I look below, by the water’s surface and the bank. In silence, we search for about an hour, though who fucking knows without a watch. We find nothing.
She’s getting that look in her eyes I’m all too familiar with. Somewhere between pissed off and determined, she’s going to dig her heels in and stay this course until she finds it, or I have to drag her out of here, whichever comes first. “Get something to drink,” I finally tell her.
“I will,” she says, waving her hand at me dismissively from the branches of yet another tree. “I’m busy.”
“Harper,” I warn.
“I will.”
I sigh, planting myself right below her, my hands on my hips.
“When?”
“Give me ten,” she says distractedly, reaching out so far to a branch, my heart skips a beat.
“Jesus, what are you doing? You’re way too far out!”
“I’m not,” she contradicts, the tip of her tongue sticking out her mouth in concentration.
“Harper!”
“Ahh!” The branch she’s on bears her full weight, sagging, as she reaches the tips of her fingers out. “I see something, Cy. I see it!”
“I don’t care what you see, if you fall and fucking die it won’t matter. If you do see something, it’ll still—”
Her scream cuts me off as her fingers wrap around something the second the branch snaps. It gives way so rapidly I barely have time to react. I lunge below her, ready to break her fall. The branch hits me first on the shoulder but I grab her, and we both hit the ground in a tumble of limbs and leaves and branches.
“You okay?” I ask, but she’s already scrambling to her feet, oblivious to a scrape straight across her forehead.
“I got it,” she says, her voice tremulous as she holds what looks like a cluster of leaves in her hand. How did she notice anything at all? Looks to me like nothing more than greenery, until she turns to face me. Christ, blood’s dripping down her forehead and she only blinks it away, her eyes wide with triumph. The sight of her injured immediately evaporates my anger at her for being so careless and nearly killing herself.
“I got it!”
I reach over and swipe my thumb across her forehead. “You’re bleeding baby. Wait a minute.” She looks up at me with wide, beautiful green eyes, as savage as the triangular leaves that scatter throughout the underbrush. I run my thumb along her scrape, wiping the blood away, but she doesn’t pay attention. Brushing the scrape with the back of her hand impatiently, she steps toward me, the fucking camera in a grip so tight her knuckles whiten.
Motherfucker.
She’s got it.
Standing in front of me, she positions the camera in front of us like she’s taking a selfie.
“We found you,” she says into it, speaking into the damn thing like it’s alive. Neither of us knows if it’s still even attached to anything, but there’s still a chance, and if I were a betting man, I would hazard a guess it is. “And I’ve got one thing to say to you.” Moving the camera to her left hand, she lifts her right hand, flipping it off, and with utter fury, she seethes into the lens, “Fuck. You.”
She tosses the camera to the ground, lifts a huge stick beside the one that broke her fall, and with surprising strength and agility, and a scream that echoes through the woods so ferocious it’s like she’s giving birth, she whacks the camera with the stick. It shatters into pieces, destroyed with the first savage smack. That doesn’t stop her, though. Once it’s broken, she hits it again, and again, until it’s nothing more than bits of metal and broken glass beaten into the muddy earth.
“Fucking cameras,” she mutters. “Fucking island.”
Has this pushed her over the edge? The final straw? I watch her, both enamored and a little apprehensive. There’s a ferocity in her right now I haven’t seen very often.
“Fucking cameras,” I say with her, kicking the damn thing. She did it. She fucking did it. “I’m proud of you, baby.”
She grins at me, and her damn head injury is still bleeding. “Thank you,” she says with surprising dignity, despite her crazed look.
“Get over here,” I say affectionately, pulling her closer and wiping her face again. “Gotta get you cleaned up.” I take her by the hand and go to the water, cupping some in my hand while she kneels beside me. “We’ll head back,” I say, before I trickle the water over her head and wipe it away. “Wish I had something soft to clean you with.”
“I don’t care,” she says. “I’m stoked. You know what this could mean?”
I nod. Of course, I do. But now that we’ve found it, it’s almost anticlimactic.
What if no one comes?
“It means you deserve a medal,” I tell her.
She scoffs. “Like I’d have any use for a medal.”