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Kit catches my arm. “Be careful, Laney. Please. We will get to her. We will help her. But she’s not thinking straight.”
“I know.”
I scrabble on the rocks, and nearly fall, and Kit has to boost me. Then I need to help him. The rocks are loose and lichen-slick. How the hell did Sadie get up in her condition?
Because she’s not thinking. She’s not pausing and worrying and taking the easiest path.
We reach the top. It’s forest up here, and I stop to search the trees with my flashlight beam. Thunder rumbles, and I fall back, only to have Kit brace me. He reaches past my elbow to silently point, and when he does, I see a patch of white.
Sadie’s long-sleeved white jersey. She’d changed into it before the campfire. As I watch the spot, it moves as she shifts. She’s hunkered down, and although I can’t see her face, I know she’s watching us.
I take a step, but again, Kit stops me. He leans down to my ear.
“She can see us,” I whisper before he speaks.
“I know.”
She spotted me at the cliff edge. I know she did, and she must have heard our shouts, down in the cove, away from the howling wind.
“She’s hiding,” he says.
“Hiding and running.” I swallow. “From us.”
“She’s confused.Reallyconfused. The last thing she did was argue with both of us. She might not remember that but…”
“She senses she’s upset with us, and she’s hiding. She’s scared. Of us.”
“I think so.”
“Would it help to get Garrett? One of us keep an eye on her while the other gets him?”
A firm shake of his head. “We are not splitting up. If that means we need to go back together and bring him, that’s what we do.”
“Or if it means we catch her? Bring her in? Whether she wants it or not?”
He hesitates.
“You’re right,” I say. “She’s traumatized, and we can’t traumatize her more.”
He gives a shaky laugh. “I was thinking she might attack us if we try. She’s given you more reason than anyone to write her off, but you can’t.”
I pull at my sweatshirt sleeves. “I’m naive.”
He kisses the top of my head. “I was thinking good. Kind. A hundred other things, none of them naive. You’re also right. Not about traumatizing her. I don’t think we can worry about that. But if we have her in our sights and we walk away, you won’t forgive yourself if anything happens.” He pauses. “We both won’t.”
“So we have to catch her.”
I look at that spot, where the white patch keeps moving. She’s too far to hear us—we can barely hear each other with our mouths at the other’s ear—but she can see us, and she is not moving until we do.
“Who do you think she’s less angry with?”
He gives another strained laugh. “I don’t dare guess.”
“One of us is going to have to slip up behind her, and whoever stays here should be the one she’s less worried about. The one who’ll make her less nervous.”
“If it’s a matter of who’ll make her less nervous, I’m going to guess it’s never the Black guy.”
I make a face.
