Chapter 326

“OK, now my sister is walking around the desert completely naked?” Cattie sighed. She was holding the next scrap of fabric we’d found - bikini bottoms that matched the top. “Like, what are they even doing?”

I blew out a breath and shook my head. “A naked walk in the desert could be content, I guess.”

“God, this is why I don’t do nude stuff,” Cattie grunted. “Well, one of the reasons. The content gets so fucking weird because once you show everything you have to just find new ways to do that or escalate into my hardcore porn.”

We kept hiking. I’d been able to reach Cassidy back on the boat near the water, but now that we were about five minutes into the rocky terrain I was down to one bar. The fact that we were finding what seemed like a trail was a good thing, but we still had no idea how far they’d gone.

Another few minutes later we found another garment abandoned on the edge of a rock outcrop.

“Great, now Heather has her tits out, too,” Cattie groaned.

“What’s the over-under on them not putting sunscreen on the parts that were covered by bikinis?” I asked.

That, at least, got a little snort out of Cattie and I took her arm and pulled her to me, wrapping her up in a hug. She hugged me back, resting her forehead on my chest as she growl-groaned her frustration. “This is so stupid,” she said.

“Mhmm,” I agreed softly.

“I swear, if we find them fucking, we’re leaving them in the desert,” she said.

“That would be fair,” I agreed again.

After a long moment, Cattie sighed. “We can’t leave them in the desert.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t want to, though,” I said as I rubbed her back.

We set off again. Both of us were in good, sturdy hiking boots so we didn’t have to pick our way through the terrain as much. Cattie was wearing full, utilitarian jean shorts that weren’t designed to be sexy but she still managed to do so with her long, smooth legs, along with a tank top underneath one of her plaid flannel shirts hanging loose. I was in jean shorts as well, though they showed off less of my legs, and I had managed to reclaim one of my t-shirts for the excursion with a promise that I would give it back to Wanda so she could take it with her.

“What if this is all just some fucked up way to manipulate me?” Cattie asked after a couple of minutes.

“Then they have even more screws loose than we thought,” I said. “And it doesn’t change anything, does it?”

“Not a lick,” Cattie said. “Even if we find them injured and scared or something, I hold no pity. I still Nothing Heather and am done with Sherry until she makes a real fucking apology, and even then it’s low contact at best.”

Another few minutes later we found the matching bottoms to Heather’s bikini top. There wasn’t really anything to say on that, now that they were both willingly naked. I checked my phone and saw that we didn’t have any service bars anymore so I couldn’t check in. Cattie stuffed the bottoms into her little backpack just like the rest of the clothes we’d found and we headed off in relatively the same direction, using what looked like the easiest path since we couldn’t see either woman choosing anything other than that.

I was starting to wonder at what point we needed to head back and call the police for a helicopter rescue or something when we both stopped at the sound we heard.

At first, I thought it was a coyote yapping in the distance, but it was the middle of the morning and they only did that at night as far as I knew. Glancing at each other, Cattie and I went towards the noise and soon it became clear that it wasn’t an animal - it was Heather and Sherry. Arguing.