Page 75 of Revive
God, he wanted to wrap her in warmth, hold her close, and breath in the scent of her skin.
This was agony.
Five minutes passed in a heartbeat while simultaneously feeling like a millennium. Shit! Had she gone back the other way? Why had she gone back the other way? Maybe he could catch her up.
Spook backtracked through the ravine, but found no sign of Alle, only a few extra scuff marks in the dirt to show where they’d been. It didn’t really make sense that she’d go back the long way around, but that was obviously what she’d done, because she sure as hell hadn’t passed him. He continued on through the ravine, failing to spot her, crossed the grasslands, got back to the cave. The single gas lamp they’d left burning remained alight in the living room.
“Alle?”
He tore through the rooms, but there was no sign of her. He came to a crashing halt in the bedroom, staring at the smooth expanse of the patchwork quilt.
Oh, Jesus fuck! Where the hell was she?
He should never have left her. He ought to have listened to his heart.
Back outside on the beach, Spook paced from one end of the cove to the other thrice. There was no sign of her coming from either end. Whichever route she’d chosen she ought to have been here by now. Where the fuck was she? What did he do? Where’d she gone?
Shit.
Elation metamorphosed.
The night grew deeper.
He tried her phone. No answer. The damn thing went to voice mail. He tried text too.
“Fuck!”
How long had it been now. Ten…Twenty minutes?
Where the fucking hell was she? He must have missed her somehow, but how?
Spook sprinted back to the mouth of the ravine, heedless of his feet or the dangers of twists and falls. There was no sight of her on the headland. His mind fed him a constant stream of sick images as he ran. Alle hurt. Alle broken. Blood everywhere. Serial killers. Alien abduction. Fucking shark people! None of it was rational, he knew that. It didn’t stop his brain playing what if.
And then there were the even darker thoughts. The ones he fought to keep at bay, but seeped in anyway, more steadily with every passing minute. What if she hadn’t meant it.
What if she was a liar, and he’d been a fool again?
No!
That wasn’t it. He refused to believe it.
He walked the route again, waiting and watching, praying to see her in the distance. He went up to the fort and hammered on the door, wondering if she’d limped back there and decided to stop since she had a key. All he got for his efforts were two mentally barking dogs, and a firework show in his head.
If Ric were here then he could probably have used the dogs to help find her, but Xane’s cousin was still on the other side of the globe.
“Fuck!”
Panic hit him like a tidal wave. It pounded against his chest, stole his air. Devoured and drowned him. Sent him careening and crashing to his knees. He bowed, head hitting the damp grass and fucking sobbed.
He cried until his lungs were dry and exhaustion stole over him like the morning frost. Until depleted, he stopped, and stared around at the dark, and realised she still wasn’t here, and he was no use to her like this. That the island was too big to search alone. That he’d made this mess and he fucking well had to fix it.
Having staggered across to the rope bridge, he stood in the centre of it and bellowed her name, heard the echo roll along the chasm. There was no reply. He slumped, setting the bridge swinging. Then he did the first sensible thing he’d done all night.
Which wasn’t throwing himself off it, though Jesus that was tempting, because what if… What if… He didn’t dare finish that thought.
He dialled the coastguard. Hung up realising he had nothing to tell them that would bring them out, and instead called Xane.
Saint that he was, his band mate picked up on the second ring.
