“Listen to me, are any of you girls hurt?” Farrow asks, his voice more stern this time.
“Just some scrapes,” Kinney says.
He bends down to his med bag, unzipping and digging for supplies.
I cross my arms over my chest, speaking more to the left so they can hear me. “Can you start explaining?”
“Yes, why did you sneak out?” Jane asks.
“We were just going to take a walk. We’re fifteen,” Winona emphasizes like they’re so damn old. I remember being that young, thinking I was wise and ancient and could do anything in the world. There’s something about being a teenager that makes you feel invincible.
“Two of you are fourteen,” Farrow mentions, procuring antiseptic wipes.
“How’d you end up in the water?” I ask before my sister combats him.
“So yeah,” Winona continues. “We may have run into some guys that dared us to come down to the cove and skinny dip.”
You’ve got to be shitting me.
“You all can turn around,” Jane says softly.
I spin and my red-hot gaze lands on my little sister. Her hair drips on Banks’ white T-shirt that engulfs her small frame. “You took a fucking dare from strangers?”
“They were very handsome strangers,” Audrey says, hugging her arms around her chest.
“They were hot,” Vada rephrases and wrings out her hair.
Winona finishes re-knotting her bun. “Like super hot gravy. You know, best on top. Except they turned into total douche-canoes.”
I give my sister a look. She’s gay.
Farrow raises his brows at Kinney. “Some random hot boys seduced you too?”
“No,” she snaps, then sighs. “I’m afraid of nothing—I couldn’t turn down a dare.”
I go cold.
She stripped and swam in a cove because she’s prideful and impetuous—not because she wanted to impress anyone. Great. Just great.
You will never know this happened. This won’t reach the media. This can’t follow them forever. It stays here.
“These assholes stole your clothes,” I say, putting the pieces together.
“And our phones,” Vada says.
The security team goes rigid at those words.
“We saw them go over there.” Winona points up to the top of a much higher cliff. “They threw them off.”
38
FARROW KEENE
Needing to bandage Audrey and Kinney’s cut legs, I’m stuck on the flat sunbathing rock with O’Malley, Oscar, Thatcher, Jane, Charlie, and Beckett. It’s where I’m needed, but it’s not where I want to be right now.
Not while Maximoff and the Meadows girls, Vada, Akara, and Banks climb a set of stairs, leading them to a cliff’s lookout point. Where these dipshits threw the girls’ belongings.
Kinney tries to fight a wince at the antiseptic.
I pause, my hands gloved. “Take a deep breath for me.”
She glares but inhales, and I clean a cut on her shin.
“I see their clothes and phones.” Sulli’s voice carries with the wind. “They’re right there on the rock ledge. We found them!” she shouts at us below.
“How far down?!” Oscar shouts back.
Akara answers, “About twenty feet!”
Still too far for them to climb.
“Does anyone have a rope?” I hear Winona Meadows ask, like that’s a normal request.
No.
See, I already know how this shit is going to play out. They will all turn to Maximoff. They always do. And I’m a torturous distance away. Close but not close enough. He’s my client, my groom—he’s going to be my fucking husband in less than a week, and if I’m not there beside him, to catch him, I don’t know if anyone else will.
I cut my gaze up to Maximoff while I bandage Kinney.
Don’t, wolf scout.
“There’s no rope,” Akara tells Winona—their voices sound far away and I fight to hear.
“I have some,” Maximoff says, at least that’s what I pick up. But I’m not sure how he has rope. He only grabbed our baby boy when we left the villa.
I finish Kinney’s bandages, and I strain my eyes, barely making out Maximoff unbuckling…his paracord bracelet. Fuck. Tonight, I thought he’d have more use of the tactical knife strapped to his calf. Never did I think he’d really need the paracord.
That rope isn’t twenty-feet long either. I know because I bought it. Which means, he’ll have to jump and then free-solo climb back up.
Do your motherfucking job, Farrow.
I concentrate on Audrey, cleaning and bandaging the cuts on her knee. “Anything else hurt besides your leg?”
“My back.” She winces. “It stings.” Charlie, Beckett, and Jane hover close.
I dig in my med bag.
Jane holds tight to her sister’s hand, and Thatcher shines a flashlight on Audrey’s spine. Small spots of blood soak through the blue cotton shirt between her shoulder blades. She most likely scraped her back on the cliffside.
My ears pick up the voices on the cliff.
“Look, it’s an easy descent,” Winona explains. “My dad taught Sulli, Moffy and me.” She deepens her voice to mimic him, and I barely catch the next part. “You may find yourself in a fucking situation where you have no other gear besides a rope. And it’s useless unless you know how to fucking use it.”