Chapter 35
thirty-five
brEE
The wheels of the plane hit the ground with a jolt that rattles my teeth and sends a fresh surge of panic through my body. I grip the armrests until my knuckles ache, willing the plane to hurry and let me off.
The godforsaken Wi-Fi didn’t work the entire flight, leaving me stranded with nothing but my own frantic thoughts. No updates. No news. No lifeline to the outside world. Just endless hours of silence, my mind spinning through every horrifying possibility.
As soon as the seatbelt light blinks off, I’m up, practically shoving my way down the aisle. I don’t care about the annoyed mutters from the people I pass. My heart feels like it’s about to explode, pounding so hard it’s all I can hear.
The moment I’m through the airport, my eyes scan the crowd. And then I see Juliette, standing stiffly by the arrival gate. Her face is pale, her shoulders tense. She doesn’t wave. She doesn’t smile.
The knot in my chest tightens as I approach.
“Did they find him?”
She shakes her head, slow and reluctant, her eyes heavy with worry. “Not yet,” she says quietly. “But they’re searching. Knox is out there, and they’ve got people—”
“I need to go,” I cut her off, my words tumbling out in a rush. My breath is coming too fast, too shallow, but I don’t care. “Where’s the hospital? Or the river? Anywhere he might be.”
Juliette reaches out, her hands firm and unmoving as they grip my arms. It’s the only thing keeping me from bolting. “We’ll go. You need to breathe first, okay? Just breathe.”
I want to scream at her to let go, to stop telling me what to do when I’m drowning. How am I supposed to breathe when the panic’s wrapped around me like a vise, squeezing tighter with every second that passes?
Instead, I nod. I swallow back the fear climbing my throat, forcing it down even though it threatens to choke me.
She pulls me into a quick hug, her warmth anchoring me. I don’t hug her back. I can’t seem to make the right movements, but I let her hold me for just a moment.
“Come on,” she says softly. “Let’s get you there.”
Her hand brushes my arm, and I barely register it. Every step I take is mechanical, like I’m not even in control of my own body anymore. I can’t shake the image of Callan in my head. Alone. Cold. Hurt. Or worse.
The drive is a blur of rain-slicked roads, the world outside melting into a haze that matches the mess inside my brain.
I try to focus, but my thoughts bounce around too much.
Juliette’s voice drifts through the fog, but it doesn’t reach me.
Her words are muffled, meant to fill the silence between us, but it’s all I can do to hold myself together long enough to even hear her.
By the time we pull up to the makeshift command center near the river, my hands are already trembling. The scene before me is straight out of a nightmare.
Flashing lights from rescue vehicles cut through the rain, illuminating the muddy banks. Volunteers move like shadows in the downpour, their faces hollow with exhaustion, their movements automatic, as if they’ve done this too many times before.
I don’t wait for the car to stop before I’m out, my body reacting before my brain can catch up.
My boots hit the mud, and my eyes scan the crowd.
I look for anything that will tell me he’s here.
That he’s alive. That this suffocating, bone-deep fear gnawing at me isn’t the new air I’m forced to breathe.
None of the faces are his.
A burly man steps into my line of sight, his fluorescent rescue jacket glaring under the floodlights.
“Are you family?” His accent is so thick I can barely make the words out.
I open my mouth, but no sound comes. I can’t even find the oxygen to answer him, let alone form the words.
Juliette steps forward, her small frame somehow commanding as she positions herself between me and the rescuer.
“We’re family,” she says with quiet authority, her voice steadier than I could manage. “Both of us.”
The rescuer’s eyes dart between us. Water drips from the brim of his safety helmet as he nods, seeming to make a decision.
“We’ve recovered some gear downstream,” he says, his tone neutral. “A helmet. But no sign of him.”
No sign of him.
Juliette’s hand slips into mine, anchoring me to the present when every part of me wants to dissolve into worry.
I can’t breathe. My mind wants to deny it, to scream that there’s been a mistake, but the fear I’ve been holding at bay claws its way to the surface.
“I need to see,” I manage to croak out. “The helmet. I need to see it.”
He hesitates, like he’s searching for some way to avoid what I’m asking. His brow furrows. “Miss, I don’t think—”
“Please,” I cut him off. The plea is stronger this time, fueled by something far deeper than fear. “I need to know if it’s his.”
He nods reluctantly, his eyes shadowed with pity. My breath catches with a sharp, painful hitch, because pity means loss. It means regret. It means too late.
I do want to follow him, but I also don’t. My feet are rooted in the mud, my body screaming to stay right here. But Juliette squeezes my hand, and somehow, I move.
We’re led into a canvas tent, and then I see it.
The helmet is battered and scarred with deep scrapes that speak of violence and impact, worn beyond recognition. The sight of it sends an icy chill through my veins, freezing me in place.
The smallest detail catches my eye, almost too insignificant to matter. A sticker on the side. A little heart, faded from the wear and tear, but still unmistakable. It’s the one I gave him. The stupid, quirky little heart sticker I insisted he put on as a joke.
It’s his.
My legs give out. I hear the sound of someone’s knees hitting the ground, and it takes me a moment to realize they’re mine. The world narrows to that one small, faded heart sticker.
The rescuer rambles about the search parameters, about how they’re expanding the area, about how the river’s current is strong but people have survived worse. His words wash over me like they’re in another language entirely.
“We’re not giving up,” the rescue worker says, his voice clearer now. “If he’s out there, we’ll find him.”
I want to scream, to rage, to tear apart everything standing between me and the man I love. I want to rip the universe in half for daring to place that single, fragile word between me and my hope.
If.
Juliette crouches beside me, draping her arm around my shoulders. She’s trembling, too, but her voice remains peaceful.
“Listen to me,” she says, forcing me to look at her. “This doesn’t mean anything yet. It just means his helmet came off. That’s all we know for certain.”
Her words are logical, but logic has no place here.
The seconds crawl, dragging me through a haze of helplessness. My mind spins, tripping over worst-case scenarios, getting stuck in the places I don’t want it to go. I should move. I should do something. But there’s really nothing I can do.
And so, I wait.
I clutch my damp jacket tighter around me, but it does nothing to stop the cold burrowing deep beneath my skin. This isn’t a chill that comes from the rain. It’s an ache that settles in my bones, carved from fear and refusal to let go.
“Do you want to sit down for a minute?” Juliette asks.
I don’t answer right away. My body feels like it’s made of stone. Even the thought of sitting down seems impossible.
I shake my head, the movement sharp and quick, as if I can physically shake off the suffocating sense of helplessness. “No.”
A distant shout breaks through the tense air, and my heart leaps. I spin around, my pulse hammering in my ears, desperate to see him. Please, let it be him.
As my eyes scan the crowd, my hope shrinks to nothing. It’s just another rescue worker calling out to someone, his voice swallowed by the chaos.
“Bree,” Juliette says softly, her hand resting lightly on my arm. “Maybe we should—”
“No,” I cut her off, my voice rough and raw. I don’t even recognize it as my own. “I’m not leaving. I can’t.”
I don’t know what I’d be running to, or what I’d be running from, but I know this much… I’m not leaving.
She nods. “Then I’ll stay with you.”
I should be out there. I should be running through the mud, calling his name, doing something. But they have professionals. They have teams. They know what they’re doing. They have the tools, the training, the experience. All I have is this overwhelming sense of helplessness.
If I found him, what would I even do? What if I find him hurt? Broken? What if… What if I find him gone?
I wouldn’t survive it. I don’t know how to keep living in a world where he’s not in it. He’s everything.
I can’t think about that. I can’t.
Except the thought keeps creeping in no matter how hard I try to push it away. It hovers at the edges of my mind, threatening to consume me.
Still, I stand here wishing I could do more while times stretches on, cruel and endless. The ache in my chest grows with every passing second, deepening the wound, making it harder to breathe. Every second is a reminder of how much I can’t control and how small I feel.
All I can do is wait.