He vanishes inside. A breeze sweeps in from the lake, and the Beginner girls and I scrunch our goosebumping arms across our chests. An invisible, creeping heaviness lands on my neck, spinning me 360 degrees to make sure the Reverend hasn’t suddenly materialized behind me. There’s nothing there but palm trees rocking in the wind. Still, the heaviness lingers—eyes, somewhere in the dark, watching. For now, choosing to stay hidden. It has to be the gray-shirts. They can see us, they know we’re coming, but they aren’t satisfied unless they’re whacking around our nerves like piñatas.

“You flipping out on me?” Molly asks, clinking her spear to mine like a champagne flute.

I breathe out a long, steady ribbon of anxiety and whisper so the Beginners won’t hear: “They’re watching us.”

Molly’s eyes dart toward the tree line, but she soon regains her spear-granted confidence. “Probably…”

Whatever Jack is doing in the shower block, he’s kicking around a shitload of water. A heaving splash rollicks against the shower floor, and out trots Jack, dripping like a sponge and lugging a black satchel. Its shiny, rubber surface reflects Lacrishia’s torch as the two of them meet each other halfway up the hill.

“That shit is cold!” Jack shrieks, handing the satchel to Lacrishia as she tears open the flap to ransack its contents.

“What did you do?” Marcos asks. “Climb into the shower tank?”

“Yup.” We crowd around Lacrishia as she extracts two accordion file folders bound with massive rubber bands. Evidence. Lacrishia and Darcy’s little spies have hidden their evidence against Nightlight inside the shower tank.

The whole enchilada.

“What’s that, some kind of waterproof bag?” Molly asks.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lacrishia replies as she sorts through heavy stacks of multicolored paperwork. “They use it to protect phones and valuables and whatnot on the boat. You can thank Vance for swiping that.”

The devilish boy beams, the hero of the moment, and awe crashes over me at what these campers have managed to accomplish. This proud warmth, however, is short lived as I remember the watchful eyes. “We’re being spied on from the tree line,” I whisper to Lacrishia. Her back stiffens.

“Everyone, take off your backpacks and throw them in a pile in the middle,” Lacrishia whispers. “Go on.” Ten backpacks, each indistinguishable from the others, drop into a pile like we’re making a bonfire. In under a minute, Lacrishia divides the evidence folders into six bunches of paperwork and slips them randomly into the pockets of six backpacks. “Nobody look for your own,” she urges. “Just take a random bag and put it on.”