It's been three days since Ronan and Becca found Clancey in the woods. His name hasn't been mentioned since.

The counselors took him away that day— where exactly, I don't know. They just heaved him into the back of some camp car on a rattling gurney and drove away, giving us one last, fleeting glance of his bloodless face before transporting him to some unknown, distant location. Home, I heard some of the campers say. But I don't believe that.

None of us are that lucky.

I'm doing kitchen duty now. Plates wash and dry mechanically beneath my hands, warm water and soap suds washing over my skin like a summer shower. Ronan is next to me, cleaning briskly, his face an icy mask. He's angry. I can tell. He's been angry since we started washing; angry at Clancey for disappearing without an explanation, angry at this camp for withholding its secrets from him, and most of all, angry at Owen for sticking us with this stupid job in the first place.

You see, after we helped haul Clancey back to the campsite, things got a little crazy. Eric and Sean were descending into hysterics, claiming that their friend had been murdered, even though Clancey wasn't dead. (Drama queens.) Other campers were trying to use the chaos as a distraction and sneak off. (Matt, of course, was looking for a quiet place to light up.) Becca had sprained her ankle (she's wearing a brace now) and couldn't walk by herself, three unfortunate hikers had bad cases of poison ivy (and wouldn't stop whining about it), and on top of all this chaos, Ronan and I were bombarding the counselors with questions about Clancey.

"What do you think happened to him?"

"Do you think he'll be okay?"

"Where are you taking him?"

"Nowhere that concerns you," Karen snapped, distractedly waving us away with her hand. She had a walkie pressed to her ear and a worried frown stretched across her lips; primed and ready for business, whether that be tending to an injured and delusional camper or sweeping the whole mess under the carpet. "Now stop asking questions and walk back with the others."

At this point, Maria and Sun-Lee were leading all of the campers on the hike back to camp. I also knew that at this time the car that was to retrieve Clancey already on its way up the mountain, summoned by one of the counselors' talkies, but I only figured this out from brief snippets of conversations I'd overhead between Karen and Owen. Everything else was a mystery, as obscure as the mist on the lake.

I scowled at Karen, feeling both offended by her attempt to brush us away and angry that she thought she could avoid our questions. "Like hell you're leaving us in the dark," I protested. "Tell us what's going to happen to Clancey."

Ronan pushed forward, planting himself directly in front of Karen so she had no choice but to look at him. He was wearing one of his classic Ronan expressions— the one that says, listen to me, I'm important— and I wondered, for a moment, if he was purposefully impersonating his mother, or if this was only a subconscious reflection of her. "We just want to know where you're taking him," Ronan said. "We're both campers here, it's our business to know."

"It is your business to know nothing, Lockwood," Karen said coolly.

"I think I've got the right to know what happened to Clancey when the same thing could very well happen to me—!"

That's when Owen appeared out of thin air, snapping, "Two marks, Lockwood. And if you don't quit bothering your counselors, I'll give you two more."

Ronan's black eyes widened in disbelief— I doubt many people have ever had the audacity to disagree with him when he's using his fancy Sabrina voice. He snapped open his mouth to retort something back. I beat him to it.

"Hey, that's not fair!" I exclaimed. "We just want to know where you're taking Clancey— what's so wrong about that?"

"Three more marks!" Owen shouted. "For both of you! Do I need to give you more?"

"You can't do that—" Ronan began furiously. Owen's face darkened dangerously, and I quickly elbowed Ronan in the ribs to get him to shut up. This wasn't a fight we were going to win. At least, not today.

Ronan and I fell into a stiff, angry silence. "That's what I thought," Owen said frostily, and swept away with Karen at his side.

That was five points for Ronan. And since I'd already racked up a few of my own points in the weeks before, three more meant kitchen duty for both of us. Which leaves us here, with a shit ton of dirty dishes and absolutely no answers at all.

At least the radio is finally working. Ronan whacked it with a dishcloth so hard that Axl Rose started belting out the lyrics to Sweet Child O' Mine on the spot.

She's got eyes of the bluest skies

As if they thought of rain

"This is inhumane," Ronan fumes next to me. I glance up at him, a little surprised— we haven't talked much since our argument with Owen. Now that I think about it, we've barely talked at all, choosing to avoid each other instead of discussing what happened to Clancey in the woods. (Clancey's accident is now referred to only as "The Incident", and has become somewhat of a taboo at camp.) "I should sue the camp for abuse and neglect."

I'm not sure if he's talking about our situation or Clancey's— probably both. Either way, I've noticed that Ronan likes to threaten lawsuits when he's really pissed off; it's just another one of his fabulous quirks.

I hate to look into those eyes

And see an ounce of pain

"This is our fault," I say, scrubbing away at a particularly stubborn piece of grime. Ronan shoots me a disgusted look, as if this isn't the first time I claimed the blame for Clancey's accident. I've said the exact same words at least ten times by now. The night we got back from the Hike, I felt so guilty I could barely sleep, but Ronan just ignored me when I tried to talk about what happened. He wouldn't listen to a word I had to say. "We probably deserve this for what we did to Clancey."

He glares at me. Still not listening, then. "It's not our fault. Don't say that."

"But it's true, Ronan. If I hadn't taken credit for Becca's prank, then Clancey wouldn't have tried to push me off a cliff, and if you hadn't beaned him with a walking stick, he never would have been left unconscious in the woods. See? Our faults."

Wearily, I hand him another clean plate to dry. He reaches out to take it, but suddenly his eyes light up and his whole body straightens, and he jerks his hand away from the plate so quickly that I almost drop it. Then he exclaims, in a very alarming and un-Ronan-like way, "Finn, I've solved it!"

I set the plate down on the laminate counter-top and raise an eyebrow at him. "Solved what?"

"Everything!"

When I don't immediately respond to this boastful declaration, Ronan splashes dirty water onto my arm. His face is all flushed and excited now, like he's having some sort of godly revelation.

But I'm in no mood for revelations, godly or otherwise. "Dude, what the hell?" I demand, shaking water off my arm. "That's disgusting."

"Shut up, Finn, seriously. Repeat what you just said."

I stare at him in bewilderment. This is getting more un-Ronan-like by the second. "Uh, I think I said 'Dude, what the hell, that's disgusting—"

"No, no, before that! God, you're thick sometimes."

"Well, before that, I was talking about how this is all our faults, and if I hadn't taken credit for Becca's prank and you hadn't beaned Clancey with a stick and left him in the woods—"

"There!" Ronan throws his bar of soap down on the counter, a frenzied glint to his eyes. He slaps his palm down loudly next to the soap and blurts out, "Right there. What you said about me beaning Clancey and leaving him in the woods."

"Yeah, what about it? I don't understand why you're getting so worked up over this—"

"Shut up, Finn, I'm having a moment of brilliance!" The glint in Ronan's eyes intensifies. This is beginning to remind me of the time when the counselors served coffee at breakfast and Ronan went overboard and drank three cups and for the rest of the day he was so hyped up, I could see his hands vibrating. "It all makes sense now!"

Ronan's erratic behavior is starting to worry me. Maybe Clancey's accident finally drove him over the edge. Maybe this is the beginning of his inevitable mental breakdown...

I turn down the radio, the Guns N' Roses song fading into silence. "What's wrong with you—?"

"Don't you see, Finn?" Ronan demands, cutting me off once again. "What you said doesn't make sense. Even if I did bean Clancey with a stick and left him unconscious, Sean and Eric would have gone back for him. They would have dragged him back to camp, not just left him in the woods alone!"

"But they didn't—"

"Exactly! Which means someone got to Clancey before they did!" Ronan lifts his palm off the counter and claps his hands together, the sharpness of the noise making me flinch. He smiles at me— actually smiles, dimples and all— and says in a rush, "I can't believe I didn't realize this until now. I was right, I was right all along. Someone wanted you to fall into the lake, and when you didn't, they used Clancey instead!"

"Used him for what?"

"The monster, Finn, the monster. Clancey was babbling on about a monster 'in the water' when we found him; we thought he was crazy, of course, or confused. But maybe he was telling the truth."

"About... a monster?"

Ronan rolls his eyes. "God, I forget how dull you can be sometimes. Please try to keep up. There is clearly something in the lake, and somebody here at camp is trying to draw it out. Clancey was just the bait."

"This is crazy. You do realize you sound absolutely crazy, right?"

"Finn! That's why they took Clancey away so quickly afterward. It was a cover-up. This is all part of some plan, some scheme—"

"No!" I grab Ronan by the shoulder. I want to shake him, to force the sense back into him; I want to get rid of that feverish gleam in his eyes and make him act normal again. "No, Ronan. There isn't any monster. There isn't any conspiracy. Clancey is just gone, and it's our fault."

Ronan shakes his head. For once, he looks completely unperturbed by me touching him. "You're wrong, Finn. This isn't our fault at all. There's something in the lake and I'm going to prove it to you."

"How?"

He shrugs away from my grip. Yanking his rubber gloves free from his hands, he stalks off to the other side of the kitchen and towards one of the industrial-sized metal fridges lining the walls.

"Where are you going?"

He flings open the door to the fridge and begins rummaging around inside. "I'm making myself a celebratory grilled cheese."

"You're doing what?"

"I said I'm making myself a grilled cheese," he repeats, reemerging from the fridge with a loaf of bread in one hand and a few slices of precut cheddar cheese in the other. "Isn't that obvious?"

"We're not allowed to make grilled cheese," I say, shocked that he would even consider the idea. "The counselors said—"

"Look around, Fish. Do you see any counselors here? I didn't think so."

"One could walk in. You know that they do random inspections all the time—"

But Ronan has already found a pan and a spatula, and soon he's busy cooking his grilled cheese on top of the stove. The sound of hissing, melting cheese fills the air. The smell alone is to die for. I feel my mouth start to water— I really have missed eating real food. I keep quiet, though. I don't want to make myself complicit in another crime.

"If you keep breaking the rules like this, someone's bound to catch you," I warn him. "You can't outrun the law forever."

"I never get caught."

"You were arrested for joyriding a Cadillac!"

"I was not arrested. I was merely detained by the police. There's a difference. Shouldn't you know?"

I ignore his slight. "First you hit Clancey on the head with a stick. Then you steal Owen's knife. And now you're making illegal grilled cheese—"

Ronan wheels around and jabs the spatula at me. The black plastic pokes me in the chest. It's still hot from the pan, and the grease scorches my fingertips I slap it away. "Where is your rebellious streak? Where is your sense of adventure? You won't get anywhere in life if you only do what you're told."

"I tried the whole breaking the rules thing. It didn't work out very well for me. In fact, having a 'sense of adventure' is what got me sent to this camp in the first place. So don't try telling me that rebellion is a good thing."

Ronan flips his grilled cheese. The bread crackles as it hits the pan. "You're right. Being rebellious is bad. But isn't being bad so much more interesting than being boring?" 

"Spending the summer with my real friends is interesting. Sleeping in my own bed with a bathroom just down the hall is interesting. Not waking up to a knife against my throat is interesting. Sometimes following the rules is a lot more interesting than breaking them!"

In one fluid motion, Ronan scoops his grilled cheese off the pan and plops it down onto a paper towel. "This delicious grilled cheese would have me beg to differ."

I glare disapprovingly and return to scrubbing dishes.

Ronan lifts the sandwich to his mouth and takes a bite. He sighs in delight. "Holy fucking shit. I forgot how good hot food is."

"At least clean up the evidence first," I say, pointing a dripping glove at the simmering pan and spatula. "Jesus Christ. You're practically begging to get kicked out of camp."

"You're the one supposed to be washing dishes. I'm just here to dry...."

"You made the mess. You clean it up."

Grudgingly, Ronan dunks the pan and spatula into the sink, but doesn't make attempt to wash them.

I let out a groan. There's no way we're going to finish washing these dishes until Ronan finishes his grilled cheese and actually decides to cooperate. Defeated, I peel my gloves off and push myself on top of the counter and rest my back against one of the many cabinets lining the walls. "So, what's this fantastic plan of yours? Besides causing trouble and making grilled cheese, of course."

Ronan takes another bite of his sandwich. "God, these things are like paradise for your taste buds. Also, you're right— my plan is fantastic. It just depends on one thing. Do you know if the Director has a computer?"

"According to Becca, she does. Why do you want to know?"

"So I can play a sick game of Galaga, obviously."

I splash him with dishwater.

"Watch the grilled cheese, man! Now, hear me out: if we get into her computer, then maybe we can find some answers about this so-called monster in the lake. Or, at the very least, some helpful information about the camp. We might even be able to find out what happened to Clancey."

"Hold on— how exactly are we supposed to gain access to the Director's private computer?"

"We break into her cabin, of course."

I blink at him. "Are you insane? She'll kill us!"

"Not if she doesn't find out."

"The Director isn't stupid, Ronan. She's like the freaking Eye of Sauron— she finds out about everything. Breaking into her cabin is a great way to ensure that we both get kicked out of camp, and shipped off to somewhere even worse. Somewhere you'll never get to eat grilled cheese again."

Ronan sets his sandwich carefully back down on the paper towel on the counter. Then he fixes me with one of his patented Lockwood stares; a dark, piercing look that's just intense enough to make me feel uncomfortable. Suddenly serious, he says, "We'll go at night, when it's dark, and the Director's asleep. If we're quiet she'll never know we were there."

"She'll catch us anyway. She's probably got night vision."

"Then what do you want to do, Finn? What's your plan? Do you seriously just want to wait around, hoping that we won't be picked off one by one and sacrificed Indiana Jones style to some monster in the lake? If it happened to Clancey, it can happen to any of us. I don't want to be the next camper found half-dead in a bush. So unless you have a better idea, we're sticking with mine."

Something slimy wriggles inside of me— guilt. Not about planning to sneak into the Director's cabin— that's more terrifying than shameful— but about Clancey, and how his incident was largely my fault. Sure, he did try to push me off a cliff, but I was the one who left him unconscious in the forest, defenseless and alone. If that whole night had never happened, and we had all just stayed asleep in our tents, then maybe Clancey would still be here today.

The wriggling morphs into a churning whirlpool of unease, and I feel abruptly nauseous. I messed up. Big time. And now, I need to find a way to right my wrongs— or else this guilt is going to eat me alive.

Ronan stares at me. I can see him trying to read my face, thinking up another argument to persuade me with. But... I don't think I need to be persuaded. At least, not anymore. Maybe Ronan is right. Maybe if I go along with his crazy plan, I'll be able to unearth some information about the lake that will prevent another camper from being hurt in the same way that Clancey was. I still don't believe in a monster— that's a little too far-fetched for me— but I can't deny that something did happen to Clancey. And I want to make sure that something will never happen again.

"Okay," I say.

Ronan's eyes light up. "Seriously? You'll do it?"

"I'll cooperate for now," I say. I can already feel a headache starting to form in my temples— this idea is just asking for trouble, and it's going to take a hell of a lot of planning to not get caught. Which begs the question: "Assuming that we even do manage to get into the Director's cabin, how do we know that her computer doesn't have some type of security? She's the leader of a camp for teenage criminals. I doubt she'd leave her secrets unprotected like that."

A faint smile creeps across Ronan's lips. This isn't asking for trouble. It's demanding it. 

"If only we knew someone who was good at computers."