Mason was trying to stay angry, I could tell. But right then, when Luke said that, the only thing he looked was afraid.
With Fash’s help, Luke got to his feet. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get going. How’s your leg, Cora? Can you walk?’
Which was typical Luke, you know? It’s like, he was the one who’d just been bashed over the head. And yet the first thing he does when he gets back up again is ask someone else if they’re OK.
‘Honestly?’ said Cora. ‘It’s agony.’ She moved, testing her weight, and her right leg buckled beneath her.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ muttered Mason.
‘We’ll find you something to lean on,’ said Luke, ignoring him. ‘In the meantime, put your arm around my shoulders.’
‘No, wait,’ said Fash, stepping forwards. ‘Hold on to me, Cora. The last thing Luke needs is to be bearing somebody else’s weight.’
‘But where are we going?’ I said, as Cora hooked herself on to Fash. ‘I swear, I am not spending the night in that cave. I’d rather sit here in the middle of the clearing. At least we’d have a chance of seeing someone coming.’
‘We can’t stay here, Abi,’ said Fash. ‘We’re already half drowning as it is.’ He looked at the sky, scrunching up his eyes against the rain. I shivered, suddenly chilled. It was hard to believe that, twelve hours before, I couldn’t have imagined feeling cold ever again.
‘We should keep moving,’ said Luke. ‘Head home.’ And then, before Mason could argue, ‘We’re done, Mase. The search party, if that’s ever what it was … it’s over. We’re going back to tell the police what we saw.’
And when Luke spoke like that, like a teacher would, or your dad or something, there was no sense arguing. Whatever he said was the way things were going to be.
But then he winced, as though at a sudden pain in his head.
‘Mate,’ said Fash, ‘there’s no way we’re going to make it home in this state. You need to rest. Cora can barely walk. And we must be twenty miles from where we started.’ The torch he was holding flickered, and he gave it a waggle. When it was working again, he pointed the beam at the floor. ‘And what if someone else trips while we’re walking along in the dark? What if you start feeling dizzy or something? You can’t mess about with head wounds, dude. My mum must have told me that a million times.’
Which all made sense, but I was serious about what I’d said before. ‘I mean it, guys. I am not sleeping in that cave. Because if that’s what you’re suggesting, Fash …’
He was shaking his head. ‘We should go the other way,’ he said. ‘The river’s east, right? So let’s head west.’
‘What?’ said Cora. ‘Why?’
‘Because however far it is to the river, the road has got to be closer. And if we get to the road, at some point there’ll be a car.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we just call someone?’ It was so obvious, I don’t know why none of us had thought of it before.
‘Using what?’ said Mason. ‘Someone stole our phones, remember?’
‘We could use the one we found,’ said Cora, catching on to what I was saying. And I swear, it was the first time since Sadie had gone missing that, when Cora looked at me, she actually smiled.
‘Right,’ I said, bobbing my head. ‘Exactly.’
‘Except there’s no reception out here,’ said Luke. ‘We know there isn’t.’
‘But if we head towards the road, get out from under these trees,’ said Fash, ‘maybe we’ll get a signal on the way.’ He looked at me, Cora and Luke in turn. We nodded, all of us, and I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope.
‘And which way’s the road, Fash?’ said Mason. ‘You said west, right? So all we need is a sunset to show us the way.’ He turned his free hand towards the sky, palm up, and made a show of taking in the dark.
‘My brother’s compass,’ said Luke. ‘All we need is my brother’s compass. It’s in my bag. In … in the cave,’ he added. He looked at me, knowing how I felt about going back there.
The torch flickered again, and Fash gave it a whack. ‘I reckon we’re going to need to get our stuff anyway,’ he said. ‘This torch is about to conk out on us. But look,’ he said to me and Cora, ‘why don’t you two stay here. Me, Luke and Mason can –’
‘Uh-uh. No way,’ said Cora. ‘We’re not splitting up. Not again.’
And as much as I hated the thought of going inside that cave, or even of going anywhere near it, I hated the thought of being on my own out there in the darkness even more.
‘We’ll all go,’ I said. ‘I don’t see that we’ve got any other choice.’
Which settled it, we figured. We had a plan. The only problem was, nobody seemed to know which way the cave was. And as we were standing there trying to work it out, that’s when the torch finally died.
Fash
‘What was that?’ said Abi.
The rest of us strained to listen.
‘Seriously,’ Abi insisted. ‘I heard something.’
‘You’re imagining things,’ said Mason, but he didn’t sound convinced.
I looked out into the woods like the rest of them. I didn’t hear anything … but then I did. Footsteps, maybe, or … To be honest, I don’t know what I heard. But it was so dark all of a sudden, it could have been anything. And whatever it was, it would have been able to get right up close without any of us being able to see it coming.
I’d been trying to get the torch
