What's a Guy to Do

Walking back along the trail, Jennifer fell in step with Kurt. Every other time he’d brought a group into the park he’d had to lead since he was the only one with any real experience navigating these woods. It was strange, yet refreshing, to find himself now with someone who didn’t need his expertise. As a Ranger, Jennifer’s knowledge of the park was far superior to his, and it showed in her full, confident gait, almost a half-step faster than Kurt, practically leading him. Or maybe he just liked being able lean back slightly and look over at her firm, toned ass, swaying gently along with her self-assured pace.

Concern soon invaded his mind though as they came to the first junction in the path, the place where the other four had begun gathering sticks. They passed a few piles of sticks, and he noticed Jennifer eyeing them carefully although she made no comment. But none of the other teens were present. His main worry was that they had wandered off in search of sticks and gotten lost, but he didn’t want to trouble Jennifer. It was also just as possible that they were at that minute on their way back with arms full of firewood.

The truth was somewhere inbetween. At that moment, deeper in the woods, the foursome were splitting off. Trent and Gavin were heading back to the trail, while Chloe was currently leading Amber off towards Zaffre Falls, only to get lost and require the assistance of Colin and Audra.

“When I get back to the cabin and ask Victoria how she is, she’ll probably tell me she’s fine,” Jennifer brought him back to reality as she turned onto the adjoining path. “Should I believe her? Is she really fine?”

Kurt shrugged his weary shoulders and kicked at a clump of dirt, knocking it along the path in front of him. He was tired of thinking about Victoria, what her emotions meant, what they really meant, whether he should believe her at all. It was truly a choice between hell and hell. If he believed her, and she was lying, he’d be fucked over, but if he didn’t believe her and she was telling the truth, he’d be fucking himself over. The only good outcome was if he believed her and she was telling the truth, and that was completely out of his hands. He hated the impotency of doing nothing and hoping.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I already told you that she’s been acting odd.”

“You did.”

“I can’t say for sure what’s going on in her head. There’s something that she’s hiding, but maybe it has nothing at all to do with Shawn himself, like she’s just struggling to connect after Gavin cheated and Shawn tried to control her. A generic distrust of men I can handle, and it’s true, she’s not quite as distant and chaotic as she was when Shawn had her ear before but…maybe she’s just gotten better at hiding it. Because she is hiding something.”

“I think you need to relax. It’s natural that you would feel involved after Shawn kidnapped you and you were first on the scene to rescue her, but this isn’t your responsibility. If Shawn is manipulating her, and she’s went back to him, then the best thing you can do for Victoria is to be there for her. Not as her hero, or her defender, just as a friend, or whatever more you want to be. Your role in this is emotional support, not the vanquisher of evil, although trust me, I get it, there’d be nothing sweeter than to plunge a knife into that kid’s cold, black heart.”

Kurt frowned. “You say that, but you don’t know the whole story.”

“Yes, you mentioned that the lead investigator in the case might have been compromised.”

“Right, but that’s actually not what I meant. It’s rather complex, and I’ll get to that part in a moment,” Kurt confessed, preparing her for a long tale. “After the hack, and the pictures were released, Victoria went mute for a while. I mean that literally, by the way, she couldn’t speak at all for several hours. Zack’s mom, who’s a doctor…”

“I know Monica Bishop very well,” Jennifer informed him.

Besides the fact that it was a small town and practically everyone knew everyone else in some capacity, Monica was Jennifer’s OB-GYN, as she was to a lot of women in town. So, to say that she knew the dark-haired doctor intimately even before gossip of her marriage’s downfall circulated was something of an understatement.

“In any case, the female Dr. Bishop warned us that it could take days or even months before Victoria got her voice back, so none of us were expecting any miracles. Victoria did have a plan though, and it worked, except her first word after she regained her voice was ‘Shawn’. After that, she stole a car and ran away.”

“What was her plan?”

Kurt choked on his own tongue. He had hoped to dodge that question, and even after several minutes of coughing and spluttering, he had no good ideas. Resigning himself to the truth, he eluded her gaze and muttered his response.

“Sex.”

“What was that?”

“SEX,” he called out louder. “S-E-X. That was her plan, to have sex, to trigger an orgasm that would shock her into speech. Maybe I should be proud that I’m so good that I made a mute girl scream, but forgive me if I’m a little sour that it was another guy’s name she was shouting with all the breath in her lungs.”

“Oh Kurt.”

Jennifer looked remorseful for pressing the issue, but he could see pity in her eyes too. It was exactly that sympathetic expression that he hated, almost as much as he hated himself for being so petty and immature to be jealous, especially of Shawn Lewis of all people.

“As I said, she stole a car and disappeared. No one saw her leave and we had no idea where she went, so everyone at the cabin split up to search for her. Kendra, that’s the girl whose car she took, and I talked to her dad who suggested the church that she used to frequent.”

“That Rock Fellowship place that gathers in the re-purposed barn?”

“That’s the one. It was a good tip too, because that’s exactly where we found her, and she was praying. I’ll admit, it was a great relief to find that Shawn wasn’t with her, but it strikes me as odd. Earlier that day as well, another one of our friends, Gavin…”

“I know Gavin too. He’s the one abandoned Victoria so that she was all alone when she fell down that hole, where Dustin found her. I saw him over your shoulder when I returned Victoria to the cabin the next day.”

“Well, Shawn kidnapped him. It was a bit of a mix up, but the gist is that Gavin let it slip where Victoria was staying and how to find her. We were all on edge, expecting Shawn to show up, or to try something, and when Victoria fled, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for him. But he didn’t do anything. I haven’t heard a peep from him since those photos were leaked. There’s no way he just lost interest or gave up, so then why didn’t he make his move? Unless he did, and Victoria is playing us all for fools again.”

His hands clenched into fists at his side while he stared at his feet, shuffling along the well-tread dirt track. He didn’t see Jennifer reach out and grab him, only becoming aware as she jerked him around to face her and shoved her face right in front of his, forcing him to stare into those strong blue eyes currently sizzling with determination.

“Listen to me, Kurt, don’t do this to yourself. You can’t begin the fathom the mind of that depraved lunatic, or what he has planned, so don’t even try. Maybe this is even what he wants, to twist you into knots thinking about what he could do, weakening you psychologically, fraying your nerves before he strikes. Or maybe his ego is so big he thought he could afford to overlook the opportunity. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking, so don’t even try. Just be grateful that he didn’t.”

“I…I know…”

He stammered, surprised by the forcefulness of her intervention, but also distracted by her perfect full lips. Watching her mouth move as she reprimanded him, he was reminded of the many scolding’s he received during his tenure at the Summer Ranger Camp, but principally of how those lips had felt on his, warm, wet, and needy, while her hand jerked him to completion. She was close enough to kiss again, her breath hot as it blew against his face, making his cock lurch inside his shorts.

“It…it’s hard…”

She blinked and glanced down, noticing the growing bulge below. The stiff reminder of what they’d done before, how far she’d crossed the line, made her withdraw, slow, as if she only then realized how close her face was to his.

“I mean, it’s, uh, hard to just forget about it.” His cheeks flushed red as he looked away. “Shawn has been a constant pain in our ass for so long, and now he’s just gone radio silent. I don’t like it, and I don’t like that Victoria is acting strange right now, at the same time. I don’t like coincidences, but I don’t know what to do about it. Any move I can think of to make, just seems like it’ll push Victoria further away.”

“The best thing to do then is nothing at all. Victoria is a big girl; let her figure some things out for herself, and just be there if she comes back to you. Fate sometimes has ways of surprising us,” she said, though those last words seemed to be directed towards herself.

She started walking again, and Kurt followed, passing by the old stone marker, and turning down the path that led to Ravers cabin. They continued in a heavy, contemplative silence for almost a minute before Jennifer finally thought of a topic to fill the void.

“You mentioned that Shawn had someone in the police **** in his pocket?”

“That’s right. Shawn has never been able to do everything alone, he’s always had people he uses to get the job done, and recently he came into contact with an expert hacker known as k3Y$Tr0kE.” He avoided using Grace’s real name. “Turns out Detective Joan McClane also used k3Y$Tr0kE once upon a time, the details of which Shawn was able to use to **** her to leave him out of her investigation.”

“You know this for certain?”

“Near enough. Gavin overheard the conversation between Shawn and k3Y$Tr0kE, and Shawn made it clear he wanted dirt on the Detective to keep her from interfering in his business. So, no, I can’t say that she’s been compromised for sure, but it’s likely. Besides what Gavin already told us, Ashley also spoke to Mrs. Walker, who confirmed that the detective hadn’t shown her a picture of Shawn during the investigation of the hack. Shawn could have been in the building at the time, but Detective McClane seems to be intentionally avoiding that line of inquiry.”

“That is suspicious.”

“Do you think you could get involved? If you took a picture to Mrs. Walker, you could show it to her and take her testimony to the police, right? They couldn’t ignore the evidence then.”

Jennifer shook her head, and frowned hard.

“My authority outside the jurisdiction of the park is flimsy. I can work alongside the police if a crime crosses the boundaries, but I’d be well outside my purview to investigate a crime that took place outside of the park by a teenager who isn’t staying here presently.”

“What about when we went to his apartment last time?”

Surprised that he managed to get the words out in time, Kurt felt his throat close over as his face blushed even redder, reminding both of them of what had happened in the master bedroom. Images of the hot, well built Ranger in the full body fishnet mesh flashed at the forefront of his mind, blurring imagination and reality until he could almost of swore that she was standing there in the forest dressed once more in that fishnet lingerie.

“That…that was different,” Jennifer stuttered uncharacteristically, feeling the same shame, tinged with desire, that he was enduring. “Shawn was possibly harassing Victoria, who was staying in Ravers cabin. We Rangers are deputized to investigate crimes relating to occupants of the cabins, but since Victoria hadn’t actually reported any crime, that was a very grey area, and I told you as much at the time. I’m sorry, but unless Victoria reports it, or you can provide me with proof yourself, I can’t get involved.”

Additionally, although she didn’t want to admit it, she was worried for her own job. If Kurt was correct and Shawn was manipulating the detective, then any investigation she began would also put her square on that monster’s radar too. Normally she wouldn’t care, putting him behind bars would be worth any target on her own back, but if he had any evidence that she had been to his apartment that day, he could have her completely discredited, and even fired.

“Okay, I understand.”

“Don’t worry, and just be patient. A guy like Shawn, he won’t be able to hold back forever. He’ll make his move, and you’ll get him then. Just don’t let him live inside your brain until you do.”

“What the fuck?”

The gravel crunched beneath their feet as they crossed from the treeline to the cabin yard, where Kurt had frozen still, staring at the sight before him. Jennifer whipped her head around, as her hand hung cautiously over her handgun. All she saw was the cabin and the cars. Nothing out of the ordinary, and yet when she turned her eyes again on Kurt, he still bore that same pale, haunted stare.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“The car,” he pointed at the empty space where Kendra’s car had once been parked. “The car is gone again.”