Put That Kid Down

Chapter Ten

How dare that clueless fucknut even imply - Max cut off the thought, seething yet again over the incident between David and himself days ago. Even though he'd tried to put it from his mind, he found himself circling back to it obsessively, and he couldn't tell Nikki or Neil about it for more mundane reasons than the other secret he had - he didn't want to say any of it aloud or the bits he was trying his hardest to ignore might come to light.

Itchiness spread over his chin as Erid fitted a beard over his face.

"I wanted it to be like, neon," she was saying, "But Preston was all like, no. So uncool. How's that?"

"Itchy," Max replied truthfully. Erid flipped her hair thoughtfully and then yanked down on the beard, stretching the elastic and Max's ears for a short moment before she released it.

"Old elastic stretches easily," she informed him with the same drawling tone as always. "So like, just keep pulling on it and it'll hang below your chin soon. Preston might, like, yell at you, though."

"Good," Max crossed his arms over his chest, "I'm not scared of that wannabe."

"Then why are you in the play?" Nikki piped up behind him, making Max jump before he registered the cheerfulness as belonging to Nikki rather than David. He'd been avoiding the counselor all week.

"Because why the fuck not?" Max grumbled, deliberately not thinking of how, if he'd tried to sit out, it'd be oh, so easy for David to corner him for a talk that Max never wanted to have. But thinking about not thinking about it made the thought recur and his scowl deepened.

"Oh, hey, you're as jumpy as David today," Nikki noted with the pep of enthused amusement, gesturing across the backstage area towards where the counselor was hovering by the curtains, supervising the movement of set pieces, "I jumped on his back this morning, and he threw his cell phone across the room." She produced said device from a pocket of her overalls, "He only gave me a five minute lecture on surprising people before he wandered off muttering to himself and twitching, without even checking for his phone! It's nearly night and he hasn't asked about it!"

"...What was he muttering?" Max asked reluctantly, still not wanting to think about David but understanding that if the counselor had finally snapped, it'd be best to get a heads up.

"Something about it being too quiet," Nikki waved off dismissively, "The important thing here is that David has a bunch of cool animal pictures on his phone, see?" She angled the screen towards him, swiping through a few pictures of squirrels, birds, and one of a snarling grizzly in the forest - the next picture was a blurred image of David's feet - before abruptly Max was met with an image of Nikki, Neil and himself as they plotted, and Max was stunned by the actual smile on his own, pixelated face at whatever the other two had been saying. "Whoops, got into the boring camp stuff," Nikki drew the phone back, but Max grabbed her wrist.

"Can I borrow that?" he asked with the edge of a demand, and she pouted at him.

"But Max, I wanted to finish reading the bestiary he's got downloaded," she complained, but a look at the expression the photo had prompted in Max - something on the edge between flabbergasted and furious - and she said more softly, "Okay." She'd seen that look on her mom's face before the woman went out for a few days, and her Mom always came back drunk and sobbing about her dad's latest phone call.

Nikki wasn't sure what she'd do if Max ever cried.

She handed off the phone.

Max's focus left her immediately, and he flipped through the rest of the photos at lightning speed, feeling something in him react to the sheer number he featured in and the anger that crawled up to cover it. Was David trying to convince even himself now? Max had been mad when David had lied the first time, but this was something else. What kind of sick bastard took that many pictures of the camper... the campers that made his days a living hell? Maybe Max had misjudged him. Maybe they were all in danger - and especially Max. Sure, there were pictures of every camper in there, and almost always in groups, but Max was present in the majority. Maybe it was some sort of creepy, serial killer thing, like stalking his kill.