“His car was there. Where else would he be?” I was verging on hysterical, and in the short time it had taken to waking up on cloud nine to landing in this nightmare, I hadn’t given Charlie a second thought. “Fuck. I need to get Charlie.”
“Easy.” Paddy gripped my elbow with his giant hand. “Saf’s got the kids. It’s what we do now, remember? We’re in this together.”
Together. The word felt hollow. I’d sold myself a dream on this goddamn mountain with Fen by my side. Imagining this life without himhurt.
So fucking much.
I stumbled to the futon we’d got down and dirty on a few days after I’d taken his father’s office as my own. It didn’t feel real—none of it did. The good, the bad, and downright fucking awful.Am I still asleep? Have I been dreaming this whole fucking time and I’m going to wake up miserable and alone in Manchester without him still?
The thought made my stomach churn, and for a painful second I thought I’d puke. Then something shut off inside me. A kill switch I couldn’t control. Numbness descended, dark and consuming. I stood and drifted to the window again, but instead of Mother Nature’s carnagekicked out before me, I saw nothing.
Felt nothing.
Said nothing.
Paddy was silent too. He joined me at the window for a while, then he gripped my elbow again. “Come on. Let’s go back to the house and try the phones again.”
“I should stay here in case the Internet picks something up.”
“Fine. I’ll get the kids then.”
He backed off and disappeared. I listened to his footsteps on the stairs fade out, but didn’t break my stare off with the clear blue sky.
It seemed like no time at all had passed when he came back, a sleepy Charlie in his arms, the other kids clinging to his legs.
Safia was behind him, holding Lalla. She read the room and retreated to the futon. Paddy backed up to the corner and sat on the floor with Charlie in his lap, using every phone we had to place calls that went nowhere.
The kids stayed with me.
Mae tugged my sleeve. “Uncle Rama?”
“Yeah?”
“Are we stuck here because the mountain fell over?”
It was the most innocent question this sharp-edged kid had ever asked. I bent to her level. Opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
I shook my head. “I, uh, I don’t know, bug.”
“We should stay up here then. I like it in here. It smells like you and biscuits.”
She didn’t ask me about Fen. Neither did Addie, despite the fact they’d witnessed nothing but panic since they’d woken up. Mae’s little hand was warm in mine and I clung to it as I sat on the floor opposite Paddy.
We didn’t look at each other. He ran out of phone calls to make and a tense, pensive silence settled over us for the next few hours.
Hours that felt like days.
I leaned against the wall, eyes half-closed, brain whirring with an inefficient mechanism that served no purpose at all. It was white noise. Dull static. It was a black fucking hole, and I sank so far into it I barely noticed Addie scrambling to his feet at some point where the sun had long since passed its highest point. It didn’t register, even when he shouted and pressed his face against the glass.
Not until he banged it with his miniature fists and yelled my name. “Rama! Uncle Rama. Look! It’s Fen. He’s fallingupthe mountain.”
17
Fen
Man, I considered myself as hardy as my hardiest tree, but after an entire day up to my knees in freezing, wet mud, I was cold to the bone. I couldn’t feel my feet, my hands, or my brain. The only part of me that was truly working was my anxious heart.
Get to Rami. Get to Safia and the kids. Make sure they’re okay.