“And before you ask, yes, the police searched the house. No sign of her.”
Bas gripped Dane’s hand, his heart hammering. “Let’s go. We have to find her.”
Paige joined them for the search, though her eyes were puffy from crying. They all walked several feet apart, taking the trail and the surrounding woods. The police had already done a quick walk-through of the trail and found nothing. Bas could only hope he’d see something, anything, that would help find her. He couldn’t stop shaking.
“Marissa?” he called as he waded through the woods, which were still laden with snow and ice. “Sweetie, it’s Bas. Answer me please. Help us find you.” They’d been walking awhile, past the park. His limbs felt frozen from the twenty-degree temps. He hoped someone would call off the search any moment, saying she was found, safe and warm.
Dane called out for her just a few feet away. Climbing over fallen trees and slipping in snow, he fell twice but got right back up.
“Marissa? I’ll make you whatever you want to eat. Please just come home.”
Bas could barely see Adam and Ru. They were on the other side of the trail, Mr. and Mrs. C between all of them, and Paige walking the actual trail. Every step made his heart hurt more. He thought about that day in the bathroom over a year ago when people had just walked by, seeing all the blood and leaving him there. He prayed like he’d never prayed before, that they would find her. That no one would just walk by and leave her alone and dying.
What if it was Nate and Hank? What if they did this because he was friends with her? What if he had pressed charges and could have prevented all this? His head was running away with him as he fought to focus. He had to look for signs of Marissa. He didn’t realize he was crying until the tears began to freeze on his face. He pushed to keep moving and match Dane’s pace.
He glanced up to see Dane attempt to scale another fallen tree, but Dane slipped and disappeared on the other side. Bas rushed his way.
“Dane? You okay?”
There was a drop of about ten feet, into a tiny pond that was still frozen over. It would take a week of seventy degree days to thaw completely after the rough winter they’d had. Dane sat utterly still, ice cracking around him. For a minute all Bas could see was the ice and Dane. Fear filled him that somehow this tiny pond was deep and would swallow Dane. Then the crimson cast of blood punched him in the gut with terror. Was Dane hurt? Oh God.
Bas tried to climb down the hill. Dane looked back his way.
“Call the cops, Bas. She’s here. She’s hurt. Call them. Don’t get closer. The ice is thin and I don’t know how deep this is.”
In a thicket of spindly branches near the edge of the pond lay Marissa, her bright blue hoodie brown with blood. The ice and snow around her looked like mud with a few splatters of red. Her long dark hair was strewn around her head like a halo and she was face down. Bas fumbled for his phone.
“Mr. Corbin!” he screamed, not able to get his fingers to hit the dial display. “Mrs. C! Adam! Ru! Anyone!” He slipped and nearly tumbled down onto the thin ice with Dane and Marissa, catching himself on a sapling just inches from the ice. His arm wrenched at the shoulder, screaming in pain as he struggled to find footing again. He slammed into a larger tree and dropped his phone, which slid to a stop beside Dane.
People began to appear around them. The police, the searchers, all Bas could do was cling to the tree and pray that both Marissa and Dane were all right. He didn’t want to put his own weight down and break the tiny shelf they were on.
She looked so still and lifeless. Bas struggled to breathe through a coming panic attack. Now was not the time for him to lose it. He held on for dear life and tried to talk himself through the breathing exercises. The police took over immediately, one pulling Dane carefully off the ice, while another waded through the thicket to reach Marissa.
“Please be alive. Please,” Bas kept whispering over and over as Mr. C pulled him out of the tiny ravine and up to the trail where medics were arriving. Dane was being looked over by one, and a team headed toward the pond with a stretcher. Mr. C helped Bas over to where Dane sat. Ru was there, holding Adam as he sobbed. Dane handed Bas his phone.
“How is he?” Mr. C asked the medic.
“Looks like a bad sprain in his left ankle. We’ll have to get him to the hospital for an X-ray to make sure it’s not broken.” The medic wrapped Dane’s leg in a stabilizer. He waved to another medic who then headed his way with another stretcher.
Dane pulled away. “You gotta take Marissa first. I’m okay. Take her.”
“We have half a dozen ambulances just through those trees. Don’t worry about her. We’ve got a big team here to take care of her.” The medic looked over the rest of them. “Anyone else hurt?” His eyes settled on Bas. “You okay?”
Was he? Bas was so numb he couldn’t feel anything. Vaguely his arm hurt, but he remembered wrenching it. It hung at his side in a dull throb. The medic sat him down just as the world began to spin.
“Jones, I need another stretcher and an arm splint, neck brace too,” he said into a little com-thing clipped to his jacket. “Sit still, son. You’ve pulled your arm out of your socket. Got a lot of swelling, so there might be something broken in the lower portion of your arm.”
Another medic was there putting a brace on Bas’s neck and something on his arm that made the throbbing worse. He made a pained sound, but Dane was there holding his good hand.
“I’ll meet you at the hospital, okay?”
“Marissa? It’s all my fault. Marissa….”
“Not your fault. She was breathing when I found her. Slow, but she was. Let the medic take care of you, please.”
Bas sucked in a deep breath. “She’s alive?” The medic jostled his arm a little too hard as they lifted him, and the pain sent him sliding into blackness.
* * *
