“I’ll tell them if I need to, but I hope he just accepts it and lets you do what needs to be done.”
I let out a sharp breath. “Alright.” I squeeze out my hair, hoping that the waves will be dry by the time I’m back at camp, erasing yet another clue that we’re hidden near the water.
“Lennox?”
I meet her gaze, only to find concern there. Worry. “What’s wrong?”
“You remember you have to get close to Dane, right?”
My breath hitches and my mind instantly pictures how we were before I left. His hands cupping my face, my thigh, his lips pressing into mine. Thoughts that before would have made me feel excited and warm, now only make a chill run down my spine and a pit form in my stomach.
I’ve been preparing myself to be back with Dane ever since Sig and I made this plan, but I know with every touch I’m going to be picturing someone else’s hands and lips.
Pretending it is him.
“I know.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Sig says.
“I’ll do what I need to do.”
The feelings I had when Dane touched me aren’t even close to what happens to my mind and my body when Weston is near, but I have to fake it. I can’t let him suspect anything is different between us, or he might realize there is more going on.
She nods as I lean over to tie up my laces and grab my dagger off the ground. I can’t keep it where I normally do, because Dane can’t know I have it. If he’s going to believe I escaped from captivity, he would question why they let me have it if he found it. There’s no way I’m walking back into camp without it, and Weston would be furious with me if he found out I wasn’t armed, so I slide it into my boot instead.
Sig pulls her own blade off her belt and holds it at me, poised to strike.
“Practice. In case Mara comes at you,” she says.
I wrench her wrist and disarm her easily, flipping the blade in my hands just as Weston does. We practice a few more times before she is satisfied and shoves it back in the sheath.
“Time to make this look convincing,” I say as I search my clothes for the tears Sig ripped into them. I rub each patch of skin beneath the tears against the jagged rock on the wall of the tunnel, wincing as I scrape my skin open and let the blood soak into the fabric. The stings will be short-lived, because I know Dane will make sure every single one is covered with salve as soon as possible.
I step away from the wall and assess myself, satisfied with our work.
“Hey, Lennox,” Sig says.
“Yes?” I say, looking up at her, but my face is met with her fist, crashing into it and sending me staggering backwards.
“What the FUCK, Sig?” I scream, clutching my face as I glare at her.
She shakes out her hand with a grimace. “Fuck, he’s going to kill me when he hears about that. Trust me, it would have hurt more if you were expecting it.” She takes a step and waves me over to her. “Come here, let me see.”
My eyes are tearing as I stop in front of her, and she turns me around, so the torchlight falls across my face. She moves my chin around in different directions, nodding at her accomplishment.
“It’s bruising already. That will definitely look convincing.”
“If I didn’t have somewhere to be right now, I’d punch you back,” I grumble.
“Save it. You can hit me later,” she says with a grin.
“I’m not going to ask where a princess learned to throw a punch like that.”
“Probably the same place you did,” she laughs. “Come on, we need to move. We’ve already been here too long.”
We jog through the tunnels, passing under the river to the far side of the island until we reach a gentle slope that will open up right near the plateau where we arrived in Dawnlin.
“You should go back. I can make it from here,” I say.
