Page 60 of Wicked Sins

My teeth are already chattering. How the hell are the rest of the girls splashing and playing like it’s a summer’s day out here?

I fight my way to the side, grab the concrete lip of the dam, and try to haul myself up.

Arms wrap around my waist. I squeal out a desperate, “Haley! Let me go!” I yell, squirming furiously. “It’s too damn cold!”

But when the person holding me lets out a deep laugh, a whole heap of observations pile into my mind all at once.

It’s not Haley holding onto me.

From the size, and strength, it has to be a guy.

And this big, super-strong guy…? Hereeksof alcohol.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Josiah

My eyes are gonna roll out of their fucking sockets. Skinny dipping at night? Can you be more juvenile?

“I’m going for a walk,” I say, waving away Sylvester when he beckons for me to join them by the side of the dam where they’re all stripping to their boxers.

“Suit yourself,” he says, his voice muffled as his shirt goes over his head. He turns, grabs something from the ground, and starts hunting around in the backpack he’s holding up.

Thank God I haven’t lost my reflexes. A dark bottle comes flying at me, and I barely have time to snatch it from the air before it shatters in my face.

“The fuck, man?” I lift it by the neck, glaring first at the anonymous bottle of alcohol and then turning that scowl to Sylvester.

He shrugs, takes two long steps closer, and snatches the bottle out of my hand. “That’s only for the cool kids, the ones going swimming,” he says through a chuckle.

Jesus.

“Yeah, enjoy the hangover,” I mutter, turning on my heel.

I wander off into the overgrown woods pressing up against the dam. What was on this land before Happy Mountain decided it would be put to better use as a prison for juvenile delinquents?

Doesn’t matter now.

Probably didn’t matter back then either.

An hour or so later, the forest clears up. I sit down on a flat rock and then lay on my back, staring up at the few stars glimmering between the clouds. Thoughts like mine aren’t good company—especially when they revolve around Emma and Candy and all the friends I had to leave behind.

I shove up from the ground with a growl stuck in my throat, already wishing I’d just stayed at the fucking lodge in my fucking bed waiting for sleep.

There’s something sweet in the air—a night flower that’s only now opening its petals. I change course, meandering back toward the dam to find the source of that elusive scent.

That’s when I hear girls’ voices. Giggles.

Some of the girls are out too. Wait…could Candy be one of them?

I’m not allowed to talk to her—or any girls—back at the lodges. In fact, since Dad shipped us out here, I haven’t had more than two words with her, and been punished for them every time.

But not out here.

I storm back, now following laughter and splashing. The dam wall rises ahead, black and impenetrable, and the surrounding land I’m standing on is too low to see over the brim. I grab a nearby branch and start climbing a tree hugging the embankment.

A moment later, my head clears the bushy leaves, the dam spread out below.

I have no way of telling if Candy is any one of those shapes moving through the water—it’s too dark to make out faces down there.

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