PANIC ROOM • KENJI KON

XXXV. It's Me, I'm The Problem, It's Me

"No? Uhm—"

"Just spit it out. Please."

Brooklynn slowed her step and turned back to face them. She perked up, listening to their conversation intently.

"I'm like, eighty seven percent sure it was Roy, you know, who turned you in?"

Eva stopped in her tracks and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

Of course it was Roy— Roy would do anything to hang with the cool crew, with Prince's crew. Roy was the one in her mechanics class. Roy was the one who had nothing to gain but everything to lose.

"Uh, Angel?" Kenji asked apprehensively.

Oh, I am going to kill Roy Esparza.

She opened her eyes, and turned on the first punchable thing in her eyesight: a large tree with thick tentacles of vines hanging from the branches. Punch after punch, hit after hit, she imagined Roy's face in place of the trunk, until Kenji swooped in, pulling her away from the tree.

"Angel! You can't do that."

"Get off me," she spit, flexing her hands. She was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling sporadically.

"Eva, you're hurting yourself," he told her with the most sincerity she's seen on him since their mortal enemies quarrel.

I deserve it, her head told her.

Eva met Brooklynn's eyes, where she saw fear mixed with worry. She looked down to her knuckles, which were now wet with blood and raw, though the stinging she used to feel after fights was nowhere to be found.

"You're hurting yourself," he repeated, turning her around to face him. "And don't say you deserve it, because I know you're thinking that, too."

She furrowed her eyebrows and squinted her eyes up at him, her arms hanging loosely in his hands. "Why? Why do you care?" She roughly pulled her hands back, her fingers softly running over her knuckles, gasping in pain.

Kenji's features softened. "We were friends once." The best of friends. "You think we can't go back there, but that's not true. You—"

Eva huffed, pulling away from him. She walked to Brooklynn, and gave her a pleading look, then continued on in the hopeful direction of Camp Cretaceous. Kenji was crazy if he thought they could just go back to being friends. As if Eva's raging hate meant nothing to their future.

~~~

"We're back!" Kenji shouted once they spotted their tree house.

The other campers were all doing their own things on the base. Four bright red kayaks were leaned against the bottom of the base, their paddles loosely thrown into a pile beside them.

"How was your super secret adventure?" Yasmina mocked with a head tilt, a hand of cards in her left palm.

"Did you guys have fun? I'm glad you're all alive!" Sammy cheered from beside Yaz.

The trio headed for the ladder, taking turns moving up it.

"Oh, yeah," Kenji agreed. "We learned stuff! Important stuff, aye, Eva?"

Eva latched her hands around the ladder bars, heaving herself up to the top. "Yeah, um..." She scratched the back of her head, her lips pressed together in a thin line. ""It's me. I'm the problem, it's me."

"What does that even mean?" Darius questioned.

"I'm the—" she sighed. "I'm the fucking— damn it, I'm sorry, Kenji, okay?" She apologized again. She didn't think she could ever stop apologizing.