The Woods At Night

Chapter 17

I went out to see Kai, but to my surprise he wasn't in the treehouse.
"Kai?" I called out from the porch of the treehouse, being careful not to lean too far forward.
"I'm down here!" I hear him yell back, I look around and see him run out of the treeline to the right of me. He climbs up to the porch where I'm sitting and sits next to me, wrapping his arm around me.
"Sorry I didn't come to see you for, like, a week. It's just, my friends came over and we hung out late on Monday and it was raining every other night. I missed you like crazy though." I tell him.
"It's okay, honestly it's better that you weren't here the whole time, you need sleep." He replies. I feel better in his arms. Then, I start to think, which is always a dangerous thing to do. That's when I realize, he brought me to the trees on the first night that we met at the beginning of summer and yet, it's almost the end of summer and he never really answered my question.
"Why are you out here?" I ask him. He looks at me and sighs.
"I'm out here because I like it better than in town." He tells me, but I feel like that's not the whole truth.
"But why? Don't you know there are bad rumors about these woods? People disappearing and stuff, do you know what happens to them?" I ask, his expression turns into one of worry and concern.
"Please stop asking me questions, I can't answer them!" He raises his voice but he looks so sad.
"Why not?" I ask him, I'm just all about questions today aren't I?
"Because I don't want anything bad to happen to you! I love you too much! I don't want you to end up like the others!" He yells at me, tears start to fall from his eyes.
"The...others?" I ask, getting up and taking a step back. "W-what the hell do y-you mean by others!?" I shout the rest of my question back at him in fear, Hope's message flashing through my mind again. He's crying, almost sobbing now.
"Pheonix...please..." he cries out, desperation and sadness in his voice as he steps towards me and I take another step back. I feel terrible, I want to hug him and tell him I'm sorry and make all of his sadness and fears go away, and yet.
"Pheonix please isn't a fucking answer." I tell him sternly. With that I run to the ladder and climb down as quickly as I can. I start running back to town as soon as my feet hit the ground, I hear Kai yelling after me, I know even from hearing his voice in the distance that he's following me. I just keep running and running until I see someone familiar in front of me. I can see through my tears that it's Nate, I run up and hug him tight.
"Hey what's wrong?" He asks as he hugs me back.
"You were right, I never should have trusted him!" I tell him through my tears. He hugs me tighter.
"It's okay, you're safe with me now, and I promise I'll never let anybody else touch you again." He says, hugging me even tighter. Then I feel it, a wet sensation on my back. I feel it on the front of my hoodie too.
"What are you..." I stopped when I looked up at his face, I could see in the moonlight that his face had red splatters on it. I shove him away as hard as I can and take a few steps back.
"Wha-what did...did you..." I can't even finish my sentence, fear coursing through me, more fear than I felt with Kai. He looks at me with a smile on his face that scares me more than the blood. I soon find myself running back into the woods, and my only thought was this.
I'm fucked!