Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,44

in between.

“Nothing,” I say firmly. Nothing, nothing at all. I can close this door. I’ve had plenty of practice. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

“No, Hetty, you have to tell me what that was.” She sets the shotgun on the makeshift table, never taking her eyes off mine. “You have to, because I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind.”

“What do you mean?” I say, keeping my voice as light as I can. I can do this—I can pretend, explain everything away.

She’s not falling for it.

“I mean you’ve been different with me,” she says, and I could swear she’s blushing, but there’s the stubborn push of her jaw, the fierce resolve that I know so well. “I mean, you’ve been looking at me like you finally noticed I’m here.”

Like I finally noticed her? God, she has no idea. She really has no idea. “That’s not—”

“So,” she presses, ignoring me, “I need you to tell me what that was just now.” A step closer, the cool shine of her braid washing over my skin. “I need to know if you’re where I am.”

My breath catches. She can’t mean it, can she? I’m not used to this, to the tight bloom of my heart. It’s been too long since I hoped for anything. “And where is that?”

“Here,” she says. She reaches out, tangles our fingers together. Watching me the whole time, and she sounds so sure, so confident, but I can feel her shaking, just like I am. Like she’s spent as long wanting this as I have.

And maybe she has. Every time she cut me down, every time I couldn’t reach her, all because she wanted me, and she thought I’d never want her back. And if there’s anything Reese does well, it’s self-defense.

But I can see through it, now, and I know what we’ve done for each other, the concessions we’ve made, the slights we’ve swallowed. Neither of us able to let go, no matter how much the holding on hurts.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I’m here too.”

For a moment we don’t move, and all I can hear is my heart marking time. Until Reese lets out a shaky breath, and then we’re both laughing, leaning into each other, practically giddy with relief.

“Okay, good,” she says, her silver fingers careful as she traces the line of my jaw. So soft I barely feel it, but I do, I do, and it lights me up like a match to paper. Our laughter falls away as the curve of her body fits to mine. She’s still smiling when she kisses me.

So am I.

CHAPTER 10

Evening, and we’re back up in our room. After leaving the barn we snuck the shotgun out to the spruce copse by the fence, buried it there under a layer of rotting leaves. Reese next to me like always, nothing different between us but the look in her eyes and the heat in my veins.

Now she’s sprawled on my bunk, watching me as I pace from one end of the room to the other. Every inch the sun sets is another notch of dread, a spring coiling in my gut. Closer and closer, the gate swinging open and Welch taking Byatt out into the woods.

Out in the hallway the other girls are drifting upstairs, back to their rooms in time for bed check. We stayed in the spruce copse clear through dinner, neither of us speaking, the iron bars of the fence looming larger and larger. I’m not hungry—just thinking of food still makes me sick with guilt—but Reese’s stomach picks that moment to grumble so loudly I can hear it from across the room.

I stop pacing and watch as Reese sits up, takes the leftover jerky from breakfast out of her pocket and crams most of it into her mouth.

There should be more food here for us, I think, trying not to flinch. And there would be if I hadn’t helped Welch on the pier.

When she sees me watching, Reese swallows thickly and holds out what’s left, barely a bite. “Sorry,” she says. “Did you want some?”

I let out a wheezing laugh. This is ridiculous. Welch took my best friend from me, and here I am still keeping her secret. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I say.

And then I describe it as simply as I can. The bags, overflowing with food in its strange packaging, and the way Welch rested her hand so casually on her gun as she asked whether she’d made