Rising Tide: Dark Innocence (The Maura DeLuca Trilogy Book 1) by Claudette Melanson

know
something like that.
    “But why would you think I’d be
mad?”  My eyes were wide in awe.  He’d come to make sure I would be
ok.
    “Well, I mean you guys were all in
your underwear and everything,” Shane admitted.
    Ron scowled at him, “Thanks, Shane!”
    “It’s okay,” I piped in
weakly.  How could I be angry?  They were the ones who’d attempted to
cover me up.  I was more aware of my bare legs now, though.  They
were so pale they glowed orange, seeming to absorb the light from the campfire.
    “Nothing’s okay,” Ron
muttered.  I could feel the slight tremors running through him and
realized he was so angry, he was shaking.  “What happened tonight, that
was just sick.”
    “It’s my fault, anyway,” I
squeaked.  My voice seemed to have no force behind it, and my throat
hurt.  I must have had water in my lungs.
    Ron was appalled, “Just how the
hell is this your fault?”
    I fastened my eyes on his, wishing
I could dissolve his anger.  “You even said yourself, I shouldn’t be
hanging around with them.  I should have listened to you…to my mom…my
MOM!  Oh my god, what time is it?”  The sky was now pitch black, the
moon positioned high above us.
    “It’s almost ten,” Shane informed
us, squinting down at his watch.
    “It’s almost ten?!” I parroted back
in panic.  I was so horrified, I would have sprang to my feet, if the
dizziness hadn’t stopped me.  My body’s momentum carried me halfway there,
but I plunked back into Ron’s lap, awkwardly, as my vision grayed around the
edges.
    He let out a rush of air as I
landed on him,  “Ooof, hey, careful there!  Don’t worry, Maura, I’ll
take you home.  There’s no need to make yourself pass out again.”
    I knew I wasn’t light.  I was
tall.  He made me feel even more graceless as he struggled to get up, with
me still in his arms.  From his sitting position on the ground, even I
knew it was an impossibility.  I felt even more embarrassed—if that was
even possible—at his futile struggle to rise.
    “I can walk myself,” I tried to
tell him.
    He ignored me and flashed a look at
Shane, who stoically came over to lift me from Ron’s arms.  My small
attempts at struggle did me no good.  Shane’s frame was smaller than
Ron’s, but he was taller, and had a wiry kind of strength in his long
limbs.  Shane must have been Native.  His eyes were black, like his
hair, his skin a pleasant brown.  Though dark, his eyes held a
friendliness, tinged with mischievous, that was impossible to resist.  He
smiled down at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back…even though I was still
cold, half-naked and internally wounded by the cruelty inflicted upon me almost
three hours ago.
    * Three hours! * I thought to
myself.  *I was out for a long time…* 
    Ron was probably holding me the
entire duration, as he struggled to stand himself.  “Ow!  Hold on,
Shane, both my legs are asleep.”
    I crossed my arms across my chest,
irrationally agitated by this entire night, and wished I could disappear from
existence.  I huffed out a sigh, unconsciously.
    Ron tried to joke with me at that,
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he teased.  “Holding on to you was anything
but a burden.”
    Despite the hideous events from
earlier, I couldn’t stop myself from blushing at that.  I even smiled a
bit, looking down at his shirt and playing with a button.  I liked this
boy far too much.  My mind suddenly flashed a picture of Caelyn’s face at
me.  Her expression was furious, her eyes frightening.
    I jumped in Shane’s arms . “Mom is
going to kill me!  I promised I wouldn’t be late!” 
    “Ok, ok, stop rushing me,” Ron
groaned and struggled to his feet.  “Here, lemme have her,” he took me
from Shane’s grasp, making me feel like a large child being passed around at a
family gathering.  I was too tired and wounded to protest, though, and
decided I’d earned the comfort I’d felt before when my head had been