“So what are we supposed to be doing, anyway?” Peter asked, his pockets moving with the clenching and unclenching of his fists. Marnie sucked contentedly on her cigarette and let Jordan’s bulk block her from the counselors’ view.
“More bonding, I guess,” Gabi ventured.
“Why is that such a big deal?” Peter asked. “It’s not like this is a competition, is it? I mean, are we going to be, like, competing with the other teams or something?”
“I think….” The tentative sound came from the depths of Jordan’s hood.
“What’s that?” Marnie said loudly. “Can you take that hood off, Spruce? I think the risk of frostbite is minimal seeing as how you’re about to sweat through that thing.”
Jordan pushed the hood away and wiped the perspiration from his lip. “I think the competition is to see what team has all four members get their callings first. That’s what my sister told me, anyway. She was here last year.”
“My brother said it’s so we can support each other and make it fun,” Gabi volunteered, “so it’s not so much pressure.”
“Is this the Mathew Lowell we’re talking about?” Marnie sneered. “Well, damn, let’s just etch that in stone and call it doctrine.” Gabi bristled but said nothing.
“So what do we win, then, if it’s a competition?” Peter huffed, shifting from one foot to the other. The skin on his arms was covered in gooseflesh, and Gabi could tell he was trying hard not to lose face by rubbing them for warmth.
“Salvation,” Marnie said flatly as she stomped the filter of her cigarette deeper into the snow. “Hooray.”
“Rations,” Jordan corrected softly. “Each team member’s family gets an extra month’s worth of food if they get called first. At least, that’s what it was last year.” Now Gabi knew why Jordan had come to camp, above and beyond the pressure of being called. An extra month’s worth of rations in a branch like Spruce could mean the difference between life and death.
Ruth’s whistle shrieked from across the clearing where she stood on the lodge steps.
“Activity time, campers!” she sang, waving them all toward the open door to the hall, where mouthwatering smells emanated from the adjacent kitchen. Once inside, Ruth instructed the campers to claim space on the plush rug, then assigned each of them a personal counselor to work with. Gabi watched her counselor approach in dumb awe. Even for someone as oblivious to the world of romance and dating as she, this guy was 100 percent crush material. Tall, but not too tall, with straight brown hair pushed back from his forehead and grass green eyes. His counselor’s uniform of T-shirt and jeans revealed a physique that was less intimidating than Zach’s but still defined and athletic. When he grinned lopsidedly at Gabi, his teeth flashed like virgin marble.
“Hey there,” he said, sinking onto the floor across from her. “I’m Luke. Gabi, right?” He extended his hand and clasped Gabi’s in a warm, dry grip that lasted until Gabi pulled away because her palm was getting sweaty. Nearby, Jordan sat across from a stunning redhead, who was leaning toward him with an earnest expression. Zach folded his rippling muscles into a similar pose beside Peter. Gabi noticed that Zach hunched himself forward so that Peter, who was thrusting out his narrow chest and sitting ramrod straight, appeared to be the taller of the two. Marnie was seated across from a female counselor whose jeans sat low on her hips and whose face bore none of the rosy blush or tint of lipstick the other female counselors wore. Her hair was shorn close to her skull on the sides and gelled into a streaked strawberry-blond wave on top. A smattering of freckles dusted her nose, and a metal ball winked from a piercing just below her lower lip. Like the other counselors, she was gorgeous, but in a way that reminded Gabi of her brother’s effortless appeal.
“Boring you already, am I?” Luke chuckled.
“No! I mean, there’s just a lot going on. It’s distracting.”
Luke’s face grew serious as he propped his chin on his fist and leaned toward her. “I know. I still get overwhelmed by all of this, even though it’s my third year. Dealing with crowds was way harder before I got well, but it still takes some getting used to.”
“Well?” Gabi asked. “You used to be sick?”
Luke revealed he’d been born with a leaky valve in his heart and had to have a series of operations that had kept him out of school until fourth grade. He did his schoolwork from home and sometimes from a Care Center bed so he wouldn’t get behind, but when he was finally strong enough to attend class, he felt like an outsider and didn’t know how to connect to the other kids. Luke’s ease and social graces compensated for Gabi’s lack thereof, and she was soon unselfconsciously absorbed in their conversation.
“It wasn’t really until I was about thirteen, when I healed from the last operation and started doing Training Period, that I finally made some friends,” Luke confessed. “School’s like a war zone if you don’t fit in.” His voice dropped as he said this, and Gabi had to lean close to hear him. Close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his skin and the answering warmth in her own.
“But how did you get like this?” Gabi breathed. Luke laughed, exposing a strong, tanned throat that Gabi had the crazy urge to bury her nose in.
“You mean how did I go from being a half-dead ghost to a regular guy?”
A ghost. That was exactly how Gabi had felt until she’d stopped taking her pills. She’d never
