Page 118 of The Triangle

I duck down behind the shrub and close my eyes again, trying to remember anything. Anything that can help me understand any part of what’s going on. Anything that can help me know what the right thing to do is. But all I see is me, Danny, and Alec again. But not from earlier today this time. From years earlier. From lifetimes ago. It’s the only thing I can be certain of.

Or can I?

Fuck! I have no idea.

The sound of a gunshot causes me to open my eyes suddenly.

Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

I fucking remember.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO - DANNY

“Stop.”

Alec does.

“What?” he asks.

Looking down at the GPS, it looks like we’re almost at the end of the world right now. It seems like there’s no more terrain. Just… nothing ahead of us. And Christine is floating there on the edge.

“What’s that way? Do you know?” I ask him.

“Yeah, man. Looks like fokken Christine, don’t it?”

“No. That,” I say, pointing at what looks like nothingness.

“Hear that sound?” he asks.

I listen. “Yeah. What is that?”

“Waterfall.”

“How far down is it? Can they keep going?”

“Their bodies can. Their souls, however, will be ferried off to heaven or where-the-fok-ever if they try to keep moving that way.”

I stare at the map. That’s what that nothingness is. It’s nothingness.

“I’m going to ask again, man… What’s our plan?”

“Jesus, dude. We’re gonna get Christine—”

“Are we? Are we, now? Christine who it very likely seems has been playing us completely? Christine who’s been playing the fokken damsel in distress, oh, woe is me, my poor memory is gone?”

“What are you—?”

“There ain’t gonna be no happily ever after, man. Whatever happens next don’t conclude with you, me, and Christine sitting on a fokken beach somewhere sipping piña coladas, slapping each other on the ass and laughing. So my question is, why the fok are we bothering?”

His eyes bore into me. I breathe heavily, trying not to punch him. Not because he’s saying anything wrong. Because everything he’s saying is right. He’s telling the truth. Fucking Alec van den Berg is telling the truth. Jesus Christ.

Alec knows her better than I do, and Alec is worried. But maybe it’s because Lars knows him better than anyone. Including me. Including Christine.

Brothers are like that. Even ones who spent most of the last ten years apart.