Page 162 of Headstrong Like Us

Jane, Charlie, Beckett, and Sulli.

And Thatcher says, “Let’s push out.”

36

FARROW KEENE

Noneof the girls have a license and no cars were missing.

The two oldest (Winona Meadows and Vada Abbey) are only fifteen, and our search party travels by foot, since that’s most likely how they left the villas.

Trekking along dirt beside a one-way road, we point flashlights towards the rocks and sea on our left. The sound of water slapping jagged cliffs fills a void.

“Maybe we should run?” Sulli asks, antsy. “That way this’ll go fucking faster and we’ll find them quicker.”

“Or we’ll miss shit,” I say calmly, hiking a few paces behind Oscar, Charlie, Beckett, and unfortunately Beckett’s 24/7 bodyguardO’Malley.He’s on Epsilon and also not my favorite person, but he hasn’t been a prick tonight.

Maximoff is quiet beside me, stringent and ready to tap into his survival training. I keep checking on him.

“Our pace is good, Sul.” Akara tries to console. He’s been trying really hard to patch-up their friendship ever since the blow-up at the bachelor party.

Her eyes dart to him, then away.

It’s been fuckingawkward.Everyone can tell.

Sulli doesn’t do well with confrontation and the “aftermath”—and according to Akara, this is ten times worse than any fight they’ve ever had. But he isn’t throwing in the towel that easily.

I do know that sometime after Key West, Sulli officially broke up with her wallpaper boyfriend—Will Rochester. So there’s that.

Banks looks down at Sulli. “Want a higher view, mermaid?”

Her eyes grow. “On your shoulders?”

He nods.

“Fuck, yeah…definitely.” She pauses. “Are you sure?”

Biting a toothpick, a crooked smile hikes up his lip. “Yeah.” He crouches down. “Ready when you are.”

Sulli swings her long, muscular legs over his broad shoulders. When he stands up at six-foot-seven, she has a better vantage than all of us.

Akara passes her a bigger handheld searchlight. “See anything?”

She flushes a little bit, glancing between Akara and the guy she’s sitting on. And then she flashes the light at the water. “It’s pitch-black.”

I stop tuning into whatever that exchange is, and I hang my arm over Maximoff’s squared shoulders. “You okay?”

He hasn’t spoken since we left the villas. Even now, he’s all hard lines and steel-caged fortitude.

“I should’ve grabbed my backpack,” Maximoff says under his breath. “I was preparing for a media-related doomsday. Notthis.” He gestures to the sea for the fourteenth time.

It’s only the second night in Anacapri, and neither of us expected the girls to pull a full-fledged teenager moment. Hushed, I tell him, “The good here: this is easier to deescalate than any media shit storm.”

He nods a few times, eyeing the earpiece splayed on my shoulder. Security is confirming cleared sectors of the town.

I add, “And they’re just teenagers being teenagers.”

“They’re also famous,” Maximoff says just as quietly. “They know better. My sister knows better. And I just keep thinking that the four of them, they’re not stupid. If they did sneak out, they would’ve come back before bed.” He shines his flashlight at the rocky cliffside.