If I can get close enough to Ms. Keane, I might be able to knock her out or at least incapacitate her with it.

"If only they had been more open," Ms. Keane says. "They could have shared what they knew and then maybe things wouldn't have gone so terribly wrong." She huffs. "But now you're here. So what am I supposed to do?"

Every muscle in my body tenses as she rambles. I move my elbow to the armrest, trying to shorten the distance between my hand and the lamp. Ms. Keane becomes more and more agitated as the seconds tick by. She pulls at her dress with one hand while gripping the gun with the other.

"Nobody listens!" she snaps. "They all want power, but they don't know what to do with it. They think they're better than us. Please."

From the rear of the house, there's a calamitous crash. I jump up, and Ms. Keane turns to look into the kitchen. I grab the lamp, feel its weight in my hand. Half the room is swallowed by the dark as I yank the cord from the wall. I take two steps forward, raise the lamp, and bring it down on top of Ms. Keane's head, where it lands with a sickening crack.

The shade pops off the lamp and skids across the floor as Ms. Keane lets out a pained gasp and staggers forward. I raise the lamp again and bring it down, but she turns her body so that I only manage to catch her shoulder. She drops her gun and howls in pain. I throw the lamp at her as hard as I can and turn just in time to see Javier sprinting out the front door. I grab Bezi and pull her toward the door just as Ms. Keane finds her shotgun on the floor. She swings it up, cursing and sputtering, a line of blood-tinged spittle hanging from her bottom lip. Her shoulder is sloped in a way that tells me it's either broken or dislocated. She struggles to get the gun under her control.

We're out the front door and sprinting down the drive in a blink. Javier stumbles but doesn't let himself fall as he runs ahead of us. We're halfway down the drive when a gunshot splits the air like a bolt of lightning. I throw myself face-first into the dirt, and Bezi falls beside me. A sharp pain rockets through my knee as it strikes the ground. Another shot rings out and splinters a tree just off the driveway to our right.

"She's shooting at us!" Javier screams. "Get up! Go!"

We scramble to our feet and keep running. I ignore the pain in my knee. I keep moving even though it feels like I'm trudging through quicksand. As we get to the crest in the driveway, I slide to a grinding halt.

A tall figure stands at the bottom of the drive near the road.

Another gunshot ricochets through the trees.

The figure stalks toward us, and I panic. We can't go back. We can't go forward. I step toward the trees as Javier lights the figure up with his flashlight and, in a rush of relief, I realize it's Kyle.

"Come on!" he yells. "We gotta get out of here!"

I've never been much of an athlete. I passed gym with a C-plus, but I run the entire two miles back to the rear entrance of the camp without stopping. I ignore the ache in my calves and the burning in my lungs. Each time Bezi tries to stop to catch her breath, I pull her forward. We don't have time to be winded or tired.

At the rear gate, we squeeze through the opening as quickly as we can. As soon as we're safely inside the fence, I race toward the office. I want to call the sheriff, but a part of me feels like he won't even care. Still, I have to get ahold of somebody. Anybody. We need help.

"The office!" I say, gasping. "We gotta call—"

I'm moving past the Western Lodge when something catches my eye. Some subtle movement I realize is coming from inside the lodge itself. I come to a full stop for the first time since we left Ms. Keane's property. The lodge doors are sitting wide open. The fluorescent lights in the kitchen are on, and they're casting a cold glow throughout the main hall. Standing in front of the unlit fireplace is a person.

Bezi is panting beside me when Kyle and Javier notice the figure too. I nearly stop breathing as a sudden chill runs up my back and settles in the nape of my neck. I take a step toward the open doors, blinking, unable to fully comprehend what I'm seeing.

The stooped figure is standing with their back to me. They are barefoot, shirtless, and they have their arms wrapped around their own waist as if they're trying to hold themselves together. Their skin is caked with mud and something else—something dark smeared across their arms and the naked skin of their back.

I take the steps slowly, one at a time, listening to the figure as ragged breaths tear out of them. From the porch, I peer in at the person.

"H-hello?" I call out. I immediately kick myself. Paige would tell me that my Black ass has no business calling out in the dark to a stranger. I'm sure that's against the rules.

They turn to face me and I let out a strangled yelp as I realize this is no stranger. I know this person.