Authors: Brieanna Robertson
“All right, maggots,” he started. “Let’s get a few things straight here. I’m not your average, run of the mill, walk all over me, pushover counselor, got it? I don’t tolerate whining. I don’t tolerate crying, and I don’t tolerate disobedience. When I say jump, I want to hear ‘how high?’ When I say go all the way, I want to hear you say ‘yes, sir!’”
“Um… Excuse me…
Sir
?” The large one interrupted, his voice hinting at mockery. “When you say, ‘go all the way’ I’m personally going to be heading for the hills because I’m pretty sure that goes against several sexual harassment laws. Besides, no offense, but I just don’t swing that way.”
Laughter erupted and Logan felt anger boil up inside of him. Mainly because the kid had actually made his face get hot, which meant he was blushing. That was humiliating. “Not sexually, you idiot!” he snapped. “I said no talking!” He shot the bedraggled group a sinister scowl, but was not met with the reaction he hoped for. He’d hoped they’d shrink back, maybe even tremble a little. Instead, they just rolled their eyes and stared at him like he’d grown another head. “All right, get to your bunks on the double!” he commanded.
The group turned, muttering under their breath, and trudged off toward their designated cabin.
“Four to a cabin!” Logan barked. “Girls and boys separate.”
The blonde four-eyes turned and looked at him with a confused expression. “We were going to sleep the five of us to a cabin,” he stated. “We come as a package.”
“Well not anymore you don’t. Four to a cabin. Girls and boys separate. Those are the rules.”
“But Counselor Logan,” Pigtails interrupted. “Miss Willow has never cared before. She trusts us. She just lets one of us pull in a cot—”
“Am I hearing backtalk?” he snapped. “You heard what I said. Do as you’re told!”
Darien snorted and shook his head. “Whatever, dude.” He pushed open the cabin door and motioned his friends inside. The blonde boy looked confused for a moment, but Darien ushered him in also.
“What did I just say—”
“You can cram it,” Darien replied, looking him straight in the eye. “I have to take this macho man crap from my dad. I don’t have to take it from you. We’ve been here longer than you have. All five of us always stick together. That’s the way it’s always been.”
Logan folded his arms and glowered. “Well, things are going to be different this year!”
Darien rolled his eyes. “Screw you.” He went inside and shut the door.
Logan stared at the closed door in bafflement for a minute, then scowled and went to push it back open. He wasn’t going to take lip from a seventeen-year-old.
The door wouldn’t budge. He pounded on it, yelled and threatened for a few seconds, but all remained silent as the dead inside, and the door didn’t move one inch. Finally, Logan swore and just gave up. He simmered silently on his way back to his cabin. Who did these kids think they were? Well, they could be assured that their antics were not going to work for long. If he was stuck there for the rest of the summer, he sure wasn’t going to be stuck there with a bunch of snotty wimps. Maybe Willow let them run all over her and do whatever they wanted, but not him. He’d show them who was boss…
* * * *
“Who let that guy in here?” Colt asked as he flung his duffle bag down onto a bottom bunk.
“He was like Darth Vader,” Doug murmured. “I almost peed myself.”
Darien rolled his eyes. “He wasn’t like Darth Vader, Dougie, or any other famous villain for that matter. He’s just an idiot who’s stuck on himself.” He moved the chair they’d used to barricade the door out of the way.
“Why would Miss Willow even hire him?” Lucy asked as she climbed onto a top bunk. “I can’t believe he actually tried to separate us. We’ve been coming here for years together. We
always
share a cabin.”
“For real,” Colt piped in. “We’ve paid our dues. It’s nice to be the upper classmen who get leniency and privileges. The little kids still have to be same sex bunks.”
“Yeah, that was me last year,” Doug put in. He shook his head. “I had to sleep with these kids who actually liked
Magic, the Gathering.
All they did was play it 24-7. I almost went insane.”
Darien chuckled and sat down on his bed. He was the oldest at seventeen. Aki, Lucy and Colt were behind him by one year. Doug was the youngest, having just turned fourteen, but he’d bonded with the others the year before and they all stuck together like a team. Miss Willow always went easy on the older kids if they proved they were trustworthy. He and his friends had been running the place for years. He wasn’t about to let some half-cracked nut-job counselor ruin that. This was his last year of doing the only thing he really enjoyed. He wasn’t about to take orders from some idiot who looked like he’d just stepped off of a
GQ
magazine and acted like he thought he was a drill sergeant. Forget that.
“I have a feeling this summer is going to suck,” Aki grumbled suddenly.
Darien looked over at her and frowned. “Screw that. I’m not letting that dude mess with something we love.”
Aki looked up at him from where she’d been rifling through her backpack. She frowned. “I wasn’t talking about Counselor Logan.”
Darien blinked. “What were you talking about?”
“I forgot my inhaler.”
“That
does
suck,” Lucy commented.
“You can always go to the nurse, Aki,” Colt said.
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “What, every five minutes? Do you even know how much pollen there is this year? I’m going to be wheezing my head off all summer long.” She flung her backpack down. “Great.”
Darien smirked and set to unpacking his stuff. Orientation should be interesting, to say the least. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why Miss Willow had hired such a dork to be their counselor. It made absolutely no sense.
Chapter Three
There weren’t enough swear words in the English language to satisfy Logan as he stared at the growing lake in the middle of his cabin. It had started raining right before the orientation dinner, and when he’d returned from the ridiculous affair, his cabin had been waterlogged. There was an enormous leak in his roof and, no matter how many buckets he tried to put underneath it, they would just fill up. It didn’t help that the rain was relentless. It also didn’t make him happy to see that the place where the leak was just happened to be right over his bed… And he definitely wasn’t pleased with the fact that he had already made his bed and set everything up on it before he’d gone to dinner.
Dinner had been bad enough. Everyone had ignored him, which he was actually kind of okay with. There wasn’t really anyone he wanted to talk to anyway, being as they were all complete freaks. He would have liked some one on one time with Willow, but she’d avoided him like the plague. He couldn’t really grasp onto that. Every other woman he’d tried to hit on or pick up had fallen for his charm hook, line, and sinker. If he’d had a notch post, it would have been full. He had no idea what Willow’s problem was. Something was wrong with her. That was the only reasonable explanation.
As Logan flung his soaking sleeping bag down and swore again, he ran his fingers through his hair, yanked on a coat and stormed out into the soggy darkness of the night. This was ridiculous. He was absolutely
not
going to sleep in a leaking cabin.
He tramped through the mud until he got to Willow’s cabin, where the light was still on. He pounded on the door and stuffed his hands into his pockets, shivering. He was wet, cold and pissed off. This was not how he’d wanted to start out his summer.
Willow opened the door and immediately scowled at him. “What do you want?” she snapped.
He glanced past her into the warm room and noticed a beautiful, blazing fire going in a hearth. His eyes widened. “You get a fireplace?” he cried. “What the crap?”
She frowned. “I own the camp. I can have whatever I want.” She folded her arms. “What’s the problem?”
He met her eyes and frowned. “My cabin is freaking floating away. You put me in a faulty cabin with an enormous leak in the roof that dumped water all over my bed.”
She gave him a level stare for a few minutes, then shrugged her slender shoulders. “And? What do you want me to do about it?”
He blinked and snorted. “Well, giving me another cabin might be a nice start.”
She shook her head. “That’s all we have. Sorry.” She moved back inside and made to close the door.
“Hey! Wait a second!” he cried. He stepped up and placed his hand on the door, keeping her from closing it. “Give me a break, woman! My cabin is flooded and my sleeping bag is soaking wet!
I
sure don’t have a fireplace, and now I don’t have anywhere to sleep! What do you suggest I do? Sleep in the cafeteria?”
She still looked relatively unabashed. Her beautiful green eyes were full of apathy. “Frankly, I don’t care what you do, Mr. Savage. You’re a big boy, remember? I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” She pushed him backwards and grabbed the handle of the door. “Goodnight.” The door shut, ending the conversation.
Logan stared at the closed door for a second, having difficulty processing the fact that she apparently really didn’t care what happened to him. Die of pneumonia? Sure, no skin off her nose. He turned with a snarl and stormed back to his cabin. Relinquishing to the fact that he was just going to have to deal, he sucked it up, grabbed his damp pillow, put on two extra shirts and curled into a ball underneath his coat in the corner. He’d been camping out in the rain before. He was a man. He could handle it. No need to be a wuss. A little cold and wet never hurt anybody. It built character. At least that was what his dad had always told him when he’d made him sleep in the garage during winter. He’d survived that. He’d survive this. He always survived. It was what he was good at.
* * * *
Obnoxious, loud music was what yanked Darien out of his sleep that morning. He raised his head with a frown and looked toward the door.
“What
is
that?” Colt grumbled from the bottom bunk. “Is that
Revelie?”
Darien’s frown deepened. It
was Revelie.
“What time is it?” Aki’s voice slurred.
Darien rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and glanced down at his watch. “Six A.M.”
“Come on maggots!” an abrasively magnified voice shouted. “Get your sorry butts out of bed and out here on the double!”
“What the ever-loving crap?” Colt muttered.
Darien heaved a sigh and rolled over, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. He climbed down and went to the window, peering out the curtain. “What the—?” Their stupid counselor was standing out there in army fatigues with a megaphone. “This guy is seriously unbalanced.”
“What is it?” Lucy prodded.
Darien rolled his eyes and went to the door. He pulled it open and shivered. It was foggy from the rain and it chilled him immediately being as he was only in his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. “Dude, what is the matter with you?” he asked, recoiling from the icy blast of air that attacked his bare skin.
“You have five minutes to get your butts dressed and out here. There isn’t a moment to lose.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Darien prodded. “We’re not in the frickin’ army, dude.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “I’m your counselor. What I say goes. This isn’t a beach resort. No sleeping in till ten A.M. Now get ready! I’m not going to stick around and wait for you!”
“What are we even doing?”
Logan stabbed his finger towards the cabin. “Get dressed! Now!”
Darien rolled his eyes and went back into the cabin, slamming the door. “I swear, that guy needs help,” he grumbled.
“What’s going on?” Aki asked.
“Just get dressed before he gives himself a stroke.” Darien rummaged through his bag and pulled out a long-sleeved shirt and some jeans while the others moseyed around in an attempt to wake up and get ready. When everyone was semi-prepared, they staggered out of the cabin and stood in a pod before their counselor, who had his arms folded and looked even more pissed than before.
“You’re late,” he snarled.
“Deal with it,” Darien bit out between clenched teeth. He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and hunched his shoulders, still fighting off the chill of the morning.
“Counselor Logan?” Lucy’s voice piped up. “Excuse me, but what are we doing,” she yawned, “exactly?”
He went over to the side of the cabin and grabbed a rifle that was leaning against it. “We’re going hunting,” he stated. “Follow me.”
Doug blinked. “Hunting? For trolls?”
Logan spun and fixed him with a fierce look. “No, not for trolls!”
He frowned. “Well, for what then?”
“Deer, of course. How much of a stud are you going to look like if you come into camp with a big buck? Guaranteed, no one will ever call you four eyes again. Now, come on.” He motioned them to follow and he started off towards the forest.
Darien glanced at Aki. She was pale. “He’s not serious, is he?” she whispered. “We’re not really going to kill deer, are we?”
Colt snorted. “Of course not, Aki. We’ve never shot anything ever at this camp. I bet it’s just so we can learn a useful skill. You know, like role-playing. We pretend we’re going hunting so that we can learn how to be stealthy and good trackers.” He shrugged. “You know, in case you ever need to beat off a troll.”
Doug’s eyes widened in understanding. “Ohhhh, okay that makes sense.”
Everyone seemed to share the general consensus and marched after their counselor, chatting happily. He let them until they got deeper into the woods, where he promptly shushed them all and started to sneak around like a CIA spy.