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I looked at my forever teammate, who had dropped everything and put himself in harm’s way to come help me, and I wanted to fight back. But the boys had this ability to hold up a mirror, metaphorically speaking, to let me see myself, flaws and all. “She’s the one who doesn’t want to try,” I said. “She doesn’t trust me to do this right, and?—”
The phone on the bedside table began to ring. The phone I thought Nataliya had taken with her to call Elias. I scooped it up and pressed the Talk button. “Hey, bud.”
“Adrian? It’s almost nine, and my mom didn’t call.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I said. “She left the phone when she went out for a walk, and she hasn’t come back yet.”
“She…left the phone?” Elias sounded as confused as I felt. Calling Elias at eight thirty was sacred to Nataliya. She might call him earlier if need be, but regardless, she had made sure to call him every day we’d been gone at the same time so he would have some consistency in his life. “Was she okay when she went out for her walk?”
No, but it wasn’t like I was going to explain that to an eight-year-old. “Yeah, she was just tired of looking at me,” I said, trying to make it a joke, but it landed flat. “She just needed a little bit of space.”
“Did she say that she wasn’t going to call me on time tonight?”
“No, she should be calling any minute, okay?”
“But you have the phone.”
He had a point; I wasn’t on my game at all tonight. “Look, I’m going to go find her, okay? I’ll make sure she calls you as soon as she can.”
I heard him sniffle, and my heart ached for the boy. “She’s never not done something that she said she would,” he said. “I’m worried.”
“I know,” I said, and silently, I agreed with him. “I’ll find her and get the phone to her, all right? Just sit tight for me.”
“Okay, Adrian.”
“Your mom is going to be fine,” I reassured him. “We’ll talk to you soon.”
“Soon,” Elias echoed, and I hung up. I took a breath and let it out.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Zach said.
I nodded, but I wasn’t quite as sure. She was only meant to be gone for ten minutes, and if she knew she didn’t have a way to call Elias, she would have come back for the phone. “We need to go find her.”
Zach didn’t argue. Instead, we said our goodbyes to Drake, Owen, and Nate, who had listened to this whole exchange. “We’ll call you guys later to finish this conversation.” Once we’d hung up, I said, “Call Gabe. See if he can get eyes on her.”
Zach tried, but Gabe never picked up. We shared a look. “Let’s move.”
Out in the hallway, Zach pointed out that he’d gone one way while Gabe had gone the other. We took Gabe’s path, and it seemed pretty quiet. Nothing was amiss, except that Gabe and Nataliya were nowhere to be seen.
Then, we heard a scream, and we took off running. Around the corner, we found one of the housekeepers.
“He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead!”
Please, no. I let Zach deal with the shrieking woman, who was gathering quite the crowd, and I walked into the laundry facility. It looked like there had been a major fight that had ended with someone bouncing Gabe off the machines, which had been left dented.
I knelt and held my breath as I reached out and pressed my fingers to the side of Gabe’s neck. I only let that breath out when I found a pulse. “He’s not dead,” I called over my shoulder at Zach.
But he was bleeding heavily from a head wound, and he still hadn’t woken up. I patted his cheek gently. “Gabe,” I said. “Come on, man.”
His face scrunched, and he groaned as he opened his eyes. He sat up, holding his head. “It’s bright.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You want to lie back down? So we can check you for anything broken?”
He waved me off. “It’s too bright,” he repeated.
“If I can get you to the hotel room, I can turn the lights off for you.” I turned around. “Zach.”
He appeared in the doorway. “Shit,” he muttered. “What the fuck happened?” Stepping into the room, he helped me hoist Gabe to his feet. He grunted in pain, but once he was on his feet, he didn’t stumble.
