Page 10 of Wayward

Haley leans into my arm. “I can’t look. It’s too empty.”

“Are you serious?” Hughes starts off again, but there’s a thud and he stops. Holloway must have smacked him.

Haley clings to my arm as we leave the camp, her forehead to my skin. I help her into her life jacket, click it around her waist. There are tears welling on her lower lashes. “Come on, Firefly.” I help her into the raft, and she doesn’t even mind. There’s no “I got it” or rolling of the eyes that she’s as capable as one of the guys. She snuggles into me again. But I lift her chin to the beach and lean into her ear. There’s no whispering, not with the motor, not with the breaking waves over the reef. “It was a good home. But you’re my home. As long as we have each other, it’s going to be all right.” I put my arm around her and shield her from the wind the best I can with our bulky life jackets.

Her eyes flick to the gun that Hughes is holding. The way he’s glaring at us... And I get it?our home is under attack. We have no home. Not yet. Civilization has found us, and we’re far from safe.

Chapter 5

Cartographer

Dante

“You could move your giant head, Green.”

“I could, but why would I?” He doesn’t move.

I can hear Haley.It’s okay to sometimes count in your head before you say something that might not be the best thing.Fuck it. “Because you’re being a selfish prick.”

“Not helpful, Dante.” Zane stands and leans flush with the wall. He’s been going over the wall to see if he can find a camera. “This is helpful.” He points to a seam in the wall.

“There?” Calvin asks. His huge head leaves the glass, and he makes his way to the wall where Zane is looking.

Sam looks up from where he’s not reading a ten-year-old paperback novel on the sofa. “Here too.” His index finger points to the seam on the sofa.

I plop down next to him and place my hand over the seam, feeling around until my fingernail catches a small metal button, maybe a centimeter wide. It’s not a button, though. The seam’s open. That’s got to be one heck of a view.

Calvin thunders over to where I have the one on the sofa under my hand. I lift my palm, and he places his hand on top of it. “Fuck.”

“Small, just like you.” I hold his blue eyes, and he shakes his head.

“Fuck you, Chef.”

“No, thank you. Did you see anything out there?”

“No.”

“They lifted the anchor a while ago,” Sam says. “We’re sailing soon.” The engines are running.

We all feel it, even me. But none of us have said anything about it. It’s not something any of us want to think about, leaving here without Haley?or even Swimmer Boy.

“They’ll be here soon.” Zane goes back to combing the wall. I don’t see any point. One camera, two, three, or five thousand. They all mean that anything we talk about is something that Z will know about.

“Let’s pass the time. Take off your shirt.” I glare up at Calvin.

“Fuck no,” Calvin says.

“Just do it. Lie down on the bed, face-down.”

“No.”

“You do it, Zane.”

“I’m not gonna.” Zane crosses his arms in front of his chest and leans against the small device in the wall.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s not sexual. Just lie down. And the two of you twats gather around.”

“Dante?” Sam says.