The pocketknife I'd used to whittle the sticks the other night was missing. We now only had two nights left until we were supposed to get to the camp, and we were planning on roasting marshmallows again tonight. I needed the knife if we were going to have suitable sticks to roast them on.
"Luke, do you have your knife?" I asked him. He nodded. I dug through the backpack again. I'd probably lost it somewhere in the mess of stuff. I was put in charge of carrying the one with the excess supplies, which was things like the pocket-sized blankets and the tarp, along with the lantern and my pocketknife. Luke kept his with him.
Maybe it was in one of the other bags. I had no idea where it had gone. I checked the time. It was 7:20. We had about an hour before the sun went down at least. Summer solstice had been about a week ago. I checked the larger food bag first. Eli had been carrying it.
Unsuccessful, I went on to check the smaller food bag that Aaliyah had been carrying. Still not there. Peyton had been carrying the last backpack, so if it wasn't in there then that probably meant I'd left it somewhere in the woods.
I sighed. Hopefully, it was there. In truth, we did need more than one pocketknife.
Her bag was sitting by a tree close to the fire where she, Aaliyah, and Eli were sitting and talking about something. Luke and I were trying to sharpen twigs, or at least he was. I still hadn't found my knife. However, after a little bit of digging in and around the gun, fire starters, and other things she carried, I found it at the very bottom. It seemed strategically placed.
"What are you doing?" Peyton came up behind me, startling me. "Did you need something?"
"Yeah, actually. Why did you have my pocketknife?" I asked. Her gaze shifted to the ground, but her answer didn't waver.
"I just needed it for something."
"What?" I couldn't think why she would need it. And either way, she could have asked me first. She just shook her head.
"It's not important." Peyton turned to head back to where Aaliyah and Eli were and that's when I noticed. It wasn't particularly hot, and we were already sunburned. There was no need for her to be wearing the long-sleeved flannel shirt.
Was she self-harming again? I hoped not. I didn't want her to. I bit my lip. Maybe she just didn't want to tell me what she'd been doing for some other reason. It had been over a year since I'd last known she'd done it.
She glanced back at me and I looked away. I started to go up to her and ask, but I didn't want to embarrass her in front of Eli and Aaliyah. I'd talk to her later. Meanwhile, it'd been a hot minute since I'd spent some time with Luke, just the two of us.
It was as if our brains were on the same wavelength. Luke came up behind me just as I was about to go find him. I nearly ran into him.
"Coming to find me too?" he stated, his lips turning up in a sly smile.
"I mean, what else would I be doing?" I rolled my eyes. He shook his head playfully.
"I miss it being just the two of us sometimes. It used to be like that all the time, you know?" I nodded. "I mean, don't get me wrong, this is better than how it used to be, but still."
"Yeah, I know what you mean."
"You want to know the best thing?" I chuckled. I thought I knew what he was getting at. So, I pulled him in, just as he was about to do the same. We pressed our lips together passionately, the force of it drawing my mouth open slightly. I could feel his doing the same.
We stayed like that for a while. Luckily, we weren't in sight of the others. That would have been awkward. Finally, I pulled away, breathless.
"Don't stop," he whispered. I gave in. It wasn't like I'd wanted to stop anyways.
YOU ARE READING
Runaways- Runaways 1
Teen Fiction"Hey, who are you?" I could tell he wasn't trying to scare him off while still trying to establish the fact that we could hurt him if we wanted to. "I was gonna ask you the same question," he replied. "But since to beat me to it, I'm Eli. I'm just a...
