Betrayed

Vandals and Thieves

I woke up late the next morning when my phone was ringing loudly.

"Hello?" I answered groggily.

"Harper, can you be ready to go in 30 minutes, I have an emergency to attend to at the camp" Gabriel said quickly.

"Uh huh, 30 minutes" I replied.

"You'll be ready?"

"Yup" I said, closing my eyes. 10 more minutes I thought to myself as I fell asleep. I was rudely awoken by a loud urgent banging at the door.

"HARPER!" Gabriel yelled from the other side. I frantically looked for my phone and saw that I had 8 missed calls in the last 15 minutes. Shit! Luckily all of my things were contained already, I just had to grab a pair of jeans and a shirt and stuff my book into my duffel bag.

I washed my face and combed my fingers through my hair quickly before emerging and facing a fuming Gabriel Mason. He was not happy with me and drove down the highway at an alarming speed. I held on for dear life and avoided pissing him off further by keeping quiet. Something on his cheek caught my attention and I couldn't stifle the laughter that bubbled from my lips. Gabriel shot me a questioning glance. I pressed my lips together and looked out the window.

"What?" he said.

"You were obviously quite busy before picking me up"I laughed but he simply frowned at me again. "You have lipstick all over the side of your face," I pointed out. He grunted and wiped his face but the lipstick didn't budge. I rummaged through my makeup bag grabbing some micellar water and poured it onto a cotton pad. Gabriel grabbed it from me and wiped furiously at his unshaven face.

"For fuck sake" he mumbled under his breath looking at the cotton pad in his hand before he opened his window and tossed it outside.

"Don't do that!" I scolded him too late. Gabriel gave me a warning look which I took as a cue to look away and pray to god we get to the camp alive.

We made it to the campsite in a record 45 minutes. Gabriel had only just put the truck in park when he jumped out and into his cabin. By the time I had grabbed my bag and hopped out of the truck Gabriel was jumping back in wearing his work clothes and driving off towards the work site.

It wasn't until much later that I discovered some of the work site equipment had been vandalised and a dump truck had been stolen. There had only been a handful of men at the site during the weekend and it was Matteo who had called Gabriel to inform him of his discovery early in the morning. Gabriel was fuming as he returned to his cabin, wildly gesturing as he went over the details of the vandalism with Matteo. I was worried for my friend but noticed that he was able to hold his own. Which was probably why he was Gabriel's right hand man.

"I'm going to the river" Matteo huffed when he reached my cabin, "Do you want to join me?" My friend seemed to need to decompress from dealing with Gabriel all morning, and it was only one of the reasons I agreed to go with him. I longed for a swim.

"Yeah, give me a second to change," I ordered. Matteo told me all about the weekend's event, and I felt bad that he blamed himself for it, but really if someone was planning on stealing a dump truck out in the middle of the woods they had probably accounted for the fact that there would be people hanging around the site.

"Did you get to talk to your wife this weekend" I asked "she must be excited that you are going home in a few weeks"

"No, I didn't make it out of the woods to call her. I'm looking forward to going home though. My oldest starts school next week," he said proudly. "Plus it's getting kind of cold out here" he whined as I took my shirt off to go for a swim in the river. He shook his head, refusing to join me for a swim. He was happy with sitting on the bank and keeping warm while I was nearly naked in the freezing water as he called it.