“Sorrell!”
“We’re here!” she shouted, her voice hoarse with sleep. “Zack!”
She wanted to stand and to run towards him, wrap herself up in his arms and not let go, but Lena was curled into her, her duvet—or maybe she was Lena’s—and her legs felt numb and tired.
There were lights and voices, the whole chamber lighting up and she saw the beauty of it but could take none of it in.
“You’re alive,” he said. “You’re fucking alive.” He bent down to her and Lena, his arms out to take her, Alex next to him. “Come with me, Ells. Alex will look after Lena.”
“She’s hurt her leg. I think it’s broken. And she’s been hit round the head and I think she’s in shock.” Sorrell didn’t want him to just move her.
“I’ll look after her,” Alex said. “Me and that monster there will sort her. That’s Ludd. He’s a volunteer and paramedic in his spare time.”
“What spare time?” Ludd said. “You go with Zack. He’s been crying a river after you, so sort him out.”
“Are you hurt?” Zack said. “Can you move okay?”
She nodded, glad when he directed his head torch so it wasn’t shining in her face. “I can move, but I’m stiff. I want a hot bath and bed. The Mummers’ Plays…”
“Will be on next year.” He helped her to her feet, hands and eyes checking her over. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Chapter 34
Bed had never felt so comfortable.
She could’ve been sleeping on a blow up mattress in a tent and she was pretty sure she would’ve been just as happy. Anywhere but in a cave.
Had she not been rational, she would’ve insisted that Zack leave on a light, or have a glimmer of something seep through. When they were underground and waiting, Sorrell had turned off her phone and only switched on the torch intermittently, not knowing how long the batteries were going to last. Her eyes hadn’t become used to the darkness. She’d felt the cool of the caves, heard and smelt the water from the river, the trickle of it seeping down the cave walls. All of her senses had worked overtime, but she hadn’t become used to the dark.
“How do you think Lena is?” Zack asked, curled around her, spooning.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Sore. Concussion. Broken leg. Traumatised. She will be okay though.”
“How can you be so sure?” he said, his arm over her waist, hand on her stomach.
“Because she’s resilient. And she’s strong. Although I think she’ll need a keeper to make sure she doesn’t go meeting with strange threatening men again,” she said. Her eyes were open, sleep not quite within grasp.
It was the early hours of the morning. By the time they got out of the cave, a task that took just over an hour as Lena had been put on one of the stretchers and carried out slowly, including across the river, the paramedics had been waiting for them at the bottom of the hill, or part way up it, as they would argue.
“Did she say what happened?” Zack asked. There hadn’t been time yet to discuss it. When they reached the outside, she’d been checked over by paramedics, then taken to hospital where she was checked again, Zack continuously by her side. At one point, she had threatened to have him thrown out as he was becoming slightly smothering, seemingly determined that she needed a scan for no apparent reason than she had a slight cut to her head.
Well, maybe more than a slight cut.
Lena had been kept in, which was to be expected. They’d seen her before they’d left and she’d been apologetic but less agitated. Alex had been with her, taking her statement and waiting for her aunt to get to her.
“A little. But it was fragmented, bits of the story in no particular order. She left the organisation to go to university having sat her A Levels a year early. She didn’t tell her parents until the day before she went. Apparently, the church prefers the children to be educated close to home and not go on to university, in case they hear about ways and beliefs other than what they’ve been taught,” she said. “A few months ago, when she left her Master’s, this man who tried to join the church but had been asked to leave got in touch. He wanted her to return—which she’d be able to, if she fit in with their systems—and for her to take him with her as her potential husband so he would be accepted.”
“So she’d attracted the attention of a weirdo looking to belong,” Zack said. “Why meet him?”
“He made threats regarding her sister. Lena didn’t think he’d actually carry them out, so she agreed to meet with him thinking that he would back off if she told him straight,” Sorrell said. “Which I get. But you don’t meet someone like that without back up and in a public area.”
She felt Zack’s lips press against her bare shoulder and pressed closer into him.
“You don’t. Where had she been in the past couple of days?” Zack said. “And she left here in a rush.”
“At Felley Manor. She slept in one of the outhouses and met her sister secretly without their parents knowing. I didn’t get to the bottom of why she left her room such a mess and didn’t take her phone,” Sorrell said. She turned onto her back so she could see Zack’s face in the very faint light and brought a hand out of the covers to touch his jaw. “He must have been waiting for her when she got out of the car early. I suspect he was there to make sure she didn’t bring anyone with her. He hit her over the head with something and knocked her unconscious. When she came to, she was in the caves and her head and leg were injured so she couldn’t move.”
“That’s going to impact on her in the future,” Zack said, his fingers trailing over her skin. “Trust issues…”
