I take a breath. Open my mouth. “Aidan—”
His phone rings. “Hold on,” he says and steps right back out of my house again.
* * *
Aidan
The woman who phones me is Rita, Ludo’s community psychiatric nurse. His key worker. Somehow Michael has tracked her down.
“Where are you now?” she asks. “Where’s Ludo?”
“We’re at his house. He’s somewhere inside, I think, unless he’s escaped again.”
I tell her about his woodland adventures. She doesn’t seem surprised. “Is he hurt? He has been known to get into scrapes and not notice.”
“I don’t really know,” I admit. “I only just got him inside when you called, but he had no shoes on when I found him, and I don’t think he’s eaten or drunk anything since yesterday.”
“Get some water down him if you can. Dehydration will only heighten any delusional thoughts he’s having.”
Delusional. The word is terrifying, and I still have a lump the size of a small bungalow stuck in my throat. I swallow thickly. “What else should I do?”
“Keep him safe,” she says. “I know it’s hard when everything he wants right now is probably reckless, if not downright dangerous, but until we can assess him and administer treatment, it’s all you can do. Have you been monitoring his medication?”
“What?”
“His medication. It sounds to me as though he might’ve missed a few doses if his routine has shifted around.”
“I—I have no idea. I’m so sorry.”
Rita clicks her teeth. “Don’t be sorry, Aidan. Ludo is lucky you’re with him, and he’ll appreciate that as soon as we get him back.”
Get him back.Three words that only serve to remind me that right now, Ludo is lost. “When can you assess him? How does that work? Do I need to bring him somewhere?”
“It’s probably best if we come to you,” Rita says. “He’s reacted badly to the clinic before, and if patients are safe at home, we always try to keep them there. A familiar environment is far more comforting than a psychiatric facility.”
I close my eyes. “When can you get here?”
“An hour or so. Hang tight, Aidan. I’ll get to you as fast as I can.”
* * *
I have to keep Ludo occupied until Rita gets here, but by the time she ends the call and I go back inside, he’s nowhere in sight.
Cursing, I hurry through the house, half expecting to find he’s slipped out the back gate and back into the woods, but I find him in the kitchen, rummaging in the freezer.
“There’s nothing to eat in here,” he says without looking up.
I take a cautious step forward. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Then what does it matter?”
It matters a lot. He chewed the crust from a single slice of pizza last night and barely had a sip of water, but I’m terrified of pissing him off. Or making him think he can’t trust me.
Ludo shoves the freezer drawer back in and shuts the door with a bang. “It matters because you’re hungry, and I can’t cook anything decent because the kitchen is such a mess. Why did you get all this stuff out?”
He gestures at the saucepans and baking trays littering the countertop and table. The stacked plates and piles of cutlery. For a moment I honestly think he’s joking; then I realise that he has no memory of the chaos I walked into yesterday. “Um... we were going to clean the cupboards out, but we didn’t get round to finishing. We can do it now if you like?”
