Chapter 9

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"Hunter, wait!" I exclaimed, jogging to catch up with him. "Where are you going? We don't even know the way..." I shivered as a blast of cold air crept under my coat and caressed my skin with icy fingers.

"Well, I certainly won't wait here until they come and look for us. Come on, we'll find our way back on our own, too. It can't be that hard."

"Fine," I sighed, walking next to him.

In the dark I could see next to nothing, so I was pretty much just stumbling through the shadows, not even sure if I was walking on the path or currently walking over graves since my flashlight had run out of batteries.

The sun had set while we had been in the chapel, and with it the temperature had dropped considerably, making my teeth chatter.

Hunter let out a quiet groan as I stumbled into him for the third time in only the last two minutes and spun around to look at me. "Sugarpie, we should really make a tally with the amount of times you've been running into me since we met. There really seems to be some kind of attractive force between us, seeing as you can't stop yourself from crashing into me."

I could only imagine the smug smile of his face in the darkness, but I was convinced it was there.

"Very funny, Hunter. How about we keep walking? I'd prefer to spend my night in our tent, not on a cemetery."

"Oh, trust me, there are about 200 places I'd rather spend the night, in ways that are much more fun," he said. "But I can't have you running into me every thirty seconds."

Before I could reply he reached for my hand and intertwined our fingers. Even though I tried to pull my hand back, he didn't let go and simply dragged me after him, so I had no other choice than following him.

"Are you serious?" I hissed through gritted teeth and glared at his back.

"Relax, Jules," he sighed, never loosening his grip on my hand. "I know that you're kinda scared of this kind of stuff. I won't force you into anything."

By now we had come to a stop and I could feel that he was standing pretty close to me, probably trying to read my features in the dark.

I bit my lip and turned my head the other way. "I know," I eventually said.

Hunter seemed satisfied with that answer, as he started walking again without comment.

My hand in his strangely didn't feel awful, so I stopped trying to wrestle it out of his grasp and let him pull me along. It was kind of nice, having his skin warming mine and at least now I didn't stumble into him anymore because I knew where he was.

By the time Hunter let go of my hand as we reached the gates, it suddenly felt cold without his skin contact and I pulled my sleeve further down to cover it.

In the meantime, Hunter walked up to the gates and pulled on the doorknob to open one of them... but nothing happened.

"Dammit, open," he muttered and tried again, harder this time, but to no success. After a few more tries he turned around and leaned against the gate with a resigned expression. "It's locked."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to keep myself from panicking. "Okay. You don't have your phone still with you, do you?"

Hunter shook his head. "No, I ran out of battery on the bus."

By now I was seriously starting to worry. Neither of us had any chance to communicate with one of our friends and so far no one had come to check on us. Right now it seemed a lot like we would have to spend our night here between the tombs and wait for someone to come and get us when they noticed our absence in the morning.

I eyed the gate, trying to estimate if we'd be able to climb over it.

"Forget it," Hunter said as his eyes followed my glance, "That won't work. It's too high. Besides, have you seen the spikes on the top?"

I looked up and saw that he was right; there were metal spikes preventing anyone from climbing over the gates. My shoulders slumped in defeat.

Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose, looking more than annoyed by now. "So what's the plan now?"

"Find a place to stay?" I suggested.

"Right...Back to the chapel?"

"Back to the chapel."

We made our way there in silence. When something cracked loudly in the bushes next to me, I nearly screamed, my left hand instinctively reaching out to grab Hunter's arm.

He just snorted and we continued walking, this time with me clinging to his sleeve. "Jules, you're gonna give me a bruise if you continue squeezing my arm like that. And I prefer bruises in other places."

I let go of him immediately. Fortunately, we reached the chapel in this moment and I didn't have to bother thinking of an answer.

Shuddering a little, I opened the door and entered, Hunter right behind me. In here it was a few degrees warmer for sure, and soon my teeth stopped chattering.

Hunter walked over to the benches, sliding into one of them and simply laying down with his arms folded behind his head. I hesitantly followed and laid down on the bench on the opposite side, so I could still look at him.

Hunter played around with the flashlight in his hand, the light aimlessly dancing across the ceiling.

"You should turn that off," I said lazily and closed my eyes. "These batteries don't last that long."

Hunter sighed and as I cracked open one eye, I could see that he had in fact turned it off, so now we were left in complete darkness.

"Do you think there are spiders in here?" I heard him asking after a few minutes. His voice sounded genuinely worried.

"I actually think I saw a few crawling around over there where you are," I said.

His reaction was immediate, a quiet whimper that made me laugh.

Then the sound of the shuffling of his feet filled the room and seconds later, he was standing at the end of my bench. "Move over," he hissed.

"Seriously, Hunter?" I asked. "I was joking."

"I'm not risking anything. Move."

I reluctantly did as he said, making a little room for him so he could fit next to me.

He sat down, knees pulled up and his head rolling back to lean against the bench. "I did not expect the night to progress like this."

"Me neither," I said. After a moment, I added: "I'm kind of glad you're here, though. I think it'd be much scarier if I were on my own."

Hunter nodded. "Same here. I could imagine someone worse than you to be stuck here with."

I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could get anything out, the sound of the door squeaking open interrupted me.

Hunter and I both got to our feet immediately, looking over at the figures entering. I couldn't see anything as a flashlight shone directly into my eyes, but then I heard their voices.

"Jesus, here you are!" Alexis exclaimed. I could hear her shoes clattering towards us.

"What are you doing in here?" Liam asked. He finally directed his flashlight elsewhere, and after blinking a couple times, I could see them standing before us.

Hunter just snorted. "Took you long enough. How'd you notice we were gone?"

Adam jerked his chin in my direction. "His girlfriend almost had a panic attack when she wanted to say goodnight to him and he wasn't in his tent. Mr. Smith came here with us to look for you."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"Waiting outside," Liam said. "He's not too happy you went missing."

Liam was definitely right about that; Mr. Smith gave us a tongue-lashing as soon as we stepped out onto the cemetery and the entire way back to camp, where we had to listen to the exact same reprimands from Mrs. Hennig as well.

Hunter and I both heaved a relieved sigh when we were sent back to our tent.

Dressed in sweatpants and a large dark blue sweater that was reaching my finger tips if I didn't pull the sleeves up, I crawled into my sleeping sack.

Hunter was still in the washing room getting changed, but soon returned to the tent.

"Good night, Jules," he softly said as he sank onto his sleeping mat. "We should do this again sometime. Hanging out together, I mean. Without getting lost on a cemetery and all that."

"Yeah," I agreed, already half asleep. "I think I'd like that."

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