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“Yeah, I guess I am, though I don’t feel it.” He glances away, a shadow passing across his handsome features, suddenly troubled by something.
I get the same feeling passing over me as I did when Cade mentioned that I was legally an adult now. It’s like threads of restraint are pinging off me, and a new sense of freedom settles in my soul. Though I feel like I’ve been independent from a very young age—out of necessity rather than want—now I don’t need to explain myself to anyone else. I can live my life how I want to live it.
Then I remember where I am. Okay, maybe not quite how I planned on living it, and honestly, if we don’t find a steady source of food soon, I’m not sure how long we’ll have left, but it still gives me a kind of power among the men.
I purse my lips and blow out the candle, and then lift my gaze to find Reed staring down at me.
I smile back. “Thanks.”
“Happy birthday, Laney,” he says, and then he leans in and kisses my cheek. The kiss is so fleeting, like a brush of a feather against my skin, that a part of me wonders if it even really happened.
His jaw is covered in stubble now, though I know he has shaving cream and razors in his bag. The other two are the same. I guess I can understand not being bothered about shaving considering where we are. I’m just grateful that I’ve always been a fan of waxing, so I don’t have to worry about hair growth, at least for the minute. When things start to get out of control, I’ll have to ask one of the men if I can borrow their razors and cream.
I catch myself. Are we really going to be here that long that I’m going to need to worry about things like that? It’s only been a week since the crash, and though this has been one of the longest weeks of my life, I’m sure it’s not that long when it comes tosearch times. With each passing day, the search teams must be getting closer and closer to us narrowing down the area where we crashed. I refuse to believe that no one is looking for us or that they have just given up. Darius is a big name, and though people might not give one shit about what happened to me, I’m sure his disappearance is pasted all over social media and the news. I imagine there being big campaigns done to raise funds to try to find him, and there might even be search groups made of his fans trawling through the forest. I try not to think about Cade’s comment about how the search area would be made up of a hundred square miles. He can’t possibly be right about that. I also don’t want to give any thought to the fact that the plane’s computers weren’t working properly when we crashed. How do we even know that the last time it pinged off our location it was giving the right readings? The fact of the matter is that we don’t, but if I think on this too hard, I will lose hope.
Right now, hope is the only thing I’ve got left.
“How do you want to spend the day?” Reed asks.
“First, I want to eat these cookies.”
“Sounds like a plan. What would you have been doing if you were home?”
I shrug. “Probably nothing different than any other day. It’s not like my mom would have remembered, anyway. I mean, she wouldn’t if she hadn’t died.”
Reed winces. “I’m sorry.”
“To be honest, if she’d realized it was my eighteenth birthday, she would have thought it was a good excuse to have a party, and things would have been even worse than normal. She’d probably have gone to a bar and picked up a couple of random men and brought them back. I hate to think what they’d have done if they found out I was eighteen.”
His expression darkens. “Had that happened before?”
I can’t look at him, my cheeks warming. “Yes, plenty of times. I was younger then, of course, but plenty of them were too drunk to care.” I give a cold laugh. “Or maybe it had nothing to do with how much they’d drunk and they just didn’t give a shit about my age.”
Reed’s face is thunder. “Did they—”
He can’t even say the word.
I lift an eyebrow. “Rape me? No, things never went that far. They were normally so wasted I could slip away from them when I saw what direction things were heading, but there were plenty of times I had to deal with them groping me and trying to kiss me.”
I shudder at the memory, immediately nauseated. I can almost smell the stale alcohol and cigarettes on their breath, their clammy hands pushing up under my clothes.
Reed clenches his fists, and a muscle in his jaw ticks. “I’ve never even met any of these men, but I swear if one of them was standing in front of me right now I would tear his head from his shoulders.”
I offer him a smile. “That’s no use to me whatsoever, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
Reed covers his face with his hands and then lowers them again. “Fuck. I should have been there. I could have fought those bastards off for you.”
“Well, you couldn’t have been there. You had Darius and Cade to look after.”
“I wish I’d been there for all of you.”
“You’re here now.”
I unwrap the cookies. The sweet scent of sugar fills my senses, and my mouth waters.
I have no intention of eating these without sharing. I break the first one in half and give the other half to Reed, and then share the next one between Cade and Darius.
“It’s your birthday,” Darius says. “You don’t have to share.”
