Dreya pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders, watching the campers dance around the fire like they were performing a rain dance. At least the kids were having fun. Her co-counselor looked exhausted. Cameron looked like he would fall over if he wasn’t sitting next to her. Well, it had been him who had spent hours purifying the water.

Miles, one of Cameron’s boys, was coming over, “Mr. Cameron,” the kid said, “Do you know any scary stories?”

Cameron smiled. “Sorry, sport, I think Dreya already scared us enough today.”

He had said it jokingly, but Dreya could only pull a tight-lipped smile. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Tomorrow will be better, I promise. How about we play some games?”

Miles nodded and looked eager enough. Cameron helped Dreya round up the campers so that they could play Murder. They both had experience leading it during training, but Dreya kept stumbling over her words as the campers’ eyes glazed over. And, once again, Cameron had to take over.

She hated this. Dreya knew camp was supposed to be fun. It was when she was a camper but that was years ago. But, then again, she hadn’t been living in the city for years behind a desk. At least she had been able to start the fire so that the kids weren’t going to freeze to death. Yay, she had succeeded at the most basic thing ever—after losing all their water. Sophia, one of her girls, winked at her and Dreya performed the most melodramatic death. At least theatre had paid off for something.

They all still had four days of backpacking and she was only capable of making people laugh. Cameron knew it too. Everyone knew it. She wasn’t really contributing anything at this point, and, at this rate, it’d probably be in everyone’s best interest if she was fired once they got back to camp. Frankly, she didn’t even know why she was hired. She had no practical experience in camping or hiking or the outdoors since she was 12, but the kids had just figured out who the killer was and wanted to play again.

They all played four more times before it was getting too late, and they needed to start wrapping things up so the kids could wake up in the morning. As well as kids could wake up at six a.m.

Dreya stood up, “Okay, Foxes,” that was the name of their group, “time to get into pajamas.” Groaning filled the campsite and Ellie tried arguing but Dreya shut her down fairly quickly. “Come on, brush your teeth and hit the hay.”

The kids were changing while she and Cameron were setting up the bear bag up between two trees. Neither of them could see properly, but Cameron was lit by lamp as he through the rope over one of the tree’s thicker branches.

“I’m sorry about losing all our water,” Dreya muttered, trying to untangle the next rope.

“I know,” Cameron said. “You didn’t mean to.”

He didn’t say that it was okay. Good, it wasn’t okay. “I’m awful at this. How are you so great at this?” Detangling the knots was easy enough but everything else was so hard.

Cameron held out his hand for more rope and she handed it to him, picking up the bear bag. “Because it’s not easy,” he said, “and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, so I put all my effort into learning when I was a boy scout.”

“Great, so it’s going to be years till I’m a decent counselor.”

“You’re a better counselor than I was last year.”

Dreya didn’t bother keeping her scoffing to herself as they tied the bear bag to ropes.

“I’m serious, you genuinely care about the kids. I just took this job to get my parents off my back about getting a real job.” He laughed to himself, “Nearly lost this job refusing to let my kids help with setting up camp.”

“So, what, I’m the campers’ emotional support human?” They both yanked on ropes, pulling the bag into the air.

“No,” Cameron said, sounding offended as he tied the rope off to the tree. Dreya did the same, but Cameron checked it over to make sure she didn’t screw this up too. “You’re one of their leaders.”

“Sure.” She didn’t believe him. “I’m going to crash. You should get some shut-eye too.”

“Goodnight!”

“You too.”