find our bodies, there will be an investigation.”
“Another unfortunate bear attack, I’m afraid,” she said, feigning sadness as she shook her head.
“You bitch,” I growled, attempting to lunge to my feet.
Lars kicked me in the back of my left knee, making it buckle and sending me crashing back to the floor. Sarah paused in front of me, staring down with her head cocked to the side.
“What were you going to do, Piper?” she taunted. “Attack me? I will snap you like a twig, then drain every ounce of blood from your body while your mother and your little girlfriend watch.”
My eyes darted back to the corner where Levi stood, his body still frozen as if in a trance. I looked from him to True, who was still struggling against Chloe’s hold despite making zero progress. Then, I looked at Mom, whose tears were running full force now.
Dean Purty is coming, I reminded myself. If I can just keep them talking a while longer, he’ll save us.
“Why do you want me dead so bad, anyway?” I asked aloud. “This can’t be about me seeing you attack a camper. He doesn’t remember it, so it’s a non-issue.”
“Did you know I’ve been a counselor at that camp every summer for the last thirty years? The campers age out before they have time to notice I’m not aging, and the random human counselors move on, so my youthful appearance is not an issue.”
What the hell was she talking about? I wanted to snap at her for changing the subject, but I restrained myself as I realized keeping her talking was a perfect stall tactic. But I needed to play this carefully and not seem too eager.
“So?” I asked.
“Are you stupid?” she snapped, then looked at Lars. “She’s stupid, right?”
“An idiot,” he agreed.
Yep. That proved it. His only job was to suck up to Sarah. If I could take her out, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.
“Let me explain this so your feeble human brain can understand it, you idiotic cow. If I’ve been at Camp Shadow Lake every summer for the last thirty years, that means I was there twenty years ago… when your father worked there as a counselor.”
My head reared back as she stared at me with mischievous eyes that seemed… wrong, given the situation.
“My father?” I breathed.
“Scott was a looker, wasn’t he Mrs. Williams?” she called out, waggling her blonde eyebrows at my mom. “And so very delicious.”
The bile flew up my throat again, and this time, I couldn’t stop it. Sarah took two quick steps back as I spewed vomit at her feet. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth as I glared up at her, wrinkling her nose in disgust as if my very normal reaction of puking was grosser than her off-the-cuff comment about drinking my father’s blood.
“Before the illustrious Charles Purty and The Society came to Camp Shadow Lake,” she sneered, “it served as a… What’s a good word?”
Her eyes darted to Chloe, who called out, “Buffet.”
“Yes,” Sarah said, her gaze narrowing on me. “A buffet for our kind. Poor, homeless orphans, useless to society and easily dismissed if they were to go missing, came to camp for a couple of weeks of freedom, only to find themselves herded like cattle to feed us.”
My stomach rumbled with the need to empty itself again, but I managed to hold it down. Sarah obviously had some point she was trying to make, but her flare for the dramatic was dragging the story out. Of course, that worked in my favor, so I kept my mouth shut and let her keep talking.
She’s like a villain in a movie, giving a long monologue, laying out all of her dastardly deeds before telling the hero her evil plan. It was the only time her vanity worked in my favor.
But who was the hero in this story? Me? Doubtful. I’d say it was Levi, but he still stood immobile and useless in the corner.
“Your father went to the old dean, raving about some dream he’d had. A vision of someone attacking him. Someone ravaging his body while they drank his blood.” She paused for a moment to stare at me meaningfully. “I guess his dream became reality in the end, didn’t it?”
Holy shit. Did my dad have a vision, like me?
My eyes darted to True, who had gone still. Her dark eyes were wide as she stared back at me.
“I’d been drinking from him and compelling him for