Nothing came back after seconds filled with the sound of rain lashing the door behind me.
‘Callum.’ I pressed into the connection. ‘Is Lucas there?’
‘He can’t hear you.’ Bonnie’s voice was faint. She didn’t come to the door, stayed burrowed in the living room with Joshua.
I bit my lip. We should go see Callum and Aster to ascertain if Lucas was in their cabin. If he wasn’t, then Callum would be able to search across the island to find him.
I couldn’t ask Bonnie to do it. That would be cruel. She was tough and seemed untouchable most of the time, but storms reduced her to the frightened teen who’d helplessly watched most of her family sink into crashing waves.
‘We’ll take our jeep,’ Errol said, like I’d hoped he would.
‘I’m coming with you.’
Errol nodded at his wife before nudging me out of the way of the door and sprinting off to collect his four-by-four. I slumped and closed my eyes. I had reasons to regret changing into a werewolf, but I was immensely grateful for it now. Weariness might be plucking at me, but I had the strength to continue searching.
‘We’ll find him,’ Louisa reassured me as she pulled on a puffy coat, then a waterproof.
Her heartbeat didn’t skip. The only problem was that it was impossible to tell when a statement was an objective fact or something someone believed to be true.
I hoped Lucas was huddled in a goat hut right now or eating hash browns with Aster. He would probably be fine without us coming to his rescue, but I needed to find him. I needed to know he was okay.
Louisa and I straightened at the roar of the jeep outside.
‘Good luck,’ Bonnie whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LUCAS
Igroaned, then coughed when water trickled down my throat.
Immediately, fiery pain lanced my leg. I closed my mouth and stayed as still as possible, breathing shallowly through my nose.
Rain pounded my face. When I opened my eyes, water blurred my vision to indistinguishable greys.
I was laid on my back on the ground. I struggled to recall how I’d gotten here. I remembered the sudden storm. Stumbling along the path in the cold. Odd flashes of lightning and clashing thunder.
I fell. Must have blacked out.
Carefully, I wiggled my fingers, bent my elbows, then rolled my shoulders. I moved my head around and took a deeper breath. Every movement hurt, but more in a dull aching way than one that demanded my attention. My head thumped along with my heartbeat.
I hissed when I flexed my feet.
Gingerly, I moved the toes on my right foot. That didn’t hurt. Neither did looping my ankle or flexing my knee.
The other leg was the problem.
Each movement carefully thought through so as to not jostle my left side, I pressed up onto my elbows, then used my core and arms to take my full weight as I pushed up to sitting.
Acid burned in the back of my throat as I looked down at my leg. There was an extra bend that had no business being there under my knee.
I looked away, across the swaying grass just visible in the gloom. I remembered my foot catching on something. That must have caused an unnatural angle with enough force behind it to have broken the bone.
Lightning flashed, and my heart leapt. Where I’d been staring to avoid looking at the mess I’d made of my leg was a squat hut. As the light faded, I could make out the corrugated tin roof of one of the goat sheds.
It was no more than twenty metres away. Far too close for me to give up and stay out here, hoping the rain stopped or someone miraculously came to find me.
I took a deep breath, then looked down at my leg. The pain was a low pulse, which quickened to a stab each time I moved, but it seemed as though there was only the one break. I didn’t want to go poking about, but my jeans weren’t discoloured with blood. Only darkened by rain. Getting to the hut would be a challenge, but all I had to contend with was a single fracture. I could do that.
