AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Tell him…” I racked my brain for something, anything, that would deflect Dan’s intent to have it out with Conor. “Tell him I was here, and that Santana needs him back at the villa, okay?” It was the only thing I could think of, the only thing that might stop Dan in his tracks, if he thought Santana was in trouble.
“I’ll tell him,” Conor said. He watched me as I made my way back to the jetty and stepped cautiously onto the first plank. It rocked, alarmingly, and I froze, waiting for it to stabilize. “Will you be okay? Getting across, I mean?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I said a little tersely. I didn’t want to waste any more time. I wanted to get back, find Dan, and make sure he was okay. Still, I felt Conor’s eyes on me as I crossed plank by plank, listening as they creaked and groaned under my weight, and he didn’t move until I set foot onto the sand. Then, with a wave of one arm, he turned and headed back into the water villa, and I trudged up the beach towards home.
CHAPTER 22
“NO, WHAT THE fuck are you talking about? Of course he’s not here.” Santana’s face was white and strained in the moonlight, and I bit back what I wanted to retort, which was to please not swear at me, I was the person who’d been doing my best to track him down. “I’m sorry,” she said, as if reading my thoughts. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sworn at you. I’m just—what the hell is he doing, pissing around in the forest? First he disappears all day—now this.”
“The main thing is, he thought better of going to the water jetty,” I said, trying to keep hold of the positives. “So he’s not having it out with Conor. Anything’s better than that.”
“You’re right… I guess.” Santana sounded unhappy. “I just—what a fucking idiot though.”
She walked to the door, opened it, and yelled out into the night, “Dan! Daaaaan! Where are you?”
There was no response, just the shushing of wind in the trees and the sound of the sea.
“Dan?” Again, nothing.
“Daniel!” It was Angel, her voice a yell of irritation that sent the birds cawing in angry sympathy. “Get back here, you stupid espèce de merde. We want to go to bed!”
We all waited. It wasn’t the approach I would have taken, but I had to admit, if anything was likely to bring him storming back out of the trees, it was that—if only to tell Angel to shove it. But as the forest died back into silence, no footsteps sounded from the dark. No answering irritated voice called back, asking who was calling who a piece of shit.
Nothing. Just… nothing.
At last Joel cleared his throat.
“Look… I mean… there’s nothing we can do until morning. Even if we wanted to go after him, we’d never find him in the dark. Shall we just go to bed?”
There was a long silence. Then Santana let out a breath that shuddered, as if she was very close to tears.
“Okay. I don’t want to, but I don’t know what else we can do. You’re right, we won’t find him in this. Oh, Dan, what the fuck are you doing?”
Her voice wobbled on the last word, and I put my arm around her. It occurred to me that she and Dan were the last couple left on the island, aside from Conor and Zana. Everyone else had lost their other half. But until tonight, Santana had always had Dan in her corner. And now he seemed to have disappeared too.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I said, trying to imbue my words with a confidence I didn’t really feel. “He was at the other end of the island before, wasn’t he? He’s probably gone back there to cool off.”
“Why though?” Santana said. Her voice sounded tight, as if she was trying not to give way to the tears I could hear hovering at the edges of her words. “Why wouldn’t he come back here? Did he get lost?”
I shrugged. Unlikely though it seemed, it wasn’t impossible. The island wasn’t big, but at night the twisting paths and dense trees made the paths disorienting.
“I don’t know. But the island isn’t that big—if he wants to come back, he’ll find his way eventually. If not, well, worst-case scenario is he spends a night in the open.”
Getting bitten by God knows what, was the subtext, but I didn’t voice those doubts. The slim green snake I had seen on the first day kept floating through my head. I had no idea whether it was poisonous or not, but I didn’t want to find out.
“Lyla’s right,” Joel put in, though he sounded uneasy. “We can’t do any good sitting up worrying like this. He could be safely tucked up at Palm Tree Rest, for all we know. Let’s get some sleep, and we can be up at first light to look for him.”
There was a long silence, and then Santana said, in a defeated-sounding voice, “Okay.” It was only one word, but her voice wobbled.
“Yeah?” I squeezed her shoulders again, more tightly, and felt her nod her head. “Come on then, let’s get to bed. Ten to one, Dan will be lying beside you in the morning, snoring his head off.”
“Yeah,” Santana said. “I hope you’re right.”
But I wasn’t.
WHEN I AWOKE the next day, it was to the sound of Santana pacing back and forth on the veranda, her footsteps making the wooden boards shake, and I knew before I opened my eyes that something was wrong.
I could smell my own sweat, feel the dry cracking of my lips, and the salty itching of skin that hadn’t seen fresh water for over a week, and I felt a sudden visceral longing for a shower—for the warm water running down my body, splashing over my face—but I pushed that thought aside, hauled myself to my feet, and went out to where Santana was still pacing, staring sightlessly out into the forest.
