“Are you sure you’re all right?”
It was the fourth time I’d asked, and once again my question was met with a curt “I’m fine.”
We were hiking up the road toward civilization, the Volvo waiting idly in the parking lot at our backs. Darren had refused to let us take it. Dougie, blood still streaming from his nose where Darren had smacked him hard in the face, had been uncontainable. It was all I could do to convince him to wait the three minutes it took me to claw on my clothes before he took off, storming away from the campsite.
“Would you like a tissue?” I asked, trotting to keep up.
“No.” Dougie wiped his lower face on his sleeve, coating his white shirt in vivid-red blood.
I fell silent, concentrating on keeping up and avoiding the deep potholes that rutted the surface of the road. My calves were burning, and hunger sapped my energy. I didn’t want to ask Dougie to slow down, though. Not when he was in this mood. To be honest, I was a little frightened of him right now.
He seemed out of control, and though I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I saw his lips trembling as he muttered under his breath.
Then suddenly he stopped short and whirled to face me. I started to back away but then steadied myself.
“I mean,” he exploded, continuing a thought I hadn’t heard, “I know he doesn’t like Martin, but for God’s sake! He spent the whole night last night knowing Martin was missing, truly missing, and he didn’t bat an eyelid. All he could think about was getting Emma into the damned tent. What is wrong with him?”
I looked at him anxiously, uncomfortable with the idea of having to reply, nervous about saying the wrong thing.
“And I can’t believe he wouldn’t let me have the car,” Dougie went on when I didn’t respond. “We could be up there right now, phoning him. Instead we’re hiking halfway across the frickin’ countryside. And if he doesn’t answer…”
Dougie’s voice trailed off as he looked out over the sea, a darker blue today now that the sky had clouded over. I understood. If Martin didn’t answer, how the hell would we know what had happened to him? How would we find him? We’d already retraced his steps. What else could we do?
“Come on,” I said gently. “Let’s just get up there, find a signal.” Dougie took a deep breath, blew it out, and then looked at me and nodded, a ghost of a smile around his mouth. His shoulders dropped, and the expression on his face became more like the boy I knew. Apart from the blood.
“Are you sure you don’t want a tissue?” I asked as we started walking again, at a much more sedate pace this time.
Dougie reached up to tentatively assess his nose. He winced and dropped his hand quickly.
“Do I look terrible?”
“Red’s not really your color.”
It was a poor attempt at being funny, but Dougie laughed nonetheless, though the sound was sour.
“Here.” I dug a pack of Kleenex from my pocket and held one out to him. “People with hay fever always carry tissues,” I explained, catching his quizzical look.
“Right.” He took a tissue and tilted his head, using it to try to stem the trickle of scarlet that was still dribbling from his nose. “I’m not going to forgive Darren for this,” he mumbled through a face full of paper.
I understood that he meant the whole situation with Martin, not the bloody nose. Still, that was something to add to the list. Darren was the world’s biggest dick. I had no idea what Emma saw in him besides his muscles. She had been upset with him after the fight, mostly because Dougie was bleeding rather than because Darren had lied about Martin, but she was down there at the beach with him, not up here with us. That spoke volumes.
Dougie was right; we didn’t see a single car all the way to the main road. When we reached the top, the only noise came from an electrical generator buzzing quietly. Dougie checked his phone: no signal. Mine was the same. After several minutes, a white van zoomed by. Five minutes after that, an old couple in an aged but spotlessly clean Mercedes came ambling along. They actually stopped, the man rolling his window down to check that we were all right, but his cheerful demeanor cooled rapidly when he caught sight of Dougie’s bloodied face, and they didn’t linger long.
“Maybe Martin did catch a ride,” Dougie murmured as the car disappeared around the corner.
Perhaps.
We climbed a fence and walked halfway through an empty field. It was the highest point for miles around, and we figured if we were going to get a signal, it would be there.
“Well?” I asked as he held up the little rectangle. My own phone still showed zero bars.
“Hang on, it’s searching,” he replied. He held it little higher, eyes on the screen. “Aha!” He grinned at me triumphantly. It looked a little manic on his blood-spattered face. I smiled, making a mental note to hand him another tissue as soon as we’d spoken to Martin.
And I told myself we would. It was the only way I could keep from feeling sick with worry.
Dougie held the phone to his ear, his gaze fixed on me. “It’s ringing,” he mouthed.
I waited, my pulse throbbing painfully, heart thudding in my chest. I couldn’t hear the rings, but I counted them in my head, matching each one to the surge of adrenaline-filled blood pumping around my system. One. Two. Three. Four. Any second now, Dougie’s face would stretch into a broad grin. Five, six, seven. Any moment, any moment now. Eight, nine, ten. Why wasn’t Martin answering?
My stomach twisted uneasily as I watched Dougie’s face cloud. Slowly he dropped the phone.
“It went to voicemail,” he whispered.
“Try again,” I urged.
He obeyed me silently, and I began my count all over again. I tried to hope, but already I knew what the result would be. It was still a blow when Dougie shook his head, his expression grim.
“Nothing,” he said, confirming my fears.
“What do we do?” I asked. I felt lost, like a child. “Should we phone his parents?”
Dougie made a face. I knew exactly what he was thinking. If we rang anyone’s parents, or the police, it made it real. Terrifying. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to admit that Martin was really missing.
“I don’t know.” Dougie echoed my hesitation. “What would we tell them?”
I twisted my mouth to the side. Was there any way to check if Martin was home without revealing that we’d lost him, that there was any danger? If he wasn’t there, I didn’t want to frighten his parents, not when there was still a chance he might be hunkered down somewhere, ankle twisted or broken, waiting impatiently for us and annoyed that we hadn’t found him yet.
“Don’t tell them it’s you,” I suggested. “Pretend to be someone else. Ask if he’s home.”
Dougie looked doubtful. “You don’t think they’ll realize it’s me?”
“I’ll call then,” I said, though my insides squirmed at the thought. “I’ve never even met them.”
To my surprise, Dougie let out a laugh. A real one this time. “Trust me, if you call, they’ll be suspicious. Martin doesn’t get calls from girls.”
“Oh.” I smiled uneasily. “Right.”
“Okay.” He sighed. “Okay, I’m calling.”
He held the phone to his ear, but quickly he was frowning. I watched him pull the handset away, glare at the screen. “Oh come on! You were there a minute ago!”
“What?” I asked.
“Signal’s disappeared.” Dougie tapped several different locations on the screen, but the expression on his face didn’t change.
“Want to try mine?” I offered. I fumbled around in my pocket and drew out my own phone. “What network are you on?” I asked.
“Virgin Mobile.”
“I’m on Vodafone. Let me double-check… Nope.” I sighed. “Not a thing.”
“That’s so weird,” Dougie said. “It was fine a moment ago. I had four bars. Maybe I need to get higher.”
“Higher?” I said dubiously. We were as high up as it got.
“I could climb a tree,” Dougie suggested, eyeing the tall birches that lined the back of the field.
I stared at him, fighting the urge to say what I thought, that he was clutching at straws. But I didn’t have any better ideas. How far would we have to walk to find a house? If it came to that, we’d have to go back and make Darren hand over the keys. And that wasn’t a conversation I was eager to have.
“I’ll give you a leg up,” I said.
With me giving him a lift up to the lowest branches, Dougie was able to scale the sturdiest-looking tree in quick, lithe movements. He paused in the center, testing out the higher branches with his hands. They swayed easily under the pressure.
“Don’t go too high,” I warned. “The last thing we need is for you to break your neck!”
He chuckled but stopped trying to climb higher. “Any luck?”
“No. Yes! We have lift-off! Hang on, it’s ringing now.” I waited, both anxious and eager. Then… “What the hell?”
“What?” No answer. “Dougie, what is it?”
“My battery just died.”
I huffed a laugh, though it really wasn’t funny. “You’re joking?”
“No.”
“Hang on.” I dug into my pockets again. “Catch! See if I have a signal.”
I threw my phone up into the tree, wincing apprehensively, but Dougie’s deft hands caught it easily. I watched him jab at the screen.
“How do you turn it on?” he called down.
“It is on,” I replied. “Is the screen locked?”
“No. Heather, it’s definitely not on.”
I looked up at him, mystified. It had been on a minute ago. Maybe my fingers had accidentally hit the power switch when I threw it, although you had to hold it down for at least five seconds. I described the way to start it up, then waited. And waited.
“Nope, it’s not turning on. Could it be out of power?”
“No. I still had half a battery. That should do me till at least tomorrow.”
“Well, it’s not working.”
“Toss it down,” I sighed, exasperated.
Dougie obediently dropped it into my waiting hand, and I plunged my thumb down onto the power key, waiting for the little red Vodafone symbol to dance across the screen. It didn’t.
“That’s not right,” I murmured quietly. Was it broken?
“I told you,” Dougie called down.
“I don’t understand,” I said, raising my voice so he could hear. “It was fine a second ago.” I looked about me. “Could it be the generator thing? Can it drain batteries?”
“Dunno.” Dougie’s voice was closer now. I looked up to see him slipping down through the branches. “Just our luck this weekend.”
He scuttled lightly onto the final branch and hovered there for a moment, judging the distance to the ground. As he bent his knees, preparing to jump, I heard a deep crack resound from the trunk. Dougie’s face dropped in time with the branch, and both of them tumbled to the ground.
“Dougie!” I cried out, already reaching for him. He was sprawled on the ground, tangled up in the whippy, leaf-covered shoots spiking off from the broken branch. Even as his hands tore at the foliage, I knew something was wrong. Peeking out from the confusion of glossy green was his ankle, turned awkwardly under him. His mouth twisted in a grimace of pain, and he gripped his leg just above his foot. He groaned, still trying to extricate himself from the chunk of tree.
“Are you all right?” I gasped.
Dougie huffed. “Yeah, I think so.” I took hold of his hand and hauled him to his feet. He hissed in pain as soon as he tried to put any weight on the damaged ankle. “Maybe,” he amended.
“Is it broken?” I asked.
Please let it not be. How the hell was I meant to get him back down to the campsite and the car if he couldn’t walk? There was no way I could carry him that far.
“No, doesn’t feel like it. Hurts, though.” He blew out a breath, tried gingerly to step on his right foot. I watched him grit his teeth. “I think it’s just sprained.” He laughed, though the sound was slightly hysterical.
“What’s funny?” I asked, my eyebrows rising in puzzlement and disbelief. Laughing was the last thing I felt like doing.
“It’s just… Could it get any worse?”
I smiled, though the muscles in my jaw had to work harder than usual to achieve the effect.
“Don’t say that,” I warned. Then I sighed. “You’re not having much of a birthday trip. What are we going to do, Dougie?”
We still had no idea what had happened to Martin, and now Dougie probably needed a visit to an ER.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Let’s just get back to the campsite. Then we’ll figure it out. Darren’ll have to drive us somewhere.”
I wasn’t so sure. The look on Darren’s face when we left had been unambiguous: he was furious. And in my experience, a furious Darren was not a helpful one. Still, maybe if he saw the state Dougie was in, he’d warm up a little. That’s if I could get him there.
“Think you can walk?” I asked, eyeing Dougie dubiously. He was trying to stand normally, but it was obvious that it was agony to put any weight on his foot.
“I’ll try,” he offered.
It was very slow progress. Dougie attempted to walk by himself at first, but he couldn’t manage anything more than a snail’s pace, limping a few inches at a time. His face was drawn, and his top teeth were gnawing down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. After only a few hundred yards, he had to surrender.
“Look, I’ll wait here,” he said, preparing to lower himself onto the grass. “You can walk back down and get Darren to come up with the car.”
I paled. I did not want to have to face Darren without Dougie. “Maybe I could carry you?” I suggested.
Dougie snorted.
“Are you Wonder Woman on the weekend?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted. “But look, put your arm around my shoulder. I’ll be your human crutch.”
That worked a lot better. Dougie had to walk in a slightly awkward crouch because I was so much shorter than him, but he was able to take a step without dropping his full weight onto the rapidly swelling joint. It was hard work, and my arm—wrapped around his waist and gripping him so hard my fingers went white—quickly started to ache. But I knew we only had a couple of miles, maybe a little less, to go.
The sun was at its peak by the time we limped back to the parking lot, although it was hidden behind a thick bank of clouds. Hungry, worn out, and aching, I dropped Dougie against the hood of the Volvo. He slumped down by the dirty gray metal, his mouth pressed into a thin line. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead.
“How does it feel?” I asked stupidly.
“Sore.” He flashed me a half smile. “I can’t wait to get my shoe off. It feels like it’s about to explode out of the fabric.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I suggested. “We might not be able to get it back on.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere except in the car. Come on, let’s go talk to the delightful Darren.”
I stared at Dougie for a moment, trying to decide if he was delirious or joking. He looked wary under the wink he gave me, so I went with the latter.
Although it looked nothing the same—it was broad daylight, and this time our things were strewn around the campsite—I had a strange sense of déjà vu when I hit the sinking softness of the sandy beach. For some reason I had the same tense, uncomfortable feeling I’d had last night when we’d come back to the darkened site to not find Martin where we’d hoped he’d be. It was the silence. It was the emptiness. It was the fact that, once again, no one was there.
“Emma?” I called.
No answer. I looked toward our tent. I really didn’t want to have to go in there looking for them. Dougie was already struggling with the uneven, constantly shifting surface, though. I couldn’t ask him to wade all over the beach. Making an embarrassed noise under my breath, I plodded over.
“Emma?” I called again, still hoping her head would peek out, and I wouldn’t have to interrupt. No such luck.
I drummed my fingers against the fabric of the tent—in case they hadn’t heard me yelling, just to give them a few more seconds—then gingerly eased the zipper down. I squinted into the interior cautiously, ready to shut my eyes. Then I opened them wide in confusion. The tent was as empty as the beach.
“Dougie?” I spun on the spot. Dougie was over by the other tent. The flap was wide open, and it also was clearly unoccupied. “They’re not here.”
“What do you mean, they’re not here?”
I moved to the side and gestured to the vacant tent. “They’re not here,” I repeated.
“For God’s sake!” Dougie hobbled over to peer inside for himself. As if I could have missed them among the chaos of clothes, sleeping bags, and toiletries. I hadn’t. They were gone.