Rhett raises the stick in the air, a thin coil of smoke spiraling from the blackened tip. “Shut up, Lin,” he says, wrapping his free arm around Suzy, who has inched closer to him. “We’re not talking about that.”

“Who’s she going to tell?” Lin fires back, eyes cutting over to me.

Jasper waves the bottle in the air. “Anyone she wants.”

“This is fucked,” Lin mutters, kicking at a mound of snow at his feet, digging a small trench down to the ruddy soil, mud sticking to his shoe.

Things he wants to say, but can’t, stir behind his eyes.

“The whole thing is fucked,” Rhett agrees, jabbing the smoldering stick into the snow at his feet. And his eyebrows spike upward beneath his fuzzy hat, like he’s giving Lin a warning to stop talking. “But it’s already done.”

I realize now that this isn’t just a few boys who stole a bottle of booze and came down to the lake to get drunk. This is a meeting. They came to talk in secret, in private. About what happened.

“The road will open eventually, and then we’ll have to deal with this,” says Lin, lifting his gaze.

“The Brutes don’t know what happened,” Rhett answers coldly. I’ve heard this name before, the Brutes. It’s what they sometimes call the camp counselors.

“The Brutes are idiots. It’s going to be a lot worse when a detective starts asking questions,” says Jasper, his jaw tensed, the bottle in his hand swaying at his side, spilling little drops onto the snow. “This was my last shot, getting sent here to this camp.” His eyebrows dip together, a weakness there—a flicker of doubt and fear and uncertainty. As if he’s truly afraid of what might happen to him. “If I screw it up,” he continues, “my parents probably won’t let me come home.”

They all fall silent and the trees quiver, wind curling up off the lake and sailing into the surrounding forest, knocking snow from limbs. The wilds of this place dislike our midnight chatter, our rising voices, the flickering flame and the sparks wheeling up through the trees. We have woken it.

“You’re talking about the boy who died?” I dare to ask.

They all seem to wince in unison, recoiling from my words. I swallow hard—feeling too many eyes on me. Feeling suddenly outnumbered. This was a bad idea, coming down here. Even the trees lean in close, listening, stirring awake from their snowy slumber.

My heart clatters. My stomach knots.

But then Rhett looks to Suzy, anger in his eyes. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” Suzy answers quickly, lifting her shoulders, lifting her hands, lifting both eyebrows in a show of innocence. “You never told me anything anyway. It’s only what I’ve overheard.”