Chapter 24

There, now she’d gone from having had the willpower to not text him for months, to sending him four texts in ten seconds like she was unhinged. She shook her head at herself, walking into her room. All the girls were off at school, or working on the farm that stretched behind their campus, except for Riley, who, without Stella there to encourage her, had been left behind.

“Stella?” she croaked, slowly turning her head in Stella’s direction.

“What’re you still doing in bed, sleepyhead?” Stella crossed the room to her and knelt, touching her forehead against the girl’s and rubbing it gently, like her own mother used to do to her.

“I didn’t feel well.”

“Is it your stomach? When’s the last time you ate?” Stella grabbed her water bottle off of her bedside table and handed it to the girl, before unzipping her boots.

“Where’d you go?” Riley asked, sitting up to rub her eyes. She took a sip of water. Stella began disarming herself, taking her gun and her phone out of the elastic holster around her waist.

“Out for Maddox.”

“Where did that skirt come from? And that shirt?”

“That’s a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t feel good,” Stella teased, pulling Zach’s shirt off and tossing it playfully in Riley’s direction.

Riley swatted it out of the air, then sniffed at it.

“Wood smoke. Again.” Riley squinted at her.

“Yeah. I know,” Stella said, nodding, putting one of her normal tank tops on. She left the holster beneath it, then shimmied out of the skirt and tossed it into the bottom of her closet—it wasn’t hers, and she wasn’t giving it back, but she felt sure Callie or Jina would be interested in it. She started pulling some of her other cargo pants back on, and when she was done, she looked at Riley. “You—get outta bed. Either go take a shower or go eat. That’s all you have to do for me today, but it needs to happen in the next thirty minutes, okay?”

The teenage girl sank back into her cave of covers. “I’m not hungry, and I don’t smell.”

“It’s not about either of those things. It’s about getting out of this room for a little bit.” Stella crossed the small space to knee her mattress. “You hearing me?”

“Yes,” Riley said dramatically, with a frown and an eye roll.

“Good. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to check in on you.”

She didn’t have any idea what she’d be doing for those thirty minutes, though. Pacing around outside most likely. She wondered if her cell phone had any reception in the woods. And if Zach had had it with her or not, for her always acting ungrateful—and then her phone buzzed. Stella pounced on it, then smiled at the screen.

Address?

She quickly typed in the intersection that made the most sense. Get dropped off alone—I’ll meet you there and walk you in.

There was a pause, while he must have put the address into a map program. See you in thirty.

She didn’t respond just tucked her phone into one of her many pockets and found Riley eyeing her. “Who was that?”

“None of your business.”

Riley finally sat up. “Am I ever going to get a phone?”

“Yes. If you’re lucky and trustworthy, someday you’ll be issued one. And the first step to that is—”

“Taking a shower,” Riley complained, but she made it upright at last. She dug in their communal mesh bag of shower supplies, then pulled a clean towel out of their shared chest of drawers.

“Good girl,” Stella told her with a nod. “I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

Riley flung her arm up in the air, in either a wave or an attempt to shove Stella’s hovering attention away, and started her slow path down to the group showers down the hall.

STELLA WENT BACK OUTSIDE and took a deep breath of fresh air. All she had to do now was beat Zach to the retrieval area.

She took a zig-zagging path down the hill, making sure she crossed over into each lookout’s territory, whistling for attention and for tripwires to be let down.

“I’m coming back through here in a bit with a friend. Maddox approved!” she announced, waving to warwolves in trees, who gave her curt nods back, before radioing in to make sure they’d heard her right.

Outsiders in the camp were a rarity.

Nathan appeared from a dense thicket of trees, pointing at the walkie on his shoulder. “You’re bringing in someone?”

“Don’t you ever sleep, Nathan?”

“I’m covering for Jennifer. I don’t mind doing doubles—answer the question.”

“It’s a friend. Maddox told me to go meet them at the normal intercept point.” She was just half a mile away now. “They should be there any moment now, and we’ll be coming right back.”

Nathan’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. “Whistle on your way back. You should have an escort.”

Given the camp’s general feelings about her… she sighed. “Sure. Stay around here, then. I’ll be coming back on the main trail,” she said and waved, passing him by.

The redwood trees on the hills their camp was inside of were evergreen enough to always provide some cover, and the paths between them were full of needles she made sure to step on rather than kick from the path; she didn’t want to make any of their trails look worn.

Then the last tenth of a mile down to the road was almost straight down a rocky slope. She went from foothold to foothold nimbly, feeling like a little girl skipping almost, until she reached the gravel at the bottom, not far from a poorly repaired asphalt road.

A black car pulled up just as she reached the base, a different make from the one she’d been in before, but the windows were just as dark, and Zach stepped out of the driver seat. He looked like himself, but he was still wearing a suit.

And dress shoes.

Stella had to bite her lips not to stifle a laugh.

He didn’t seem to notice. “Should I let it idle here, or send for it later?”

“Later’s good,” she said. It’d take them twice as long to walk in with him dressed like that, and then back out—plenty of time for his super-future car to come back around. She crossed her arms. “So tell me—you looked at these coordinates on a map and decided to wear that?”

Zach glanced down at himself. “You said I was meeting your pack leader. I wanted to make a good impression.”

“Well, okay then, city boy,” Stella said and then snickered. “Watch how

I get up the hill, and then good fucking luck.”

“Thanks,” Zach said dryly, as she turned to leap up the hill behind her.