A Lie for a Lie (All In) - Helena Hunting Page 0,27

is nice.” And very good at kissing. “How’s everyone doing? How is Mooreen? She must be ready to have her calf soon. Is Dr. Flood coming to take care of that?” It’s not a subtle shift, but it does the trick.

My mom goes off on a rant about the animals, then goes on to gossip about the neighbors.

Eventually she lets me go so she can get back to laundry. I decide to call my friend Eden, who recently moved out to Chicago for a great job. I miss her, but we still keep in touch through phone calls and email. She’s much more enthusiastic about my new friend.

By the time I end the call with her, it’s already two o’clock in the afternoon, and I’m tired and hungry. I eat a handful of crackers, too exhausted from being up since four o’clock in the morning to be bothered with boiling water and making noodles. The sun is no longer shining, clouds having rolled in while I was on the phone, darkening the afternoon sky.

I decide a twenty-minute nap will do the trick and that I might be able to make it through the rest of the day, and I have half a hope of getting a decent night’s sleep. After my nap I can call RJ and see if he’s still up for doing something.

I put on some relaxing music and lie down on my lumpy bed. The moment I close my eyes, RJ’s toned chest appears behind my lids. I allow the memory of his lips on mine and the way it felt to be pressed up against all those hard muscles to take over as I sink into blissful sleep.

A huge bang startles me awake. I bolt upright and reach for the closest object, which happens to be a textbook on my nightstand. No lights are on, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, since I could’ve sworn they were when I fell asleep. A flash of lightning startles me, and seconds later a crash of thunder makes the entire cabin shake. Shadows crawl across the walls for the short span of time that there’s light, so, of course, I scream.

I hate thunderstorms. The thunder sounds a lot like gunshots, and it reminds me of my time at college in Seattle. That, along with the fact that I’m in a rickety cabin, the fire has gone out, and there are no lights on, sends me right into Anxiousville.

Rain pounds on the roof, and more thunder and lightning have me hiding under my covers. I try to slow my panicked breathing, but it’s coming too fast and I’m already spiraling out of control—all my thoughts are fleeting. I need light.

“Take a breath, Lainey. Take a breath and figure it out,” I tell myself. I inhale deeply and exhale slowly. Breathe in. Breathe out.

There has to be a flashlight somewhere in here. Or some candles. I gave up on charging my cell phone yesterday, since I have one of those cheap carrier services and I haven’t been getting reception at all. Still, it doesn’t hurt to see if it’s holding a charge so I can at least use the screen to find something more reliable. Unfortunately, it’s dead, just like all the lights in this place.

A cold drop of water hits me on the back of the neck—and then another on my arm.

The momentary reprieve in my panic dissolves as I stumble around in the strange inky darkness, searching the cupboards for anything other than the pack of matches I keep using to light the fire. I finally find a lighter, but all it does is spark without giving me a flame. Eventually I manage to find a flashlight, but it flickers once and dies. “Is nothing about this stupid place reliable?” I yell to no one.

The only answer is a strike of lightning and a boom of thunder.

The wind picks up, howling through the walls, making it sound like there are wolves outside my cabin. Which is when I totally lose it. Because here I am, alone in this cabin with no lights, no flashlight, no candles—and the roof is leaking in a bunch of places, based on the number of times I’m getting dripped on.

“You need to get a grip, Lainey,” I tell myself through a sob. I suck in a deep breath and release it through my nose, trying to focus on the visualization strategy my therapist always tells me to use when the panic gets too