“Hi,” she said, leaning toward me, affording me a clear view down her low-cut shirt. Not that I was looking. “I’m Heather.”

“Hi.”

“Where has Elizabeth been hiding you?”

“I haven’t been hiding him,” Elizabeth argued, but Heather ignored her.

Over the course of the next hour, all the girls in the group wandered away from the guys and gathered around me.

I caught sight of Evan seething across the clearing. It was a wonder his head didn’t catch fire.

“So, like, where do you live?” a girl in a short skirt asked. I couldn’t remember her name.

“Michigan,” I answered. I thought about lying, but where I lived didn’t matter. Especially not to these people.

“That’s cool,” Heather said. “Like, literally.” She’d managed to squeeze her way in on the other side of me, on the log. She was sitting so close to me now that our legs were pressed together.

“Do you go to school there?” another girl asked.

“No. I’m taking a year off.” If only school was the least of my worries. ’Course, even without the Branch, I still wouldn’t go to school. From what I could remember, before the Branch, I’d dropped out when I was sixteen. I’d never had a plan beyond getting drunk for the day. Just like dear old dad.

“Do you have any brothers?” Chloe asked.

It was the first question she’d asked me since I’d become the focus of the girls’ attention. It put me on guard for some reason. Like she was trying to rattle me, even though the question was innocent enough.

Sam had taught me a long time ago that if I was going to lie, to lie as close to the truth as I could. In my life before the Branch, I’d been an only child, but that life didn’t count as far as I was concerned. Sam, Cas, and Anna were as close to family as I was ever going to get. “Two brothers and a sister,” I answered.

A redhead took a sip of her drink and asked, “How old are your brothers?”

“One older, one younger.”

“Ohhh,” Chloe said, and flashed a smile that was all teeth. “Are they coming here? New meat gets snatched up quickly in Trademarr.”

“No.”

The group murmured their disappointment.

Chloe got up and went over to the boys. I got the sense they were bullshitting about me.

“Will you walk with me?” Heather asked, threading her fingers through mine. “There’s a really cool cliff just over there.” She pointed over her shoulder. “I could show you.”

I turned to Elizabeth, but she was already pushing me away. “Go ahead. If you want. The view up there is great.”

“Come on.” Heather tugged on my arm.

I wasn’t sure if “cliff” was code for “stick your tongue down my throat,” but either way, it didn’t matter. I did want to be alone with Heather, if only to get out some of this pent-up tension. Being so close to Elizabeth set me on edge and made me think things about her that I didn’t want to think.

“Are you sure?” I asked Elizabeth. “I came here with you.”

She smiled and shook her head. “It’s all right. Really. I need to refill my drink anyway. Go.”

“Come on,” Heather said again. I got to my feet as Elizabeth turned away and Evan grinned at her.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to leave.

Heather led me to a path in the woods that ran close to the lakeshore. We followed it through some dense pine, then right along the shore, then back through the woods again, where maple and oak trees lined the path.

Heather stopped at the top of a hill and pulled me beneath the overhanging branches of a maple tree. She grinned and pressed her back against the tree’s trunk, her hand still intertwined with mine.

“What about the cliff?” I asked in a voice that said I didn’t really care about the cliff.

“Do you really want to see it? Because it’s not as great as I made it sound.”

I got in close to her. “I’ve seen a lot of cliffs. Missing one won’t hurt, I suppose.”

She giggled and wrapped her arms around my waist. Good thing I’d left the gun in the truck. “So are you and Elizabeth, like, together?”

“No. She’s just a friend.”

“Good.” She went up on the tips of her toes and brought her lips to mine. All the shit filling my head disappeared. Her mouth tasted like beer, and she smelled like fruit.

I slipped my hand beneath her shirt, and she practically purred, arching her back. I lowered my other hand to her ass, pulling her closer.

“God, you’re so hot,” she whispered against my lips.

I responded with a laugh and kissed her again. A fire built in my gut and raced lower, between my legs.

“When I first saw you with Elizabeth, I was, like, ‘What a waste of such a fine ass.’”

I pulled away. “What do you mean?”

“She’s, like, crazy. You know?” She kissed me again, then let her lips trail along my jaw. I barely noticed. The fire had all but burned out.

“You have no idea what Elizabeth went through,” I said.

Heather drew back but kept her hands on me, running them up and down my sides. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Anyway, let’s not talk about Elizabeth.” She leaned in again, pushing her chest into me. “In fact, let’s not talk at all.”

I stepped away and turned toward the bonfire and the clearing.