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“Dan, for fuck’s sake, there’s no need to smash the place up. There must be some explanation. It’s no use to anyone but me.”
“But why would anyone move it?” Angel asked. She was frowning. “Who would mess with another’s medication? It seems very strange.”
“It’s him.” Dan’s expression was murderous. “Conor. It’s fucking him. This is his way of getting back at me for this morning—by punishing Santana.”
There was silence from the rest of us as we tried to make sense of this possibility, and he swung round to face first me, then Angel, then finally Santana.
“It’s him. Admit it! It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Angel folded her arms and gave a very Gallic shrug.
“I am in accord with you, Dan. There is only one psychopath on the island, and it is him.”
“When I came back earlier, before dinner,” I said slowly. “The door was open. I thought it must have blown open, but that must have been whoever took it.”
“Fuck whoever, it’s fucking him,” Dan yelled. There was a vein standing out on his forehead. “I’m going to confront him.”
“Dan, no,” Santana said urgently. “Listen to me, my pump is full, I have at least three days before I need to start worrying, maybe more. Let’s take tonight to figure out—”
“I’m taking nothing.” Dan was shaking with rage. “I’m going down to confront him.”
“Dan, please!” Santana said, but Dan was already heading towards the door. “Dan!”
She ran after him, grabbing for his hand.
“Santana, stop it.” Dan’s voice was hard. “This is between me and him—”
“It’s my fucking insulin!”
“This isn’t about the insulin. The insulin is just one more way for him to control all of us, and I’m not having it.”
“We don’t know it’s him,” Santana said desperately. “Dan, please. Dan!”
But Dan shook her hand off and headed out into the night.
Santana burst into tears. Angel went to comfort her, and I stood, uncertainly, looking from the weeping Santana to the track leading into the dark forest where Dan had disappeared. Fuck. Fuck. This was all going so wrong. And where was Joel?
The question had hardly occurred to me, when I saw a shape moving through the trees. My first idea was that it was Dan, having second thoughts, and I felt a rush of relief, but as the shape moved closer I saw it was Joel. I ran out to him.
“Joel, did you see Dan?”
“Dan? No. How come?”
“Fuck. He—he’s gone to confront Conor. He thinks Conor has Santana’s insulin.”
“What?” Joel looked more confused than anything.
“Her insulin. It’s gone missing. Dan thinks Conor took it as retaliation for their argument this morning. He’s gone down to have it out with Conor. We need to go after him—stop him.”
But Joel was looking uncomfortable.
“I—look, I mean, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Dan’s pretty pissed off with me—I’m not sure me popping up to tell him to chill out would really help.”
“Well, what do we do? We can’t sit here and wait for him to come back with a smashed face.”
“No, you’re right. Shit.” Joel ran his hand through his hair. “So what do we do? The thing is, if I interfere, that’s not likely to calm him down. Maybe we should just let him say his piece—get it off his chest.”
“That didn’t exactly work out for Bayer,” I said shortly. My pulse was hammering, my mouth was dry, and I felt light-headed—a mix of fear for Dan and exhaustion from the day’s work. I was fairly sure we were all chronically dehydrated now and had been for days. What that was doing to our stretched nerves, I had no idea.
