Chapter 96

96

Stepping through the doors, Elin's under siege, the world moving frenetically around her.

Trees. Furniture. Parasols. A merry-go-round of sand and dirt.

Adrenaline squeezes at her chest. Every sound, every movement is like a warning: telling her to go back to the main lodge. Protect them. Protect herself.

But she can't. Ronan and Caleb are out here somewhere.

Looking around, she assesses where they could have gone. Her gaze lurches left, then right, locking on the sloping patch of grass leading down to the cliff. No access to the beach below apart from the steps she glimpsed when she and Steed were looking for Farrah. Too steep, surely, for Ronan, if he's restrained?

Elin shuffles forward, listening for any sounds, but it's impossible: the storm is the only voice to be heard. There's no chance of hearing anything beyond the howling wind and ugly spatter of the rain.

She moves toward the front of the lodge: no sign of Caleb or Ronan.

When she reaches the restaurant terrace and bar a few moments later, she's stopped in her tracks.

It's been decimated. The neat piles of chairs she'd glimpsed on her way in have been toppled, flung around, several jammed up against the balustrade.

Lifting her leg over the broken remains of a table to get closer to the bar, she notices that the tarpaulin is no longer flapping; it's completely gone.

Without any shelter, the wind's wreaked havoc: bottles rolling across the floor. Glass smashed beneath her feet, crunching as she moves. Amber liquid from a broken bottle is pooling between the pieces of glass. The acrid smell of alcohol hits her nose.

A movement makes Elin glance up: one of the strings of festoon lights has been ripped from its fastening on one side, careering wildly backward and forward. Another has come fully down, now snaking along the floor between the broken glass and puddles of alcohol.

She's about to turn, head for the balustrade to look at the level below, when something shifts in her vision.

A dark mass swinging toward her.

In a split second she realizes: the tarpaulin. It hasn't gone. It's still attached at the top, a gust hauling it out of sight for a moment before pulling it back down.

Elin steps away but too late: the tarp slaps her in the face, chest. The sudden movement nearly knocks her off her feet. Quickly steadying herself, a wave of dizziness washes over her, blood rushing to her head.

One deep breath. Another.

It's a few moments before she's ready to move again. Winding through the debris, she picks her way across the restaurant terrace and peers over the balustrade to the pool. For a moment, she thinks she sees a person before she realizes that it's only a daybed, half submerged in the pool, one end bobbing up and through the water.

She shifts right to get a vantage point of the beach.

Chaos.

More sand is being whirled up into mini vortexes. Trees uprooted from the cliff have now taken rocks down with them, vast lumps of stone studding the sand. She looks left, toward the islet. From this angle, she can just about make out the rope swing, individual ropes being wildly tossed about by the wind.

No one's there.

Turning, she moves quickly toward the yoga pavilion—long, loping strides. Obstacles wherever she goes: puddles, clods of churned-up earth, debris. From the corner of her eye, she's convinced she sees movements, but it's only her own erratic, jerky gestures reflected in the glass walls of the main lodge.

Once she reaches the yoga pavilion, she takes another look around her. Still no sign.

The only place left outside, at this level, is the back of the main lodge. If they're not there, she'll have to search the building itself. There's a small chance they might have doubled back, gone inside.

As Elin starts to half walk, half run, a dogged panic settles in her chest. Out here, exposed like this, she can't help but feel that she's being watched: that Caleb Jackson's aware that she escaped the islet and is lying in wait for her somewhere.

Skin crawling, she has to force the thought away, keep moving. At the corner of the lodge, she forks right. Back to the wall, she skirts around the side, finding cover as best she can. This close to the woodland, the path is littered with twigs, whole branches, wrenched from the trees. It's as if the island isn't just turning on the retreat, but on itself, won't stop until it's stripped itself bare.

Stopping at the back of the lodge, she scans the terrace, the grass in front dipping away into woodland.

Her eyes lock on the dark mass of the forest beyond, the only color the bright triangles of trail markers tacked to the trees. If she thought it was wild the last time she'd glimpsed it, it's become something other; as though the whole forest is moving as one entity, trees not just thrashing wildly, individually, but beating together.

A force.

As Elin stares into the depths, finding Caleb and Ronan suddenly seems an impossible task. Too much ground to cover on her own.

Should she abandon hope? Do as Steed suggested and wait for backup?

But it's then that she hears something.

Stilling every muscle, Elin strains her ears.

A voice: Caleb's.

Low muttered tones. Getting louder. Another voice, a cry of pain.

She holds her breath.

Ronan and Caleb are heading her way.