Chapter 16
He had brought some Visine, and when he was in sight of the bridge he dripped it into his eyes, let it spill down his cheeks,
and threw the bottle into the undergrowth.
“Colin?” Robin cried. She had heard him coming, was already halfway down the embankment, peering under the bridge.
He reeled toward her out of the darkness, into the moonlight, blinking, face scratched and bleeding from where he had run
the last hundred yards through the briars. He let himself slip in the mud, go down hard on his hurt knee. His cry of pain
was not faked.
“Colin!” Robin cried. “What happened! Where’s Finger? Where’s Arthur?”
She caught his hands, helped him struggle to his feet.
“Robin!” Colin cried. “We need emergency services. We need cave rescue. It all went wrong! I tried—I tried so hard—but I couldn’t
save him.” He put his face in her presumably surgically crafted bosom. “It’s all my fault, Robin. If he’s dead, it’s my fault.”
“Oh, Colin,” Robin said, beginning to cry herself, taking him deeply into her arms. “No, no. Whatever happened, you mustn’t
blame yourself.”