Immoral Ties (The Immoral #3)

1. Laney

Flashing lights blind me as I climb down the helicopter’s steps and onto the landing pad. The lights appear as bright circles, as though I’ve stared at the sun too long. I blink to try to clear my vision.

In front of us stretches a sea of reporters.

Over the deafening roar of the helicopter rotor come the shouts of ‘Darius, over here,’ and ‘Darius Riviera, how did you survive?’ all jostling to be heard.

We’re surrounded by people, so many people, layers thick. After the solitude of the wilderness, I’d almost forgotten there could be this number of bodies in one place.

The air smells different, too. Gone is the piney scent of the forest, and instead my nostrils are filled with engine oil, smoke, and chemicals. It’s far stronger than I remember even in Los Angeles, though I’m sure Ottawa must be less polluted.

I’m overwhelmed, my heart racing, my palms growing clammy. It takes all my strength not to back up into the relative safety of the helicopter and beg the pilot to take me back to the cabin.

Reed must sense my hesitation. He places his palm to the small of my back and leans in closer.

“It’s okay, baby-girl. We’re right here with you.”

His words should comfort me, but instead I jerk away, adrenaline shooting through my veins.

What if someone heard what he’d called me?

What if someone thought the way he’d touched my back was inappropriate?

There are cameras everywhere, filming and photographing every move we make, every word we say.

I remind myself that all these reporters aren’t here for me. They’re not even here for Reed or Cade. There’s only one person they want gracing the front pages of their newspapers and magazines, and that’s Darius.

I glance over at him. He’s used to media attention, but not at this level, and he’s been isolated from it all, too, over the past month.

I wonder how much he’s even aware of. He must be able to hear the volume of voices, but how much of an understanding does that give him of how many people are here?

His expression is impassive. I can’t read him at all. I assume he used to enjoy the attention before the accident, but does he now? Or is he as overwhelmed as I am?

I let the back of my hand brush Darius’s.

It’s not much, just a slight touch to let him know I’m here.

I’m telling myself I want that contact for him, but it’s for me.

What I really want is for them all to huddle close, to put their arms around me, allow me to hide against their chests, so they can create a shield from the real world, but we’re all horribly conscious of the new distance that needs to exist between us, especially when we’re in the public eye.

We all look like shit. We’re painfully thin.

The loggers’ clothing we’ve been given to replace our old, torn items hang from us like dress-up clothes on a scarecrow.

We’re covered in bruises and scrapes and cuts from our perilous journey.

Our hair is too long and matted. The men all have beards covering their faces.

I can’t imagine what the reporters must think of us all.

I’m grateful that I got to shower at the loggers’ camp before we were picked up.

It’s not much, but at least I don’t smell bad—at least, I hope I don’t.

As well as all the reporters, we also have police and paramedics waiting for us.

I have no idea how it will work with us being Americans in Canada, and the two pilots and the flight attendant who’d died in the crash also being from the States.

I assume there will have to be some kind of cooperation between the two countries to find out exactly what happened.

One of the police officers—at least, I assume that’s who he is, though he’s in plain clothes—steps forward.

He’s around Reed’s age, maybe a little older.

His expression is stern, and I find myself shrinking back.

I’ve never been great with authority figures, and now I’m drowning in guilt.

The crash might not have been our fault, but we’re about to lie about almost everything that happened to us.

Being the eldest, Reed is the one to meet him, his hand out. The two of them shake.

“Mr. Riviera,” the officer says, his voice raised to be heard above the commotion. “I’m Sergeant Moore. I’m sure I’m speaking on behalf of everyone when I say that we’re so pleased to find you safe and well.”

Reed gives a small nod. “Thank you, Sergeant. We’re relieved to be alive. It was looking a little precarious for a while.”

“I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.” His gaze slips across the rest of us. “All of you. We will get you all checked out by paramedics, and then transported to the hospital.”

“My eldest son, Cade, suffered a bad head injury.” Reed glances over his shoulder at us. “But as for the rest of us, other than being underweight and dehydrated, and covered in insect bites, we’re all in good shape—at least as good as we can be, considering the circumstances.”

I fight the urge to run and hide. If doctors check me over, will they spot signs of the sexual assault?

I don’t want them to know. I don’t want anyone to know.

Just the thought of it floods me with a kind of heat that leaves me nauseated and lightheaded, my cheeks burning.

Since we’ve agreed to stay quiet about the gunrunners in the hope they’ll remain lost out there, the authorities will question who has assaulted me.

There are only three options, since, apparently, we were alone, and then I’ll be forced to either let one of the guys take the blame or else tell the truth.

Neither option seems like a good one.

As much as I don’t want to spend any time in the hospital, I suspect we’re going to need a little more than just a quick checkup from the paramedics.

Cade’s blow to the head will need monitoring.

He’ll probably need to have an x-ray or CT scan, or whatever else doctors use to diagnose skull fractures or swelling on the brain.

He seems almost back to normal now, but he’d been worryingly ill not that long ago.

What if he suffers long term effects from the head injury?

I’ve been through a lot, physically, but so has he.

I wonder if I’m being too hard on him. Is it possible that the way he’d acted toward me was partly down to the blow to the head? Cade is big and strong, and his injury had left him defenseless and unable to protect me. Maybe he hadn’t been thinking straight.

My heart yearns to believe it.

I can’t help myself; I look over to him.

There’s a distance between us now. We lock eyes, and I see the hurt in my heart reflected in his gaze.

I can’t bring myself to forgive him for how he reacted when he’d learned I’d been raped.

The first thing he did was think of himself.

He didn’t even consider the sort of trauma I’d been through—how, more than anything, I’d needed him to hold me and tell me nothing had changed.

That he still felt the same way about me as he always had.

But he hadn’t done that. He’d taken his rage and aimed it directly at me.

It was the last thing I’d needed or deserved.

I’m so fragile right now, I don’t feel as though I can trust him with my heart. What if I do, and he takes it and smashes it into a million pieces?

Reed had been worried I’d come between them all, and now it looks as though he was right.

That, in part, is the reason I’ve decided to go back to the trailer, to put a little space between us.

There’s too much at risk. Reed could be torn to pieces by the press, have his whole reputation left in tatters if anyone finds out what happened between us.

He’s still my stepfather, and they will make it look as though he’d groomed me at the age of seventeen.

They won’t listen if I tell them nothing happened between us until I was eighteen and that I’d been the one who’d instigated things.

We’ve agreed to stick to a version of our story that would have been right if we hadn’t been intercepted by Smith and his gang.

That we’d come to the decision we’d never survive over winter and had no choice but to try to walk to safety.

Will the authorities find the cabin? They very well may.

They can follow the river upstream, though there are breaks and forks in it that will throw them off course.

But we’re not going to tell them about how we followed the river the whole way.

We’re also going to alter the days and times it took us to walk certain distances.

The authorities won’t just give up. There are three bodies—or at least what remains of them after over a month in the wilderness, exposed to the wildlife and the elements—to be found.

It’ll be important to the families to have their remains returned so they can bury them.

There will also be an investigation into what caused the plane to crash.

People will want to point a finger, have someone to blame.

“We will need to speak to each of you individually,” Sergeant Moore says, “and I’m afraid you’ll be asked to go over everything several times, as there are a number of different authorities involved.

We’ll let you get reacclimated first, though, and like I said, have the paramedics and doctors check you over. ”

Am I going to be separated from the others?

I glance up at Reed, widening my eyes. “Please, I don’t want to go on my own.”

One minute, I’m telling Reed that I need some space, and next I’m hovering on the brink of a panic attack at the thought of being led to a different ambulance.

“It’s okay, Laney,” he assures me. “I’m right here.” Reed checks with the sergeant. “We can ride together, can’t we?”

He gives a brisk nod. “I’m sure that’s okay. I’ll catch up with you all at the hospital.”

Technically, I’m eighteen now, and no longer need to have a legal guardian, but Reed is still my next of kin, so he comes with me in one ambulance, and Cade and Dax ride in the other one.

The paramedic is a theatrical man, who won’t stop talking, even as he checks our blood pressure, and hooks us up to drips to rehydrate us.

“How did you guys survive out there all this time?” he asks. “You must have been terrified. What did you eat? Did you have to hunt? Fish? Like mountain men or something.”

“We did a lot of foraging,” I tell him. “Ate a lot of berries and roots. That kind of thing.”

“It’s a good thing you crashed at the time of year you did. Imagine if you’d crashed in winter and the place had been covered in snow. You’d have probably been reduced to eating each other to survive.”

I share a glance with Reed, who arches an eyebrow at the man’s comment. I almost blurt that the guys ate me plenty of times, just to see the paramedic’s reaction. It’s one of those intrusive thoughts that seem to want to get me in trouble, but I manage to bite my tongue.

The paramedic catches the look between us but misreads it. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. That was completely insensitive of me, wasn’t it? I mean, people actually did die. You must have seen dead bodies and everything.”

“It’s okay,” Reed tells him.

I guess we’re going to have to get used to this kind of questioning. Everywhere we go, people are going to want to talk about what we went through. They’re going to want all the gory details.

Once more, the impulse to run and hide flashes through me.