He was still up there.
Still too close to the edge.
And I couldn’t climb back up fast enough like this.
“Dad!” I called again, forcing calm into my voice. “Just—just stay there, okay? I’m coming up.”
But even as I said it, I knew I wasn’t getting up that slope easily. Not with my knee screaming and the mud turning everything into a slide.
Then through the storm?—
I heard it.
“Belle!”
It was low and rough. Carrying through the rain like it was cutting through it instead of being swallowed by it.
My breath hitched. Relief crashed into me so hard it almost hurt.
“Raph!” I shouted back, voice breaking. “I’m here!”
The storm roared.
But this time, I wasn’t alone in it.
41
RAPHAEL
Her location disappeared halfway up the road.
One moment, a steady point on the map.
The next—Gone.
Signal lost.
My grip tightened on the wheel. No. Not like this.
I pushed the car harder than I should, tires slipping on the flooded road as I followed the last known direction. The trees closed in, branches whipping in the wind, rain hammering down hard enough to blur everything into gray.
I stopped when the road became impassable.
I didn't hesitate. I got out and went on foot.
“Belle!”
My voice cut into the storm, swallowed almost instantly.
I kept moving.
“Belle!”
The ground is unstable beneath me, mud shifting with every step, water running in small streams between roots and rocks. I barely register it.
I keep calling her name over and over because silence is unacceptable.
Because silence is what comes before loss.
