Page 167 of Headstrong Like Us

FARROW KEENE

Needingto 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.”

“Fuck.” I hear Sulli, her voice an echo. “I was going to offer to do it, but I’m out.”

Why?

I glance at Oscar nearby. He’s watching them on the cliff, and I can’t. “Oliveira?”

“Sulli just looked over the ledge,” he tells me. “It must be too steep to repel or climb.”