Chapter Five
Plan B
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Erin
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G LANCING TO ONE SIDE , I acknowledged Chelle clinging to me. Her vacant expression had intensified since we’d left the waterfall, and reaching for her hand, I squeezed her cold digits, noticing how the gesture barely even roused her.
“Chelle,” I murmured, gripping her hand tighter. “Are you okay?”
Of course she isn’t.
After everything that had happened, how could she be?
James might have been a prick, but that didn’t mean she thought he was. She’d told me she loved him. Seeing him tumble to his doom was undoubtedly the worst moment of her life.
“I can’t do this,” she mumbled as her feet ground to a halt.
“It’s all right,” I consoled, urging her on. “We’ll figure things out.”
Although, how I was going to figure out James’s plight was anyone’s guess.
“I mean it.” She yanked her fingers from mine. “I’m not doing this.”
“But we’re going to find James.” My tone was pleading as, anxiously, I acknowledged Eli striding away. “We have to go on, Chelle.”
“I’m not going down there to speak to officials and pretend he’s dead.” She clenched her jaw. “I have to know, Erin. Have to know what happened to him. I have to see for myself.”
“Can we stop?” I called to Eli, satisfied as he paused and turned back in our direction. Glancing at Chelle, I tried to make her see sense. “The authorities can help with that. Once we meet them, and—”
“No.” Resolve resounded in her voice. I’d rarely seen her so determined. “I don’t want strangers pawing over him. I’ll find out for myself.”
“What’s wrong?” Eli hollered. Already some distance from where we were standing, he wasn’t privy to our conversation.
“I know you’re trying to help me.” Chelle’s despondent expression bored into me. “And I’m thankful, Erin. I am.”
“But?” I sensed where the sentence was going.
“But I need to do this on my own.” Chelle pulled in a breath. “I hope you understand...”
“What does that mean?” I peered back to see Eli marching toward us. His scowl suggested he wasn’t impressed by the delay, but I was more concerned about Chelle’s bizarre behavior.
“It means I’m going.” She backed away from me, her words soft. “Don’t come after me, Erin. He can take you to safety.” She motioned to Eli. “Stay with him.”
“No!” My voice was louder as I acknowledged her retreat, and abruptly, her jumbles of words started to make sense.
She was going off on her own to look for James’s body. She didn’t want anyone with her as she attended to this one final task for him.
“Chelle!” I ran in her direction, only compelling her to move away even faster. “You can’t go off on your own!”
“Just let me go.” She bumped into a nearby tree, tears blurring in her gaze as she called out. “I need this!”
“But...” I cried out. “It’s not safe! How will you find him? How will you find your way back?”
“Chelle!” Eli’s voice boomed from behind me. “Where are you going? Come back!”
Emotion burned in my eyes as she slipped between two vast trunks and disappeared from sight. Every fiber of my being wanted to go after her and drag her back to the bridge, but that wasn’t what she wanted. I’d seen the fortitude in her sad eyes, and I accepted the facts. She was an adult and could make decisions for herself. I didn’t have to like them, but I still had no control over them.
“What happened?” The urgency in Eli’s voice hit me in the chest like a freight train. “Why aren’t you going after her?”
“She wants to go.” Wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand, I allowed those words to sink in.
This is what she wants.
“She could die out there on her own!” His expression was scathing, as though the unscrambling events were my responsibility.
“I know.” Fresh tears blurred my vision.
“And you just let her go?” He flung his arm out in the direction she’d retreated.
“I...” Unable to meet the power of his stare, I glanced away. How could I make him understand? “I think that might be what she wants.”
“To die?” His tone was incredulous.
“Maybe.” Shit, what had I done letting her go? “But I can’t stop her. She’s a grown woman!”
“For fuck’s sake” He glowered at me as if I was a foolish child. “Do I have to keep the two of you tethered to me to keep you safe?”
“I don’t know.” My knees buckled as the weight of grief descended. “She’s grieving and she just left. I’m sorry.”
My knees hit the hard earth as the apology escaped, pain ballooning in my head as I struggled for air. What had I done? Had I just assigned my best friend to an early grave?
“Hey, it’s okay.” Dropping the bags he was carrying, Eli fell to his haunches beside me, his knee visible in my peripheral vision. “ I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. None of this is on you. I’m the one who was supposed to have been looking after you all.”
I glanced up in time to see him looking in the direction Chelle had vanished into.
“It’s not your fault.” I don’t know why I wanted to reassure him. He was right, after all. Our safety was his business, but the idea of him losing the plot so far from any relative sanctuary filled me with dread. I still needed him in a tangible way. “Chelle’s strong-minded about the things she wants. Nothing, short of tying her up, was going to stop her.”
“And if she was tied up, how would I have carried her and the bags?” His tone was sardonic.
“Right.” I smiled, even though my heart was breaking wide open for my friend.
“Here.” Reaching into his inside pocket, he retrieved a handkerchief. “Take this. It’s clean.”
“Thanks.” Our fingers grazed as I took the cloth from him, and fleetingly, I wondered why he hadn’t offered it to Chelle when she’d sobbed over James, but dabbing my eyes, I was grateful for the loan.
Kneeling there on the cold ground, I was struck by an ethereal sense of desolate serenity. The whole world had come crashing down upon me in the last hour. Two people I was trekking with had fallen to their probable deaths, while another—the only one I truly cared about—had fled into the forest on a crazy mission to find the bodies.
Everything had gone to hell.
Yet, being there with him at that moment, even the pain in my head seemed easier.
Closing my eyes, I looked at the sky and pulled in a deep breath. I had to get through this. I had no choice.
That thought cemented as something cold and wet landed on my forehead, and bewildered, I opened my eyes. Was it raining on top of everything else? That was all we needed.
“Shit.” Eli sighed the word.
“Rain?” I asked, although as I looked around, I had surely deduced the answer for myself. It wasn’t rain that was falling around us, but large white flakes of ice.
“Snow.” His voice was grave. “And it’s falling fast. We need to move.”
“Snow?” It didn’t make sense. I’d checked the weather app dozens of times before undertaking the so-called ‘adventure’ and nowhere had any snow been mentioned. “But how?”
“This place is a micro-climate. It has its own weather systems.” He shrugged, thrusting out a hand and helping me to my feet. “Like I said, the weather can change fast out here.”
He wasn’t joking. By the time he’d picked up his bag, the ground was littered with white flakes. It really was coming down fast.
“How much farther to the bridge?”
Conscious of how cold the air had become around us, I shivered. The temperature had cooled when the skies grayed, but I supposed the confusion and shock of James and Miles, and the subsequent adrenaline, had meant I hadn’t really noticed until that moment.
“We still have around an hour to go.” He checked his watch. “And if this keeps up, that’ll be too far. Do you have any waterproofs in there?” He signaled to the bag still on my back.
“I think so. I packed everything James suggested.” My heart rate sped up as I said his name, sorrow mingling with the irritation the guy had produced before his untimely nosedive.
“Okay. Put them on.” He shuffled his pack from his shoulders and delved into its contents. “We’ll never stay warm if we’re wet.”
Following his lead, I slid the bag from my back and opened the drawstring. Bigger flakes cascaded over us as I searched for the waterproof jacket I’d packed, my fingers finally skimming over the mac. Trying not to dwell on his comment about the bridge being too far , I tugged it from the bag and pulled it over my other layers.
By the time I glanced back at him, Eli had donned both a water-resistant jacket and a pair of trousers.
“Is that all you have?” He pointed to my raincoat.
“Yes.” My voice quivered as a fresh tremor of cold sprinted along my spine.
Fuck. With falling snow, it truly was cold, and the sporty leggings I’d worn to hasten our progress were already getting wet and sticking to my skin.
“I didn’t think.” I frowned, trying to recall if James’s missive had indicated we’d require more. “I didn’t expect snow.”
“It’s okay.” The concerned flicker in his gray eyes belied his true feelings. “You’ll be all right. Just stay with me, Erin.”
Stay with him? He must be joking. I wasn’t going anywhere without him.
“Which way do we go?” I pressed my teeth together to prevent the impending chatter. I had a spare sweater with me but not much else, and one look at the skies suggested the snow was in for the duration.
“You’re cold.” It was more of a statement than a question. “Come here.”
He held out his arms and beckoned me forward with one hand.
“I’m f-fine,” I lied, although my feet were already moving in his direction as he unzipped the front of his jacket. Pressing my face into the heat of his sports sweater, I welcomed the warmth of his embrace as it closed around me.
“We don’t need to add hypothermia into the mix of today.” His arms tightened around me. “We need a plan B.”
“What does that mean?” Craning my neck, I met his gaze.
“It means we divert to the nearest ranger’s hut.” His eyes met mine. “Either there’ll be someone there who can help us, or there’ll be a place we can hole up until the snow has stopped.”
“A ranger’s hut?” I wasn’t even sure I knew such things existed, but it was a good plan. “Where’s the nearest one?”
“Not far from here.”
He gestured in the opposite direction from the one Chelle had taken, guilt twisting in my gut as I remembered my poor friend. She was out there on her own, and she had no real protection from the weather.
“Come on.” He pressed his body against me. “I’ll take you.”