“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me!” I exclaim as soon as the door to our cabin opens, “tell me this is a mistake.”The supervisor who asked us to just call him Oliver gives out an awkward chuckle, “I’m sorry, Mr. Greyson and Miss. Granger, but we did not anticipate y’all coming here, so the cabins were built for working people with the limited facilities and budget we had. If you aren’t comfortable with the arrangement, though, I will gladly call a nearby hotel and book you two separate rooms.”The cabin looks homey enough, everything made of wood, with a three-room structure, one for the kitchen/living room, one for the shared bathroom, and the other for the bedroom.A single bedroom, meant to be shared. There are two beds placed side to side, pushed near the walls as if it’s some sort of a dorm room. Coraline blinks at it, with amusement etching on her features, contrary to my anxiety. I mean, I’m not that much of a snob to balk at the idea of sharing a room with someone. I’ve done th

The next few days are a blast.The thing is the work I do here is more enjoyable than I thought. It’s challenging, and it’s energetic. I feel like I’m always in motion, and even though I spend most of the time in the office building, I feel like I’m really a part of the crew. The workers are friendly, and the senior staff of engineers and architects are brilliant. It could never be said that my father employed less than-brilliant individuals for his projects, but these guys are so damn clever. Whenever there is a problem thrown at them, whether it be the wet and mountainous nature of the construction site posing various unprecedented obstacles, the weather becoming shit, or even the supply chain issues, they come up with new and creative ways to solve them, and I love witnessing it. Most of the time during these, I’m a wallflower. There’s nothing a former COO could do about most of these obstacles as they are very technical. But that is alright, but I could do listening just fine. And

Never in my life had I been in jail.I will not lie, there was a pretty stupid phase in my life when I wanted to be a bad boy. I might have been about twelve at the time, and thought being a thug while riding motorbikes and smoking cigarettes was just so cool. It might have been because of my daddy issues meeting up with my looming puberty, it might have been because I was simply bored of how my life was going and wanted something to shake it up, and like most twelve-year-old boys I was utterly stupid and thought everything dangerous was cool.I was also under the impression that bad boys got all the girls. My mom got wound of this fantasy of mine because I was gullible enough to write it in my journal and keep it lying open on the kitchen table. While my mother swore that she deliberately did not read it and was just intrigued by my trying to draw skulls all over the page. After that, she made me watch documentaries over and over again about the downsides of crime, which was mostly

Both Coraline and Oliver are utterly mad throughout the trip home.I sit in the backseat, listening to them rag on the police station like two angry parents ragging on their kid’s school for suspending him unfairly. It would be amusing if I weren’t feeling so guilty about the whole thing.“Guys, guys,” I tell them when they stop the ranting to take a breath, “What happened, happened, alright. At least I got out without being sent to county jail or making it a court case. Also, I’m really sorry for dragging you into this.”“Nonsense, Jace, none of it was your fault. They were the ones who saw you walking and minding your own business and decided that you were some low-lives criminal.”“An eco-terrorist actually,” I correct them, “come to think of it, Oliver, have you had any problems with vandalism? The cops mentioned that a few other businesses were being affected as well, and some of them were hotel projects. Are there other hotel construction going on?”“There are a few. Apparently,

“What on earth…?” I utter as I take in the sight in front of me.I stand in front of the hunting lodge construction zone, right in front of the structure that is to be the main building of the hotel. The morning air is crisp, and the sun is already shining, brilliant rays filtering through the leaves of the canopies in the sorest surrounding us and hitting the ground, warming up the air particles in between. About twenty or so workers and senior staff stand around me, while Oliver and Coraline flank me. And all of us are staring.“Fallhill does not belong to you. Leave!” Coraline reads what is written on a wall of the structure aloud. These words are written in black oil and red paint, alternating between them, in a bold, large font that takes over the wall. Surrounding it, there are skulls, knives, guns, trees, and animals drawn, all in surprising detail as if the perpetrators of the deed had plenty of time in their pockets. Whenever winds blow through the forest, the strings of toil