Here Lies Jasmine Lake | ✓

Chapter Three: Sadie

I'd been at this camp for only two hours, but the decision was already made.

I hated this place. I had friends back at home, who I would've preferred to spend my summer with over a bunch of trees in the middle of...let's check...nowhere.

So far, I'd been sitting in my tent, listening to music. I had tried to find a signal, but that was useless. There wasn't going to be four bars of data in the middle of the damn woods, right?

The worst part was that my mother didn't even have a solid reason for me coming here. She'd first seen an advertisement for this camp when we were online shopping together, something we did every Sunday that I wasn't so happy about. (She claimed it was mother and daughter bonding, but I claimed it was Sadie and hell bonding.)  She had clicked into the advertisement, and seeing the words "Jasmine Lake", decided that it would be a good idea to go there. She then closed down the computer, and concluded that the only reason I was at this place was because we shared a name.

Now, for those that are uninformed, my full name is Sadie Jasmine Lake. So this was just creepy and unexplained.

As I thought about my middle name and the lake's name, someone knocked on the front of the tent. I yanked my headphones off and pulled open the tent flap, thinking it was that bitch Maria here to piss me off with more of her icebreaker games. "What the hell do you...oh."

It was Jax.

He gazed at me with a judging expression. "Alright then." He cleared his throat. "Dinner's ready."

I nodded awkwardly. "Um, thanks."

"No problem." He ran a hand through his light brown hair awkwardly.

I stepped out of my tent and walked over to the big cabin next to the lake. There was a room with four cafeteria tables spread out in it. Maria and Duncan were sitting at a table with the hippy girls, probably having a nice long talk about flowers and sunshine. The two younger pests, Flash and Diesel, I think, were sitting at a table with the annoying girls, or the Trilly Trio, as I liked to call them. The nineteen year-old boy, Wyatt, was at a table on his own, not making eye contact with anyone. At the last table, there were two plates, both filled with spaghetti. Jax sat down by one of them and started eating.

I grimaced. "Do I have to sit with you?"

What? I get straight to the point. You'd think that's a good thing.

Jax shrugged. "You don't, you're right. But your other options are a fearsome foursome of hippies and newlyweds, being stuck at a crossfire between future fuckboys and dumb bitches, or sitting with a guy who's about as talkative as a wall. Take your pick."

I felt the corner my mouth lift in amusement and sat across from Jax. "You know, you don't seem to be that bad."

Jax's eyes widened. "That's rich. You do know that's the last thing anyone would say to me."

I took a bite of spaghetti. It didn't taste that bad. "What? Do they call you...let me guess...a bad boy?"

Jax's mouth twisted into a smile. "They do, actually."

I opened my mouth to say something, but I saw Jax's eyes flicker to something behind me. I turned, expecting to see Michael Myers or some other reincarnation of the devil.

I was pretty close. It turned out to be Flash and Diesel. Spawn of the devil, but like they say, like father like son.

Flash winked at me. "Enjoying your time here so far? Because I can make it much better if you want."