Cole and I heave the moose hide out of the car, then I stand back as the man counts out some cash. He’s one of our regulars; a Sami craftsman who makes clothes out of the skin. Cole was called to clear up the roadkill a few days back, and now the hide is going to good use.
I cross my arms over my chest. I’m freezing. The snow is coming down much thicker now, and the wind is getting uncomfortable.
Cole finishes the transaction. The man thanks us, then looks at the sky. “You need to go home,” he says grimly. “The roads won’t be safe much longer.”
We both nod. It’s pretty clear that the storm that’s about to hit will be a bad one.
“We’ll have to finish off after the snow clears,” Cole shouts over the wind as we head back to the car. I nod, too cold to talk, and slide inside, slamming the door shut. Immediately, I notice a frantic beeping. The radio we have in the dash is going haywire. I pick it up.
“Hey—”
Riven’s voice barks down the line. “Come home. Now.”
“I know, I know. We’re not gonna get caught in the storm.” Cole sparks the engine, and we reverse onto the road. “We’re on our way back now.”
“I don’t care about the bloody storm,” he spits out. I frown, sitting up straighter. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve heard Riven sound this pissed. He always keeps it together in a crisis. Which means whatever’s wrong must be very, very wrong.
“Wow, man,” I say lightly. “Thanks for the concern over our safety. For a second there, I thought you cared.”
He huffs a deep breath. “It’s Daisy.”
Cole looks over sharply. “What about Daisy?” He asks, raising his voice. “Is she okay? Did something happen?” He taps the gas a little, speeding up.
“She’s been lying to us.”
“About what?”
“About everything.” We turn a bend in the road, hitting the forest, and the radio crackles in my hand as we lose connection. I look up at the sky. It’s darkening worryingly fast.
“Are we gonna be alright?” I ask Cole. “I’ve never seen a storm come on this quick.”
“We’ll make it,” he mutters.
We drive out of the copse of trees and Riven’s voice starts back up.
“Everything he said about her was true. Everything. He—”
I cut him off. “Look, man, we didn’t get any of that. Just hang on and wait until we get there. It can’t be all that bad.”
“No, I—”
“Cole is trying to drive through a blizzard. Shut up until we get there.” I slam the radio back into its holster.
When we make it to the cabin, the snow is coming down really badly, and the wind is picking up. We don’t have time to park the car in the barn; we have to abandon it in the driveway and stagger the few metres to the door. As soon as we step inside, I see Riv pacing up and down in front of the fire. He doesn’t even wait for us to take off our shoes.
“She lied to us,” he announces, spinning on his heel. “Her name is Jenny Adams.”
“What?” I unwind my scarf, then push past him to the fire. “Can you give me a second to warm up?”
“Daisy,” he insists. “Her real name is Jenny Adams. She never lived in London. She didn’t work at the school she told us. She isn’t on break, she was fired.”
I frown. “Wait, what? How do you know all this?”
“I spent the last twenty minutes talking to her boyfriend on the radio. She suddenly disappeared, and he was worried sick, so he tracked her all the way up here.”
I feel like I’m falling.
“Her what?” Cole growls.
“Her boyfriend,” Riven snaps. “She has a boyfriend. Hell, the way he was talking about her, I think they’re pretty damn close to getting engaged.”
My heart thumps. Daisy doesn’t have a boyfriend. There’s no way.
“I checked her passport and driving license,” he continues. “Everything he said was true.”
“Why would she lie?” I ask. “She must have had some reason. She did mention having a manipulative ex; maybe that’s him?”
His eyes are burning. “I don’t care. As soon as the storm is over, you’re driving her straight to the fucking airport.”
“We need to talk to her,” Cole says. “She can explain herself.”
I head for the corridor to find her, but Riv grabs my arm. “There’s no point. She’s already proven that we can’t trust her. She’ll just lie even more to get herself out of it.”
“You don’t know that—”
“Yes, I do,” he growls. “It’s happened before. Or have you fucking forgotten?”
I frown. “Daisy’s nothing like Johanna.”
He shakes his head. “We’re not talking to her. We need to find the truth ourselves.” He holds out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Give me your phone. It’s better at picking up signal than mine. I want to connect the laptop to the hotspot.”
I check my screen. “I don’t have any bars.”
“I’ll find somewhere in this Goddamn house which has signal. Give. Me. Your. Phone.”
Sighing, I give it up. He sits at the dining room table and fiddles with it, connecting it to the laptop, then opens up his browser. When the page doesn’t load, he slams his hand down on the table. “Fuck!” He bellows.
I jump. “Jesus, man!”
I’ve never seen Riven this angry. Not even close. He looks like he’s about to lose it. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down. What the Hell is up with you?”
He runs a hand over his face. “I almost did it again.”
“Almost did what again?”
“Almost fucked us all over. I just—” He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “I just asked her to stay with us.”
“What?”
“To move in. To—date us. Officially. I asked her literally an hour ago.”
My heart leaps. “What did she say?”
“Does it matter? It’s obviously not going to happen now.” He scrubs a hand through his hair. Underneath all the anger, he looks completely miserable.
“You love her,” I realise. “Holy shit. You’re completely in love with her.”
He presses his lips tightly shut, not denying it. “I should’ve known,” is all he says.
I frown. “We don’t actually know anything, yet. This might all be some big misunderstanding.”
He scowls up at me. “How? I saw her fucking ID, she gave us a fake name! Why are you on her side?”
“She believed me when I told her about my jail time. I literally told this girl that she was trapped in the mountains with a criminal, and she didn’t even flinch. I think she deserves the benefit of the doubt.” He doesn’t say anything. I sigh. “Look, Johanna lied to you for years. But I told you, man, that wasn’t your fault.”
He clicks to refresh the webpage over and over. “It was. I was the reason everything happened. I was the one who proposed to her. I was the one who testified against you in court. Everything was fine, until I fell for her.”
I shake my head. “She was the reason everything happened. Not you. She was the evil bitch.”
“I told myself I’d never let a woman trick me like that again. And Jenny did. She did it so much worse than Johanna. At least Johanna told us her real goddamn name!”
Suddenly, the laptop screen flickers white as Google finally loads up.
“Finally.” Riven leans forward and types Jenny Adams in the search bar.
I drop into a chair and watch, my heart racing. I have no idea what’s going on, but the one thing I do know, is that I trust Daisy. I know whatever it is that she’s done, she’s a good person.
The name pulls back thousands of results. I squint at the first headline. It’s a news article from The Express. High School Teacher Fired After P*rn Star History is Revealed. “Daisy does porn?”
“Jenny,” Riv insists. “Her name is Jenny.”
“She’s Daisy to me.” I reach over his shoulder and click on the article, skimming it.
In Brighton, a high school art teacher is currently under fire after adult videos of her were leaked to the faculty and the parents of several students. One mother, who received the inappropriate content in an email, expressed that she was ‘horrified’ that ‘someone so depraved would be allowed to educate teenagers,’ while another worried that the ‘screening processes for teachers aren’t severe enough.’
After a thorough investigation, Alton Secondary School quickly dismissed Miss Adams, leaving a class of A-level students in the lurch, just months before their exams.
I squint. It’s hard to imagine Daisy as a porn star. I mean, she certainly has the body for it, she’s sexy as fuck. But I remember how angry she got when Riv asked her to take off her shirt.
“I guess this is why she didn’t want us knowing her real name,” Riv mutters.
“But why? Why would we care about her doing porn? It’s her business.” Like, yeah, it’s really awkward and shitty that the videos were sent round to the parents of her students; but the article said they got leaked. It’s not like she was playing them in her homeroom.
Cole doesn’t say anything.
Riv goes back to the search page and scrolls through the results. There’s a lot of porn sites listed. He clicks on one at random.
I grimace. “Dude. Shouldn’t we go get her for this? She’s literally in the next room. It feels weird to watch a video of her having sex without her.”
“I want to know the truth,” he gets out. I sigh as Daisy pops up on the screen. Riv’s always been like this. When he’s faced with a problem, he has to solve it. He’s going to Sherlock this mystery until he’s worked out exactly what’s happening.
I focus on the video. It’s of Daisy sitting on the bed in a t-shirt and panties, kissing a guy. I’m surprised by the jealousy that stabs through me when I see his hand on her thigh.
“Do we have to watch this,” I moan. “I said I like to watch, but not just random guys—”
“Shut up.”
“He’s completely missing that spot on her neck she likes—”
“Eli. Shut. Up.”
I sigh, slumping back in my chair, and let the tape roll. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. The further on we get into the video, the worse it gets.
Not to brag, but I’m pretty familiar with porn. I’m honestly somewhat of a connoisseur. I prefer to have an actual, real-life woman in my arms, but after five years of living in the wilderness, stuck inside during bad weather, I’ve become pretty familiar with sex tapes.
This isn’t a sex tape.
This isn’t sex tape sex. There’s no dirty talk or strip teases. None of it seems performed. She’s not trying to position herself so she looks good on the camera, arching her back or sucking in her stomach. She’s wearing plain black panties. Yeah, they obviously look amazing on her; but if I were a woman filming herself having sex, I’d probably pick out something a bit nicer.
The two of them start messing around. As she rolls on top of the guy, I hear she’s talking about her classes for the day. His face has been cropped out, but hers is perfectly clear.
This isn’t porn, I realise. It’s not performed at all. It’s just domestic, comfortable, loving-partner sex. She doesn’t look at the camera once as she reaches for the hem of her shirt. As she starts to lift it up, I slam my finger on the space button, pausing it. I feel sick. “Dude. I don’t think she knew that was being filmed.”
Cole stands up, scraping out his chair. “Fuck this. I’m going to find her. Turn that shit off.”
Riven frowns. “Wait—”
“No,” Cole snaps, leaving the room. “Off.”
I x out of the clip, checking the rest of the page, and feel myself go cold as I see the number of views on the video. Oh my God.
Riv pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “She said someone used her,” he says quietly. “Remember? The first night we slept with her.”
“Apparently, someone is the whole bloody internet,” I get out through gritted teeth. “She’s hit the trending page.” I guess after she got into the news, the video must have blown up. I scroll down to the comments.
Heard u r a teacher. Ur next video should be u spanking urself with a ruler in a schoolgirl costume
Came here from the express article, holy shit didnt expect an ass like that.
I’d go to town on those tits you dirty little slut
I have to look away as nausea rises in my throat. God. How long has she been putting up with this? I check the upload date. The video was only released about a week before we met her. Everything starts falling into place. Someone posted this video of her online and sent it to the faculty of her school. It went viral after a bunch of news sites reported on the story. She packed a bag and just left.
“She said she had an ex manipulate her to stay with him,” I remember. “Do you think he—”
The colour drops out of Riven’s face. He stands, but before he can go find her, Cole reappears in the doorway.
“You fucking idiot,” he snarls. “You. Fucking. Idiot.”
“Where is she?” Riven asks quietly.
Cole doesn’t say anything. Just slaps a piece of paper onto the table and storms towards the front door. He starts rooting through the coats. Riven doesn’t move, so I pick it up to read aloud.
“Cole, Eli, and Riven. I just wanted to say sorry. I’m sorry for lying to you. None of you deserved it. You’ve all been so kind, and I took advantage of that. You three saved my life, and the last few weeks have helped me more than you can understand.
Pretty much everything I told you about myself was a lie. Where I lived, where I worked, why I’m here. My name. I really never meant to hurt any of you. But I broke all of your trust, and that was an awful thing to do. I’m going to catch the next flight back home.
I’m so, so, so sorry,
Daisy.”
I put the paper down. Silence fills the room.
“No,” Riven says. His voice is low. “No.”
I turn to look out of the window. The storm has hit us full force. The wind is screeching, snow is falling so thickly all I can make out is white.
I can’t speak. My heart is thumping out of my chest.
“Her coat, wallet and shoes are gone,” Cole says, stamping towards us. “How long ago did she leave?”
“I don’t know. I—I didn’t see her going.”
“She obviously left in a hurry. She didn’t take any of her things.” Cole’s blue eyes burn. “When did you fight with her?”
“I guess… thirty minutes ago?”
I close my eyes. She’s dead. There’s no way she’ll have made it to the village in time. And there’s no way she’ll survive in the blizzard for that long. She would’ve gotten caught in the storm before she even got to the road.
She’s dead.
Riven surges to his feet and heads to the front door. “I’m going to find her.” He grabs his coat from the peg and shrugs it on, his hands fumbling with the buttons.
“No.” Cole pushes him back. “You’d be useless. Stay here in case she comes back.” He pulls on his own boots. “Eli, where are my survival packs?”
I don’t say anything. I keep staring out of the window. I feel like my insides have been frozen.
She’s dead.
She’s dead, and I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her.
“Eli!” Cole barks. “Where are the survival packs?”
I force my mouth to work. “Top shelf.”
He grunts and grabs one of the backpacks, slinging it over his shoulder.
Riven goes to take one, too. “Eli can stay here. I’ll come too.”
“No!” Cole turns on him. “Listen to me. This is my job, so let me fucking do it!”
“But she could be dying!”
“You’ll just slow me down. I’ll have two people to keep alive.”
“I can look after myself.”
“It would be a suicide mission.”
“I don’t fucking care.”
Cole’s nostrils flare. In one quick movement, he grabs Riv by the front of the shirt and slams him hard into the wall. “You’re. Staying. Here.”
“But—”
“I’M NOT LOSING BOTH OF YOU!” Cole roars, getting right in his face. “YOU’VE ALREADY TAKEN HER AWAY FROM ME, YOU’RE NOT FUCKING DYING AS WELL!”
Riven pales. Cole holds him in place for a few seconds, chest heaving. Finally, Riven gives him a small nod.
“Go,” he says hoarsely.
Cole steps back, pulls on his goggles, and unlocks the front door. Instantly, the wind slams it open. The noise is deafening. Snow whirls into the corridor, flying over the two men, covering the floor.
I close my eyes. There’s no way she made it. No way in Hell.
Cole tightens his hands on his pack and steps outside. Riven heaves the door shut after him. When the roar of the wind cuts out, the house is eerily silent.
“I shouted at her,” he says, his voice empty.
I wet my lips. “I think I loved her.”
He puts his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry,” he rasps. “I thought—”
“You thought.” I jump to my feet. Anger burns in my throat. “You thought. You didn’t know. You didn’t even ask her, for God’s sake.” I turn to go.
“Eli—”
“Don’t fucking talk to me.”
I head to my room, leaving him standing alone in the living room, with the laptop still open on the video of her.
