by Anna Katmore
Her breathing calms. And mine does, too. For a moment, the soft ripple of the stream behind her is the only sound. Her mouth is mere inches away from my own lips, and I can’t stop myself from wetting them with the tip of my tongue. Chloe swallows. But she’s still there, unmoving.
From her look, I wonder if she’d be okay with me kissing her now. If, just maybe, she’s even waiting for it. I drop the paintball gun and mask I was clasping tightly on the slide down the hill then reach up to cup her cheeks. Slowly, I move her head closer, down to me. Her eyes are still wide, full of wonder. And something more. I’m sure she’d let me kiss her now.
But I don’t want to.
“Sorry, old habit,” I murmur. Letting go of her face, I grab her by her hips and lift her off of me. A gasp escapes her when I dump her on her knees in the grass.
As she climbs to her feet, I take another minute, lying on the ground, to catch my breath. Wow. What a ride…
“Do you have any idea how we’re going to get back up there?” Chloe asks with a clipped voice after some time, combing dried mud out of her ponytail with her fingers.
My abs tense as I sit up. “We don’t. This brook is the same one that runs by the pond. We’re going to follow it back to the campsite.” It’ll be the easiest way.
As I brush some dirt off my pants, I notice a dark red spot on my groin. Is that blood? I rub over it with the cuff of my jacket pulled down over the heel of my hand. It’s fresh, but I don’t feel any pain on my leg under the pants. Maybe it’s not my blood? Confused, I tilt my head to check Chloe’s legs, because two minutes ago they were rubbing against me. A thin line of red liquid trails down her inner thigh. “Um, Chloe?” When she looks at me, I scrunch my face uncomfortably. “Did you start your period?”
Instantly, her face flushes a deep scarlet. “What? No!” Her gaze zeroes in on the spot on my pants and then moves down herself. She bends her right leg so that she can examine it and see where the blood is coming from, pulling her cutoffs a little higher. She’s right. No period—thank God. The real reason for her bleeding is a wound high up on her thigh. She must have cut herself on something protruding roots as she fell down the slope.
“Let me see.” I push to my knees and squat down before her. Holy shit, not a good idea, her groin right in front of my face. To bring my wayward thoughts back under control, I swallow a couple of times and clear my throat.
With my hands on her hips, she lets me inspect the wound. “Is there something stuck inside me?” she demands, her voice hitching hysterically.
“Nooo…” Not yet. But if I keep hunkering here much longer, she might be filled with something different soon. Shaking my head to rid my mind of such temptation, I untie the bandana from my arm and wind it around her leg twice. With a tight knot, the thing should hold until we get back to the campsite.
“Where’s Julie, anyway?” Chloe sounds a lot calmer now. “I thought she went off with you?”
“Shot.”
“Did she walk back to the camp then?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You should have kept her.” She laughs. “Could have slung her over your shoulders for protection.”
“I could do that with you,” I taunt her. Then I sink back on the heels of my hiking boots, let my hands drop to my thighs, and look up at her. Biting her lip, she searches my face. No doubt she can read all the annoying longing there that I’ve got to deal with right now. And I have no idea how to hide it. Or push it away. These feelings are uncomfortable and unwanted. Better find a distraction, and real fast.
Eyes averted, I rise then go to collect my gun and face mask from the ground. Strapping the weapon over my shoulder, I fasten the mask to my belt. “Come on, we should get you back so you can tend to that cut.” We start off together, me leading the way.
It’s a long walk back, and we hardly speak a word. Chloe’s sideways glances at me every now and then aren’t lost on me, but I’m not in the mood to talk about anything at the moment. Least of all about the past. And the incident back at the slope definitely brings up a lot of old memories.
“I’m hungry,” she murmurs after some time.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah? You should have eaten breakfast today.” When she doesn’t reply, I add in a friendlier tone, “It’s not much farther. We just need to find a good place to cross the stream.” A second later, a cracking sound and voices somewhere to our right make me freeze.
Turning to Chloe, I put a finger to my lips. With a fistful of her sleeve in my hand, I drag her behind a tree, where I pull her with me to the ground. Hunkering against the trunk, I reach for my gun then cautiously lean around the tree, trying to catch a glimpse of who it is through the long grass and bushes.
“Do you think we got everyone?” Collin Monroe asks his older brother on the other side of the brook.
Greyson sweeps their surroundings with a glance, but he doesn’t look our way. “Yes. I think Lex and Brian were the last ones out here. Let’s go back.”
“Who is it?” Chloe hisses in my ear when I press my back against the trunk again, straining to listen to the others’ footsteps on the underbrush.
“Grey and his brother,” I whisper back. “They’re headed back.” I turn my head and look at her with a warning in my eyes. “Stay here.”
Her face goes blank with surprise. “What are you going to do?”
There’s no time for explanations. “Just do what I say.” The paintball gun tight in my fists, I drop on my front and crawl along under the shelter of the taller plants around here. When I get a good aim at the purple soldiers, I fire my gun. It takes less than two seconds. Three shots—the first ball explodes on a tree, but the second and third are perfect hits.
“Oh, no!” Collin whines, while Grey jerks around, looking frantically for me.
Not wanting to give away our position or the identity of who just kicked them out of the game, I lower my head again quickly. After they head off, shoulders slumped, I return to Chloe with a sneer on my face. “Seems you and I are the last ones out here now.”
Granting Greyson and his brother a few more minutes of a head start, we set off again, too. It’s about half a mile back to the camp. Where the brook seems the narrowest, we stop. “You want to cross here?” Chloe asks with a skeptical tilt of her eyebrows.
“Yep. We probably won’t find a better place.” I stoop over and roll the legs of my pants up to my knees. Because of the sharp, pointed stones in the water, it’s best to leave our shoes on. When I straighten, Chloe still stands rigid. She doesn’t have to roll up anything to keep her clothes dry. “Ready?” I ask and tentatively hold out my hand for her. Knowing this princess, she’ll slip a hundred times before she makes it to the other side.
Chloe stares at me for a really long moment. With more reluctance than necessary, she finally puts her hand in mine. It’s soft. And delicate. Still the hand of an angel. I squeeze almost tenderly, just once, for old times.
After a determined nod that she returns, we head down the bank, but two steps away from the water, she suddenly pulls me to a stop.
“What’s up?”
Wariness creeps into her gaze. “Remember Shawn Perkins?”
“Shawn Perkins…” Oh boy, how I remember that dude. “He was the one who fell into this brook that one summer.”
“And when he came out, he had all those leeches everywhere on his skin.” Chloe shudders. “It took him hours to get them off.”
I swallow. Maybe it’s not the best idea to wade through the water. But what else can we do?
As if she can read my mind, she asks, “Isn’t there a bridge somewhere?”
“Not unless they built one in the past five years.” Which I doubt. And we can’t jump over the stream, either, because at the thinnest part, it’s still at least four yards wide.
Together we stand there, gazing at the shadows in the water. What amazes me most about this is that we’re still holding hands.
“I’m sorry to say this, but we don’t have a choice,�
�� I murmur after some time. “We’ll have to walk through it.” One look at her face, and I almost feel her horror myself. Trying to shut out any thoughts of slimy black bloodsuckers, I bend over and unroll my pant legs. I stuff the hems into my socks and hiking boots and finally tie my shoe laces really tight around my ankles.
“What are you doing?” Chloe croaks.
“Preparing to get in the water. I don’t want to give them any chance to crawl up my legs.”
“Yeah, right. And what do I do?” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other and helplessly grabs the legs of her cutoffs.
I take a deep breath. “You’ll go on my back.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You want to give me a piggyback ride?”
Lips pressed together, I nod. “Mm-hm.”
“But— Um— Just—”
“You have a better plan, Summers?” I cut her off. “Because if you do, I’d really love to hear it.”
Her quiet gaping is answer enough, but she shakes her head anyway.
“Right.” I pull my paintball gun from my shoulder. “Can you hold this for me?” When she reaches out to take my weapon, I notice for the first time that something is missing from her equipment and frown. “Where’s yours?”
“My what?”
“Your gun, Chloe.”
Her mouth drops open, then she licks her bottom lip and bites it as she scrunches up her face. “I don’t know…”
“God! You lost it?”
“I— I think I forgot it.”
Blowing out a frustrated sigh, I clap my hands to my head. “Where?”
She turns back in the direction we came from. Hopefully, she just left it by the tree where I shot Greyson and Collin. Her long silence starts to make me nervous, so I growl with insistence, “Where did you forget it, Chloe?”
Her answer is a tiny whisper. “By the hill we fell down.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s over a mile back!”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Her whine sounds pathetic.
“How could you forget something as big as a gun? And your mask? Did you leave that there, too?”
She nods, and I expel another irritated breath, which must have taken it a notch too far for her, because all of a sudden, her cheeks start to burn red with anger and she shouts at me, “Stop blaming me! You were the one who forced me to play. And you were also the one who chased me through half the woods like a freaking cheetah, may I remind you!” Her eyes sharpen, giving her battle outfit a whole new appearance. And when she points a finger in the direction we came, I half expect some magic to shoot out of her red nail. “I nearly broke my neck back there because of you! Sorry I put those stupid things down for a moment to catch my breath, Mister Super-duper-I-make-the-rules-here!”
We stare each other down, and, balls, I’m the one who smiles first. “Mister Super…duper?” I repeat mockingly, crossing my arms over my chest and creasing my brow in amusement.
Chloe keeps the mean face up for another moment, but then a laugh escapes her, too, and she shoves my shoulder, making me stumble backward. After a deep sigh, she whines, “Do we really have to go back now to get it?”
“No. I’ll send some boys out for it tomorrow.”
Visible relief washes over her face. “Good… Because I’m really starving and want to get back already.”
“Then come on, tiger.” It’s time to take the princess home.
She straps my gun to her shoulder, and I turn around so she can climb on my back. To make it easier for her, I bend my knees a little, then I grab her thighs and move her up with a gentle jostle. Her mile-long legs anchored around my waist, she hooks her heels in front of my groin. Jesus! Please let me get to the other side without getting weak and giving in to the same thoughts that have been driving me crazy since having her on top of me back at the slope.
When she’s ready, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck, I walk slowly into the water. The current is gentle enough and the water not very deep, so that’s not a problem. What troubles me a little are the slick stones and the additional weight on my back that makes balancing quite difficult. We’re almost in the middle of the brook when I trip over a rock that’s protruding upward. As I stumble forward, struggling to keep my balance, Chloe nearly chokes me and screeches, “Oh my God, you’re going to kill us both!” That’s not exactly helpful, and the shriek hurts like hell in my ear.
“Shut up back there! No one’s going to die,” I growl with some effort, fighting to find a safe stance again. “But if you scream into my ear like that again, I’ll let the bloodsuckers have you.” There’s water in my shoes already, and my pants are soaking to above my knees. In the sizzling heat, I wouldn’t mind the cooling, if it wasn’t for the memory of hundreds of leeches stuck to Shawn Perkins’s body four years ago. I really don’t want to follow that act.
Carefully, I walk on, testing with my toes for any more rocks in the way before taking the next step, and the next. It’s not far to the other side anymore. Just a few more steps. I swallow, forging on. Chloe is stiff as a stick on my back, and within her chokehold I can hardly breathe, but at least she’s quiet. Only a little whimpering fills my ear as she presses her forehead to my shoulder, hiding her face, but that’s okay.
The other side of the stream is almost within reach when a pit causes me to stumble forward. Chloe cries out, crushing my windpipe, her heels digging into my groin. Oh damn! The pain makes me cough, and dots fill my vision. Thank God the deepest part of the creek is behind us, so I don’t dip under when I crash forward on my knees. Hands braced on dry ground already, I break my fall. Chloe is off my back faster than lightning and scrambles onto the shore. I drag myself out after her and just lie there, struggling to bite down a pained whine after her kick to my balls.
Her hand cautiously touching my shoulder, she leans down. “Are you all right?”
“Yep. Fine,” I croak, digging my fingers into the grass. “Just don’t talk to me for a minute—”
She sucks in a hissing breath between her teeth. “I’m so sorry…”
Certainly not half as sorry as I am. While my front is drenched, she didn’t even catch a splatter.
When the pain starts to fade, I sit up and scan for any bloodsuckers on me. The protection paid off; nothing nasty sticks to my clothes or managed to crawl underneath. After I’m done retying my shoelaces, Chloe’s hand appears in my vision. I cast a scrutinizing look up at her. Her face torn with guilt, her eyes say sorry but also thanks. Probably for saving her from leech attacks. As I take her hand, she pulls me to my feet then hands me the paintball gun. I strap the weapon over my shoulder and head off, knowing she’ll follow me without an added invitation.
A few steps later, I shoot her a quick sideways glance and tell her, “You owe me, you know. For the piggyback ride.”
Instantly, her nose crinkles in a grimace. “Not more lessons. Please…”
She’s already set with two, that should do for the summer. No, I have something different in mind. “Just an answer, how about that?”
Her gaze turns wary. “To what question?”
Well, there are a million. I tuck my hands in my pockets then pull them out again when the wet fabric feels nasty. What I desperately want to know is why the hell she lied…back then. But we aren’t really there. Yet. Maybe I’ll get my answers sometime this summer. For today, however, we better start with something simple. “Why do you hate it here so much?”
She purses her lips, and I wonder if she’ll brush me off instead of answering. Finally, she heaves a deep sigh and says, “Because nothing in the past two years has gone according to plan.” She tilts her head to stare me hard in the eyes. “At all.”
“And your plan was to go to London for drama school?”
“Yes. Right after high school. But there was this little mishap with the car—”
I chuckle. Only she would call a drunk-driving accident a little mishap.
“—and the probation and community service hours, and I couldn’
t go. So I canceled everything and made new plans. To go at the beginning of this summer.”
“But you couldn’t go because you haven’t clocked your hours yet.”
“Right.”
“And now you’re stuck here with us for the greater part of the summer.”
“Yes.”
“Must be frustrating.”
She lifts her eyebrows at me, coupled with a reprimanding look.
I can’t help but laugh. “All right, I get it now.”
As we face a slope, I climb up first. The lake lies only a few steps ahead now, and in less than ten minutes, we should be back at the boys’ camp. The last bit of the hike went by much faster than I’d expected. I turn around, holding out my hand to her, and help her up. “I have another question.”
“Sure you do…” she replies with sarcasm.
“Have you ever thought about maybe making the best of it?”
“Oh God, I tried,” she calls out, throwing her hands in the air. “But with you continually dumping some stupid duties on me, it’s really hard, you know. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to drive me completely insane for some reason.”
No. Not completely. Just a little. For old times’ sake. I hold that back and instead probe carefully, “Is dancing with the girls really so terrible?” The times I watched her at the end of this week, she seemed like she was having at least a little bit of fun.
Chloe snarls, or sighs, or both. Whatever it is, it’s a weird sound she makes, and it drags my gaze to her. “I found an instructor. Blondie. She’s good, and the kids do what she says.”
I know who she means from watching them every morning, but still I say, “Blondie certainly has a name, too.”
Her sharp eyes burn holes in my face. A long moment later, she drawls, “Addison.”
Jesus Christ. I half expected her to call me Four again for only daring to suggest she call people by their names. Glad she didn’t. “And the acting lessons? What about those?”
She bites her lip, her gaze returning to the narrow path before us. “It was a mean trick for the girls to play.”