Page 53 of Distortion
‘Are you okay?’
She gives a jerky nod and continues rowing. Shade keeps glancing at her in concern, too, though he’s pretending he’s not.
As predicted, the rest of the ride is pretty relaxed, but it’s another forty minutes or so before we arrive at the spot we’ve been making for. When we get close to shore, Blake and Shade jump out and pull the raft up the bank a little. As soon as we’re out of the water, Daisy scrambles out, putting as much distance between it and her before she turns and, from behind a tree, we hear her throwing up again.
Blake rolls his eyes and we take the raft to the truck, which is parked in the nearby lot ready for us. I leave Blake to deal with that while I go find Daisy. Shade is already at his car, changing clothes.
She’s leaning against a tree. Her eyes are closed.
‘Daisy?’
She doesn’t look at me.
‘We’re leaving now.’
She straightens and walks past me. I frown. I was ready for her to start lashing out, or at least yelling from what Shade has said. But she doesn’t. She just makes her way calmly to the cars. When she gets to Shade’s sleek, black F-Type and goes to open the passenger door, he barks a loud laugh and makes her visibly flinch.
‘You think you’re getting in my car like that?’ He shakes his head at her, looking her up and down in affected disgust. ‘You should be glad we don’t make you walk the five miles back to Richmond like that after your little stunt.’
Stunt?I give him a questioning look and he gives me a weary one in return.
‘Don’t tell me you fell for that shit. She did it on purpose, bro. This is what she does! Stop playing the victim, Marguerite. It’s pathetic!’
I’d have missed another tiny wince if I wasn’t watching her closely, and I wonder if Shade is right about her. He knows her better, after all. I’m suddenly very angry at her. How dare she fuck around out there? If she’d died, we would have been so fucked.
‘You take her. I’ll meet you there,’ Shade grinds out to Blake and me, getting in his car and revving the engine loudly before he drives off.
Blake surveys our sodden companion and swears under his breath when he sees she’s still literally dripping with river water.
I turn on her, furious. ‘What were you thinking?’ I yell at her. ‘That’s the fucking wilderness out there, not a spa. You could have died messing around like that, you stupid girl.’ I take a step toward her and poke her hard in the chest, forcingher back a step. ‘If it wasn’t illegal, I’d make you ride outside in the flatbed. Do you have anything to fucking say, you brat?’
She doesn’t say anything, just stares at me, and I step closer, getting into her personal space. I put a finger under her chin, angling her face up to mine.
‘Are you going to answer him?’ Blake asks her from very close by, the gentleness of his tone making me want to tell her to speak up because Blake is as pissed as I am.
But she says nothing.
I step away with a sound of derision.
‘I’m gonna change,’ I tell Blake, almost hoping he takes up where I’m leaving off.
I know he hates being ignored.
I grab my stuff from the car and quickly lose my wet clothes behind the vehicle. When I’m done, I go back around to find Blake still staring her down. She’s just watching him, her eyes flitting around his person, but never staying on his eyes for very long.
‘We should go.’
His eyes narrow at Daisy, but he steps away.
‘I’ll be ready in a second.’ He gives Daisy a nasty smile. ‘We forgot to bring clothes for you.Sorry.’
He grabs a bag from the truck and starts getting changed in front of us. Daisy looks in the opposite direction and he laughs. ‘Afraid you’ll see something you can’t have, sweetheart?’
No reaction.
‘I’m driving,’ he says, and I throw him the keys from my pocket.
He climbs up into the truck and I open the passenger door only to find that the back is full of random equipment from our outdoor excursions.
