I wasn’t upright in the car: I was lying on my side.
The car had come to rest on the driver’s side, the door against the cliff or ravine or wherever it was that I had landed. That was why I couldn’t open the door.
My tears stopped as I processed this new revelation. Could I unfasten my seat belt, climb toward the passenger seat with my injured arm, feel my way out of the passenger side door, maybe the passenger window if it was broken?
Maybe…. maybe.
I took a deep breath and used my uninjured right arm to press the seat-belt button, bracing myself to fall more firmly against the driver’s side door.
Nothing happened. The seat belt was stuck.
I really was trapped.
A wave of exhaustion washed through my body as I realized the futility of trying to escape. I suddenly wanted to sleep and sleep, to disappear into my dreams where none of this had happened, where I’d decided not to make my way up the mountain, where I’d continued on to Daisy’s house instead.
In that version of my life, I’d had lunch with Daisy and Sarai, had told them all about the Hawks, listened to updates about their lives, played with the baby.
Then I’d gotten back in my car and driven home to the Hawks.
In that version of my life I was in the beautiful rambling house right now, listening to Hawk and Vigo argue over what kind of food to order for dinner, anticipating the night when wemight all be together again, their naked bodies bringing mine to life in ways I hadn’t even been able to imagine a month before.
In that version I lay between them after.
Surrounded. Safe.
Now that I’d stopped moving, I could hear the sounds of the forest around me: wind blowing through the trees, the scurry of small animals, the hoot of an owl in the distance.
It was almost peaceful. My eyelids grew heavier and I thought about my parents and Bram. Had my parents had even a moment of consciousness after their car had been driven off the road?
And what about Bram? Had he been able to hear the sound of the forest too? Had it given him a small measure of comfort when he’d been alone with our dead parents for twelve hours?
I hoped I’d get to ask him. I hoped he’d tell me.
It was the last thing I thought before I slipped into a different kind of darkness than the one I saw with my eyes open: the darkness of sleep.
I happily let it claim me.
4
JAGGER
I craned my neck,searching the trees on the side of the road leading away from Daisy’s place at the top of Blackwell Falls’ namesake waterfall.
We’d already done this once, scoping out both sides of the road on the way to Daisy’s house. Vigo had driven slowly, Hawk scanning the right side of the road from the passenger seat while I’d searched the left side from the back seat.
We’d been looking for anything: Cassie’s cream-colored Subaru, a break in the trees where she might have gone off the road.
Anything.
We’d driven up the private driveway to Daisy’s house where we’d talked to her and Jace (Wolf and Otis had been upstairs with the baby) but they hadn’t been able to tell us anything Jace hadn’t already said on the phone: Cassie had lunch plans at the house with Daisy and Sarai but she hadn’t shown and wasn’t answering Daisy’s calls or texts.
Now I searched the forest on either side of the road, willing some sign of her to appear, a knot of fear tightening in my stomach.
It had been hours since anyone had heard from Cassie. She hadn’t gotten caught up with something at the coffee shop and she hadn’t had car trouble.
Something was very wrong.
We came to the three-way stop at the end of the road. Daisy’s house lay behind us. One of the other two directions would take us back to our place and ultimately into downtown Blackwell Falls. The last option led up the mountain.
