Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 100470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I’m almost asleep when small fingers touch my arm. I jolt in surprise, my heart rate hammering again inside my chest.
“Ronan?” Kristen says in the barest of whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t ever let him find you doing…that.” She sniffles. “I can’t bear to lose my only friend.”
What does that mean?
“Okay, sure,” I say, voice squeaky with shame. “Sorry.”
“He’s possessive. He’ll kill you.”
“Got it.” I pat her hand before quickly flipping onto my side, putting my back to her.
She’s right. That was careless and stupid. Logan doesn’t seem the type to be okay with me getting myself off. He’s controlling and likes to call the shots. When you don’t follow his rules, he’ll punish you.
I’ll be careful.
I have to be.
My life depends on it.
* * *
* * *
Wild is still pissed.
We found his truck earlier this morning. The trespassers—no, kidnappers—drove it off the road and into the forest as deep as they could until the front quarter panels were wedged between two thick pines. They’d stripped the vehicle of everything he’d left inside and it was scratched all to hell. Uncle Atticus is going to have to come back later with his own truck to try and tow it out of its spot. Definitely a problem for another day.
“That shit was brand-new,” Wild growls, stomping through the brush and swatting at a wasp that flies too closely. “It’s ruined.”
He walks ahead of me and Rowdy, loaded down with his own camping gear. I shoot Rowdy an exasperated look. My brother shakes his head. Neither of us is happy with Wild’s bitch fest.
We lost our fucking family and he’s worried about a stupid truck.
Wild continues to gripe as he charges ahead. His dark hair has been pulled into a man bun that sits high on his head. It’s shaved underneath, which gives him an edgy look. I can remember once upon a time he loathed the idea of becoming like his dad. Yet, they both have long hair they have to tie up all the time.
Rowdy, until this morning, also had the whole man bun thing going on. However, when Aunt Eve was buzzing my hair short, Rowdy stepped in after for his own cut. His haircut, cropped short on the sides but still long enough to be messy on top, makes him seem younger. A little less…wild. I want to ask him if it’s because he doesn’t want to have hair like Wild, but with Wild within earshot, I refrain.
I don’t understand how they went from being cool one day to despising each other the next.
Wild grows quiet, stopping to cast his gaze all around. Me and Rowdy make it to him. I realize the reason why he stopped. Their obvious trail from leaving the truck has vanished. A small brook runs through the trees and the trail doesn’t pick up on the other side.
“We’re never going to find them,” Wild grumbles. “The trail ends here.”
Rowdy ignores his pessimism and prowls past him. Easily, he leaps over the water and onto the other side, his boot crushing some brush into the dirt. He takes another step and leaves his obvious footprint.
That’s what we should be seeing.
Evidence of a group of people trampling the earth.
If not here, where?
Rowdy starts trekking along the bank going north while Wild waits, unmoving, arms crossed over his chest. I start south, carefully looking for anything that might look like they crossed. For a while, I walk along the creekside as it curves between massive pines that have been here forever.
When I come to a fallen tree that provides a bridge over the creek, I pause to take in the scenery around me. It’s quiet aside from birds chirping and the rushing of the water over rocks. I step onto the log, testing its strength first before climbing on top. The area west has been trampled heavily and the obvious way they could have gone. I’m just turning around to go find Rowdy and Wild when something glimmers in the sunlight, catching my attention just off the east bank.
Carefully, I continue along the log past the bank to the original location the tree started at before lightning or old age made it fall. The shiny object is tiny. Squatting, I pick it up from near the tree stump.
An earring.
Raegan’s earring.
My mind drifts to the past when Raegan was thirteen. She’d begged and begged for earrings like the women on some of the book covers she’d seen. When Uncle Atticus and Aunt Eve came to visit for Christmas, they brought an ear-piercing kit plus some earrings. Me and my brothers watched with slight horror as she subjected herself to stabbing holes in her ears. I’d thought she was going to cry, and her eyes were teary, until she looked my way. The determination to be brave pushed through the pain and fear.