First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (18 page)

“There’s bears,” Gabriel said, picking up his head, rolling it on the headrest and partially opening his eyes. “And coyotes.”

“There’s no coyotes,” North said.

“It’s fucking
Hunting
Island. What do you think they hunt around here? Look it up on Google.”

North squinted at the road he was following, and then at the map of the campgrounds. “Don’t look it up on Google, Baby.”

I was sure he was just saying that so I wouldn’t be afraid to camp. Secretly, I wondered if we could safely see bears this week without getting hurt.

He passed the map to Silas as he continued down the road. We took a few turns we assumed we needed to take, but he hesitated at a five-way intersection. There were signs, but the paint had faded and were hard to read.

North scratched his head and glared at the faded signs. “The map doesn’t show this kind of intersection. We were supposed to hit a three-way split. Did they add a couple roads since the map was made? Which way?”

Silas looked at the map and said, “He wrote instructions. We’re going the right way. This says head north for two more signposts and then east.”

“Great,” North said and leaned forward, checking the sky. “And it’s overcast. So which way is North?”

I pointed a finger straight ahead, between North and Silas, to the road in front of us. 

Silas and North turned and stared at me, blinking.

I stared back, my eyebrows arching up. Wasn’t it obvious?

As a joke, I aimed my pointer finger at North’s face, then grinned and pointed back at the road.

“She’s fucking with us,” North said.

“No, I’m not,” I said. I jabbed my finger toward the road ahead of us. “That’s north.”

North grumbled. “We’ve been twisting around on roads surrounded by trees. There’s no sign of the ocean, and there’s no sun in the sky because of it being overcast. How the hell would you know?”

“The ocean is that way,” I said, pointing east, down the crossroad. I return my finger to aim ahead of us. “That’s North.”

“I’d listen to her,” Luke said. “It’s crazy. She’s got this wicked sense of direction. She can point it out in the dark. I’ve seen her do it.”

“Someone find a compass,” North said, twisting in his seat. “I want to see this.”

Gabriel pulled out his phone and punched at something on the screen. “I’m not getting a signal, so I can’t download the app. My compass is in the pack in the back.”

“I’ve got the app,” Silas said. “I might have just enough signal.” He held up his phone, showing a compass. The needle spun at first but came to point in the direction I had picked out. “She’s right.”

“Son of a bitch,” North said. He smacked at the steering wheel before driving forward. He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “How’d you know?”

“I just feel it. I always know where North is,” I said, meaning it literally but blushed, realizing what I’d said could have a double-meaning.

North glanced back at me, smirked and shook his head.

As we drove on, I noticed sites were marked off with spikes in the ground, each one numbered. North soon found our camping space. He parked in front of the flat patch of grass designated for parking.

I pushed at Luke to let me out. We’d been riding for forever and I was anxious to get out into the fresh air and stretch. I wanted to get all my stuff out and set up everything so I would be ready to have fun with Kota and the others. And then I wanted to find a beach. Maybe I could get Kota alone by asking to walk around and explore.

When everything was out of the Jeep, North planted his hands on his hips. “Should we wait for Kota? He’ll want to organize everything.”

“Sang,” Gabriel said, picking up the pink bag that held the tent components. “Do you want to set up your own tent? You should probably try it out. Give you some practice living in the wild.”

“I can?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s your first camping trip with us. You know what that means?”

I shook my head, my hand drifting up until my finger was hovering over my lower lip, pinching it to my teeth.

He reached over to me, gently patting my hand away from my mouth. “Means you’ve got to go rustic,” he said. “You’re with us now. This is initiation. Our first time out, we spent the night in the tents by ourselves. It’s like a tradition.”

I glanced at Luke. Luke perked up and nodded. “Yeah, Sang. Rite of passage. We all did it. One night all by yourself.”

My heart fell. I had to sleep by myself? That was horrible. I had hoped to spend the nights with them all. This camping trip wasn’t going to be fun after all.

But then I thought of what they’d said: Rite of passage. They all did it. If that’s what it took to be part of the group, I had to do it.

I swallowed back my protest. I held out my hands for the tent bag. “Okay,” I said, trying to sound confident. Maybe I would only have to sleep in the tent? Hopefully, I got to spend the rest of the time with them.

Gabriel smiled, handing off my tent. “It’s light enough. You can carry it. Part of the fun is doing this yourself.”

The tent wasn’t heavy—not much heavier than my book bag filled with textbooks. “Where do I set up?” I asked.

Gabriel glanced around and then pointed toward the west wall of trees surrounding the campsite. “Follow me.”

Luke and I followed Gabriel until we crossed through a thin line of trees.

We ended up at another space where there was a small fire pit, a flat section for a tent, and a picnic table within a small area. I noticed another spike with a different number on it by the road. “Is this another site? Are we supposed to use it?”

“We’ve got this one and the one on the other side,” Gabriel said. “They give us plenty of room to stretch out, but we all usually just pile onto the one site.” Gabriel stopped at a leveled section of ground. “You can set up here. It’s close enough to your fire pit. You might not freeze tonight.”

I dropped my tent on the ground. “Can I light a fire?”

“If you can light one, you can light one,” Gabriel said. “I’ll give you two sticks to rub together. Technically I’m not supposed to help.”

“Aw,” Luke said, grinning. He sat down on the picnic table bench, putting his elbows behind him to lean back on the table as he watched. “You’re going to find sticks for her? I had to find my own.”

“It’s these modern times,” Gabriel said with a wink. “Have to do everything for these kids.”

“I think I can find sticks,” I said. At least they could hang out while I was trying to figure it out. “Can you at least tell me what to do? Or do I have to get my iPad and read the survival stuff.”

“We’ll help you with stuff you don’t know,” Luke said.

I started opening the tent bag—the fabric was pink.

As I pulled it out of the bag, Luke and Gabriel found a couple of rocks to sit on near the fire pit so they could be closer and make comments while I figured out how to put it up.

I supposed the first thing was to set up the tent properly. If I could do that, I thought I could figure out a fire later.

I read the directions and counted pieces in the kit. It wasn’t difficult to figure out, but with the way it was designed, it required two people at the end to lift it into place. I did as much as I could alone, but when it came to having to lift it up, I glanced at the guys. “Can someone help me lift it?”

Luke and Gabriel shook their heads simultaneously. Luke was staring into the woods, chewing on a piece of grass. Gabriel was flicking some dirt from his shoes. “Sorry, Trouble,” Gabriel said. “No helping. You’ve got to do it yourself. Think of the boy scouts...I mean girl scouts. I bet they do this alone.”

“But there’s scouts,” I said. “That’s plural. There’s more than one. And don’t they have leaders?”

“Right,” Gabriel said. “Think of us as camp leaders and you’re earning a badge. This is basically survival training. This is Academy camp after all.”

“He means we were never in the scouts,” Luke said. “We don’t know.”

“I’ve read the manual,” Gabriel said. “It’s all about learning how to do this shit yourself so if you ever needed to do it alone, you could. We had to do all this. What if I was unconscious?”

“If you’re unconscious, you don’t need a tent,” Luke said. “You need a doctor.”

“You never fucking know.”

I sighed. I got the concept of trying to do this myself, but the instructions said to lift while putting in a tent stake. Was I supposed to do that at the same time? If so, I needed two people. The instructions weren’t clear and the pictures showed two people. I was tempted to call on Silas to help out, but I had a feeling Gabriel and Luke would have thrown a fuss.

I stepped over the fabric, pulling where I could. The tent lifted, but as I was setting up one end, the other started sagging over, jerking the pole out of the ground until the whole thing collapsed.

Gabriel stood up, dusting off his hands. “Sang, if I have to help you, this doesn’t count,” he said.

“Hang on,” I said. “I’m not done yet.”

Gabriel smirked and waved his hand dismissively. “Come on. It’s your first time. I get it. Don’t worry about it.”

I glared at him. I found the edge of the poles. It took some maneuvering, but I managed to single-handedly stab the pole in the ground far enough that it wasn’t going to move though I was worried it was going to break, so I moved quickly. I bent the pole over the tent, picking the whole of the frame off the ground.

I had to run around the tent to get it set up right but eventually I had it up.

The boys came over and we stood together near the entrance after I opened the flap, looking into the space and admiring my work. It wouldn’t withstand a bear attack, but it might stand up all night. If it didn’t get too windy. Was it waterproof? What would happen if it rains?

Luke nudged Gabriel in the arm. “She set up her tent on her own. She’s going to sleep out here alone now.”

“Naw,” Gabriel said. “Just wait until dark. She’ll be begging to sleep in the tent with us.” He grinned at me. “It gets a little scary out here, you know. By yourself. Alone. In the dark.”

I poked him in the stomach, and he leaned forward. He was just trying to scare me, but I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to be afraid.

If the boys had done it, I had to, too. “Nu-uh,” I said. “Where’s my stuff? I want to put it inside.”

“Most of yours is in Victor’s car,” Luke said.

“Maybe they’re here,” Gabriel said. He put his arm around my neck and walked with me back toward the other camp area.

We followed the path back to the main camp area where I noticed their site had two picnic tables, a large fire pit, and space to put up three or four large tents. Had that second picnic table been there before?

Victor’s BMW was backed up next to the Jeep with the trunk open.

Nathan and North were unrolling a large tent in the very center of the tent area while Silas unloaded the BMW. Kota and Victor were separating packs into different piles.

Kota and Victor turned when we approached. Victor waved at me.

Kota smirked. “You really wanted to get here before me?” he asked.

I shrugged and glanced at the others, but then went to him, standing next to him. I didn’t want to reach for him with the others around. Maybe I should tell them what Nathan had suggested I do with Kota so they’d understand why I was focusing on him. “When else do I ever get to beat you at anything?”

He smiled more. “Are you going to play fair this week?”

“I will. I promise. It was just this once.”

He looked around and then toward the site we’d come from. “What have you been doing? Having fun?” He picked up a pack and opened it, looking at the contents.

“I set up my tent,” I said. I unzipped my jacket for some air, warm after moving around so much to get my tent set up. “Can I bring my other things over there?”

Kota’s eyebrows hunched together and then he looked at Gabriel and Luke and then surveyed the area around us. “Where’s your tent?”

“Over in the other campsite,’ I said. “The spot next door.”

“Why all the way over there?” Kota asked. “Why not next to us?”

“So I can spend the night by myself like you guys did.”

Kota’s eyes narrowed at Luke and Gabriel. He put down the pack he was holding to place his hands on his hips. “I can’t believe you two.”

“Oy,” Gabriel said, shrugging. “We did it. We can’t treat her differently.”

“I don’t like the idea of her being out there alone like that,” Kota said and then turned to me. “I know we’re camping but…”

“Come on Kota,” Luke said. “We did it. She’ll have one night to herself and then she can join us.”

Kota frowned. “I don’t like this.”

Gabriel’s face shifted from joking to serious. “You know what? She set up her tent. She doesn’t have to actually sleep in there, right? Maybe we can just get her to light our campfire and do a few things.”

Luke walked up to me, nudging my arm. “I guess you don’t get to spend the night alone.”

“I am, too,” I said, suddenly feeling like they were going easy on me. I turned to Victor, hoping maybe he would help. “How else am I going to fit in with you all? If each of you spent the night in a tent alone, then I have to, too, don’t I? Where’s my pile?”

Victor glanced at Kota. “I don’t think we should...”

Kota didn’t say anything for a moment but then waved a hand in the air. “No, it’s okay. If she wants to spend the night alone in her tent, let her. It’s her tent. We got her everything she’ll need and she’ll just be on the other side of the trees.”

“No,” Gabriel said. “Make her stay with us. You were right before.”

“She wants to,” Kota said. “We should let her.”

I considered it a victory, though a bittersweet one. I did want to sleep in their tent with them, but I wanted to fit in, too. It was just sleeping. I grinned, gathering my supplies up in my arms. Before I passed Kota, I stopped, rocking up on my feet to kiss his cheek. I needed to not let the others make me too nervous to do what I needed to do. “Thank you, Kota.”

Kota looked at me, an eyebrow raised and a surprised smile on his face. “You’re welcome, Sang. Need any help?”

“No. The guys said I had to do it alone.” I hefted my book bag on my shoulder, heading back to the trail between the campgrounds.