A fantail swooped onto a branch nearby.Usually, I’d stop to watch it for a while, but this certainly wasn’t the time to pause and enjoy nature.
Eventually, Connor turned left, and we followed him down a poorly maintained side trail.It didn’t take long to reach the hut he’d mentioned.
“Bailey!”he called as we approached.
There was no reply.
He paused and held up his finger for us to be silent.We all stopped, unspeaking, and I strained my ears but didn’t hear anything.Connor started toward the cabin, then swore.
“The floor has been torn out,” he said, holding onto the doorframe and looking inside.“No sign of Bailey, but someone has been here recently.The soil wasn’t disturbed long ago.”
My insides clenched at the implication.I highly doubted that Bailey had been the one to damage the hut.If she was nearby and the vandals had been here recently, it was possible she’d come across them.
Was this more than a broken ankle from tripping on a tree root?
Or maybe they’d chased her, and she was hiding from them, hence being too scared to respond to any other form of contact in case they heard her.
“I don’t like this,” Asher said, echoing my thoughts.“Connor, we need to get to Bailey now.”
Connor backtracked away from the hut and turned 180 degrees, shielding his eyes from the sun, and then he pointed.“The leaf litter over there is disturbed, and it’s the same direction the signal is coming from.”
I checked the ground and saw that he was right, although I doubted I’d have noticed anything without him pointing it out.He led us into the trees.It felt like we were going too slow.I wanted to tell him to run but knew he wouldn’t.If he did and he tripped and injured himself, then we’d have two people to get safely back to town.
The trees weren’t too close together for the most part, so when a bright pink backpack appeared ahead, it was hard to miss.
“That’s Bailey’s,” I said, in case they weren’t already aware.“I’ve seen her with it.”
On those videos I’d never admit to having watched.
“Fuck.”Asher moved sideways to get a better look around Connor.“Do you see—”
I did.
My stomach dropped.
Oh no.
OhGod, no.
On the other side of the backpack lay the slumped body of a dark-haired woman.
Bailey.
SIX
MAX
I lunged toward her, but a pair of brawny arms wrapped around me and held me back.
“Let me go,” I growled, but Connor’s forearm was like a steel band.
“Stop,” he hissed.“We need to check that there are no traps around her and that whoever did this is no longer in the area.”
“She needs help!”
“And the sooner you stop struggling, the sooner she’ll get it.”
“Fuck!”
