Smells Like Winter

28: Twerking Sessions (ft. some singing & talking & screaming)

"Have you gone mad?! We can't stay here!" shouted Maddy at Carter, who had woken up a while ago and wasn't lying in her lap anymore.

Some part of her had grown used to the weight of his head on her thighs, the feeling of his dark hair tickling her skin, the sound of his rhythmic breathing those last three hours he had spent sleeping, using her as his own personal pillow. But she would never admit that.

It was already getting dark outside the car, and the dense trees of the forest extended their branches in an eerie way, as if they were scrawny hands bewitching the passerbys to their grip.

"We're staying for the night." Carter wasn't asking.

"Did you hear any of what I just said? There could be third-stage hosts in these woods! We're not staying here."

The others were just watching, hesitant to pick sides in Maddy and Carter's debate.

"I said we're staying," roared Carter, his chest rising menacingly.

Maddy threw her hands up in the air. "Why?" she yelled. "Why are you so damn stubborn and... and bloody-minded and... and..." She searched for the right words to describe him, but nothing seemed enough to describe everything about him.

"I'll tell you why. Because this is the last place where the police or FROST or anyone will search. If there's really third-stage hosts out here, nobody will dare to walk in these woods, especially at night. It's the last place we should stay in, the most dangerous place, but that also makes it the safest. See why we're staying here now?"

Maddy wanted to slap him. Again. She always did. He always had something to say, always wanted everything his way.

"And what if someone is out there, huh?"

"Then we plant a bullet in his head, and problem solved."

Maddy stared at him.

"The doors will be locked from the inside anyways, so no one will be able to get in the car," he continued. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Many things. Too many things.

"I don't like this."

"I didn't ask you."

"You-"

"So are we staying or not? For the night?" asked Sia.

Maddy and Carter spoke at the same time.

"No."

"Yes."

Maddy crossed her hands in front of her chest. "You know what? Fine. We're staying. But if we die, I'll kill you."

"That doesn't make sense, princess."

"I don't care."

"Mia, turn up the volume; I can't listen to them," murmured Logan, his head resting on the steering wheel.

Mia obeyed, changing the station from earlier to a musical one and turning up the volume until Maddy and Carter's bickering voices were muffled by the music.

"I know that song!" Mia's gorgeous face beamed.

She started singing, and Maddy couldn't hold back her laughter. Mia's voice was terribly off-key, pure cacophony to say the least, but she seemed to be enjoying herself nonetheless.

"Am I supposed to twerk?" she shouted on top of the loud music. She stood on her knees and started swaying her hips from side to side, right in front of Logan's shocked face.

Maddy didn't miss the blush creeping up his neck as Mia moved her hips sensually next to him, on the front passenger's seat. Logan, the boy of every girl's dreams, was blushing in Mia's touch.