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“What are you saying, Reed?” Laney asks, tears in her eyes. “Do you not want me to sleep with any of you because you think morally it’s wrong, or because you think I’m going to break the family apart?”
I look at her. “Can’t both reasons be equally valid?”
“I’m not going to pick one of you over the other.” There’s desperation in her blue eyes. “I would never do that.”
“You can’t make that promise.”
“Yes, I can,” she insists.
“You’re too young. How you think about things will change as you get older?”
“I’d never want to come between any of you.”
I harden my jaw. “Didn’t you see what happened just now?” I throw my killer blow. “You already have.”
She blinks a few times and then gathers the blanket closer, untangles herself from Darius’s arms, and runs from the room. She slams into the bedroom and shuts the door behind her.
Darius gets to his feet to go after her.
“Leave her,” Cade commands.
“Why the fuck should I?”
“Because we need to talk about this.”
Darius gestures toward the closed door. “Don’t you think Laney should be involved in the conversation?”
“She will be,” Cade says. He turns toward me. “But first, I expect an apology. You’ve never hit me in your life, not even when Darius and I were kids. But you start now? Because of her?”
“He did it to prove his point,” Darius says. “He’s making his own prophecy come true.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “No, I didn’t. I swear it. I just reacted. But losing my temper like that has made me accept what lies ahead if we continue down this road.”
Darius won’t accept it. “This is Laney we’re talking about! You can’t ask us to give her up. Not now.”
“I know who we’re talking about. It’s because it’s her that this is so important. We shouldn’t be living like this with her. It’s not right.”
“Why? Because some society we’re not even part of anymore says it’s not right?” He drags his hand through his long hair. “That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it.”
“We’ve shared women plenty of times before,” Cade says. “It’s never been a problem.”
“Not like this,” I say. “Not like with her.”
Cade narrows his eyes. “So, what are you saying? That we’re all supposed to start acting like we’re some normal family? Like Laney actuallyisour stepsister?”
I draw a breath. “If we’re going to think about walking out of here, then we need to focus on surviving that. If we make it to safety, then maybe we can look at this again.”
Darius turns his head in my direction. “You think we should walk out of here?”
I swallow, feeling my Adam’s apple working. “Laney is right. It’s getting more and more dangerous here, and that’s only going to get worse with winter coming. I don’t know when we should leave, but I think we need to be prepared.”
Chapter Forty
Laney
DARIUS IS THE ONE WHOcomes to me first.
“Laney?”
