Rowe’s fingers clenched around the hunting knife he used to gut fish. His eyes flashed. “All I know is that he’s not taking anyone else I love. I can’t just sit by and wait for him to come to us.”
I couldn’t disagree with him. The little cabin suddenly didn’t feel safe, and I was desperate to make it feel like home again. If Zye was out there, I needed to know about it. “One of us patrols the clearing, never losing sight of the cabin. The other can go deeper in, starting with that end of the yard where Ripley always plays. You know how to track?”
Rowe shook his head.
“You stay in the clearing then. I’ll see what I can find going in a bit deeper.”
Rowe looked like he wanted to argue, the stress pouring off him. His face had paled to an unhealthy white color.
I wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t going to pass out. “You good?”
He nodded. “Go.”
Fighting my reluctance to leave any of them behind, I stomped across the grass to the spot where Ripley had said he’d last seen his ‘friend.’ There was a dip in the ground, and the grass was longer here, and it was easy to see how I’d lost track of him a couple of times. If I’d sat in the grass, you likely wouldn’t have seen me from the house.
Which meant we wouldn’t have seen Zye down here, either.
I wandered around, toeing at a pile of sticks. Nearby, others were sticking out of a dirt mound, and a couple of matchbox cars lay discarded in the grass. All signs of a little boy having a great time, but nothing more than that. Some of the grass was trampled, but Ripley had been down here a lot, so I would have expected that. There was no way of telling if the grass was flat because of kid-sized feet or adult ones.
I wandered farther into the woods, scanning my surroundings, hand hovering over Liam’s gun that I’d never given back to him. I’d had it locked in the cabin gun safe, beside Rowe’s rifle. “Come out, come out, you psychopath.”
My muscles wound tight, anxious and on edge, expecting Zye to jump out of the bushes and rush me at any minute. I moved cautiously through the trees, branches scraping at my skin now that I was off the beaten paths. I looked for footprints or other signs a man had been here, but the undergrowth was thick, and I wasn’t an expert in tracking by any means. I’d learned a little while on camping trips in my early twenties, and that was better than nothing, but in these conditions, the minimal skills I had didn’t help much. I went with the lay of the land for the most part, but when I was a few hundred feet out, I started working my way in a circle, stalking back around the clearing, checking for any signs of a disturbance.
There was nothing.
With each passing minute, my tension seeped away. The birds sang overhead, and the only other things around were the mosquitos feasting on my skin because I hadn’t put on bug spray before I came out.
I’d done a full, wide circle around the house, finishing back at the river, when the cracking noise of someone stepping on a stick froze me to the spot.
I hadn’t been moving.
I pulled Liam’s gun from the waistband of my jeans, thrusting it out in front of me as I spun in a silent circle.
The footsteps grew closer, and I held my breath, desperately trying to see through the thick undergrowth.
A flash of dark hair alerted me to the man’s whereabouts.
“Take another step and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
The man stopped, then Rowe’s voice came back to me. “Wanna not shoot me, please?”
I dropped my aim, my breath coming out in a whoosh.
Rowe appeared fully from behind the bushes, and I scowled at him. “I could have put a bullet through your brain, you dickhead. What are you doing out here? You were supposed to stay in the clearing! We can’t leave Mae and Ripley—”
“Liam’s back. He’s with them.”
The wind went out of my argument. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. You seriously think I’d leave them unprotected?”
I didn’t bother answering. He was right. I knew he wouldn’t have. I just hadn’t been thinking clearly in the moment. “I’ve done a full circle around the clearing. There’s nothing here.”
Rowe glanced around us, though all there was to see were trees. “We keep looking then. Keep patrolling until we find something.”
There was no arguing with him. He was in full-blown parent panic mode, and I didn’t blame him. The thought that Ripley might have been anywhere near Zye without us even realizing it was paralyzing.
I beat myself up as I walked, berating myself over and over for the mistakes I’d made. The guilt rode my ass. “I’m sorry.”
Rowe shoved aside a low-hanging branch. “For what?”
“I should have realized earlier. I’m the one here all the time. Most of the time it’s me watching him. I should have noticed that something was going on.”
“It’s not on you. I’ve spent plenty of time out in the clearing with him and never had any reason to suspect there was anybody out here but us.”
We went on in silence, making more and more laps of the woods around the house, each time widening our search circle, until the sun got low and darkness began to fall.
Still, Rowe marched on like a soldier, his pace never slowing.
“Rowe.”
“We’re not going in.”
“It’s getting dark.”
“We’re not going in.”
“We haven’t eaten in hours. And we’re low on water. We can’t just traipse through the woods all night. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Go in, then. I’m going to keep looking.”
Irritation crept up the back of my neck. “Rowe, come on. Be sensible. Ripley is probably getting ready for bed and is going to be wondering where you are if you aren’t there to tuck him in.”
“He’s got Mae and Liam and you. He’ll be okay for tonight. Go. I’ll be fine.”
He trudged off, leaving me behind.
“For fuck’s sake. Stubborn asshole.” I rushed to catch up with him. We wandered around the woods for another hour until we neared Rowe’s dock. There was barely any light left in the sky when I let my irritation get the better of me. “That’s it. We’re done.”
“No.”