PANIC ROOM • KENJI KON

XXIX. Only Kenji Can Call Me That

Chapter Twenty Nine:  Only Kenji Can Call Me That

~~~

"You guys are gonna love this place, it's just up here."

Mitch gasped, while Tiff muttered a, "Wow!"

They both raised their cameras and began snapping photos. Darius looked back to Eva and mouthed, See? They're harmless.

Eva rolled her eyes in response, but Darius ignored her. He mimicked the call of the brachiosaurus.

Heavy footfalls approached as the nearest brachiosaurus came closer to them. It bowed its head down, bellowing softly at Mitch, who raised his hand into the air.

Eva chewed on her lips. It felt like ants were crawling all over her heart, all throughout her chest. She bounced her leg nervously on the ground as Mitch and Darius mimicked the calls some more.

"If you think this is cool, there is one more place we could go." Darius shot Eva a look, as if he knew she'd try to speak up and protest.

"The watering hole," Mitch said.

"Just my favorite place on the island! I mean, getting that close to so many herbivores and carnivores and nobody's fighting?!"

"You could get lots of good pictures there!"

Eva breathed in heavily. There was no way she was the only one that could see there was really something wrong with Mitch and Tiff here. Had the other campers never been brutally betrayed by someone they once called a friend? There was no way she was the only Stiles Stilinski, here.

"Babe, what would we do without this kid?" Mitch directed at Tiff.

She smiled eagerly, "Let me radio Hap with the change of plans. Watering hole day!"

~~~

"Babe, you okay?" Mitch asked Tiff, with worry-filled eyes. Tiff ran up to the others, her eyes darting between the campers and Mitch.

"You know babe, I think we should pack up, head back to camp," Tiff responded. Her eyes flicked to Eva, and she could see a viciousness in them, before they softened back on Mitch.

Eva quirked an eyebrow. "What's going on, Tiff?"

"Oh, nothing big," she reassured, but she was picking at the nailbed of her thumb, and had her other hand wrapped so tightly around her radio, her knuckles were turning white. "Just an odd conversation with Hap. Why don't we go—" she placed a hand on Mitch's chest, "— Now, okay? Okay..."

"Do you think—"

"I'm sure everything's fine," Darius reassured the campers.

When they returned back to Mitch and Tiff's camp, it was deserted.

"Guys!"

"Brooklynn!"

"Kenji!"

They all shouted, looking for their missing campers. But no matter how much they yelled Brooklynn's and Kenji's names, there was no response.

"He's not in the bathroom, either!" Yaz relayed as she left that yurt.

To say Eva was worried was an understatement. Over the last three weeks, she had grown close enough with Brooklynn, who she felt was like a younger sibling— even though she had never had a sibling before— and the fact that she was missing— her, Kenji, and G.I. Joe Hap, it just didn't sit right with her. She even missed her mortal enemy, she realized, when her thoughts kept drifting to the boy she hated, wondering if he was all right.