Page 120 of Shatter

She never said it.

Four nights ago, I said it in two languages with her face in my hand, and she held on to me like she was drowning and never said it back.

Last night, her lips moved against my chest, over and over, and I fell asleep before I could hear.

She was saying it.

She was saying it the entire time, and I was asleep.

The paper crumples in my fist.

I'm on my feet and out the door before I've got my jeans buttoned.

The clubhouse is dead at this hour.

Empty bottles on the bar, and somebody snoring on the couch under a leather jacket.

I shove through the front doors into the gray morning, barefoot on the gravel, and run for the gate.

Gorm's in the guardhouse with his feet up and a thermos of coffee, and he jerks upright when he sees me.

"Did she come through here?" I grab the edge of the window. "Anni. Did she come through the gate?"

"What?" He blinks at me. "No. Nobody's come through since Rati at two."

I turn around and stare at the compound.

The fence, eight feet high with the wire looped on top, and the cameras on their poles.

The back fence.

I'm running again before I finish the thought.

Around the side of the shop, past the long grass where she sat crying yesterday, to the flap of chain-link somebody cut years ago and nobody ever fixed.

It's pulled back.

The wire's been bent outward, and caught on one of the sharp ends, fluttering in the early breeze, is a single long strand of hair.

Copper at the ends.

Blonde at the root.

I pull it free and stand there holding it between my fingers.

Past the fence, through the pines, the old logging road runs toward the highway.

In the soft sand, fresh tire tracks.

A car's tires.

Not a truck, not a bike.

A car, parked here and gone.

My knees want to give out.

I don't let them.