Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(98)

Nearer the cabin, Lauren could hear the faint shouts of the others calling for Alice. She wondered if she should do the same, but when she opened her mouth, the name stuck on her lips.





Chapter 33



Lauren stared down at the water. She took a breath through clenched teeth and Falk seized the chance to take a fast step towards her. She was so focused, she didn’t notice.

Falk could see they were both shaking with cold, and he was scared Lauren’s frozen fingers could lose their grip, whether she – or he – was ready or not.

‘I honestly didn’t mean to kill her.’ Lauren’s voice was almost lost in the crash of water.

‘I believe you,’ Falk said. He remembered their first conversation. It seemed a long time ago, out there on the trail, with the night all around them. He could still picture her face, overwhelmed and unsure. It wasn’t any one thing that went wrong, it was a hundred little things.

Now, she looked determined. ‘I wanted to hurt her, though.’

‘Lauren –’

‘Not for what she did to me. That’s my own fault. But I know what Margot did to Rebecca; that she prodded and baited her. And maybe Margot was smart enough to hide it, and Alice shouted loudly enough to make the school look the other way. But I know what that girl did. She is exactly like her bloody mother.’

The words hung in the freezing mist. Lauren was still looking down.

‘So much is my fault though.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘For being so weak. I can’t blame Alice or Margot for that. And Rebecca will realise that one day, if she hasn’t already. And she’ll hate me for it.’

‘She still needs you. And loves you.’ Falk thought of his own father’s face. His handwriting scrawled across his maps. With Aaron. ‘Even if she doesn’t always realise it.’

‘But what if I can’t make it right with her?’

‘You can. Families can forgive.’

‘I don’t know. Not everything deserves to be forgiven.’ Lauren was looking down again. ‘Alice said I was weak.’

‘She was wrong.’

‘I think so too.’ Her answer caught him by surprise. ‘I’m different now. Now, I do what I need to do.’

Falk felt the hairs on his arms stand up as something shifted in the atmosphere. They had crossed an invisible threshold. He hadn’t seen her move but suddenly she seemed much closer to the edge. Over the side, he could see Carmen looking up, poised. He made a decision. This had gone far enough.

He was already moving before the thought was fully formed. Two fast steps across the rocks, the surface as slippery as glass under his soles, and his fingers outstretched. His hand closed around her jacket – his jacket – grabbing a handful of fabric, his grip clumsy with cold.

Lauren looked at him, her eyes calm, and with a single fluid action, she shrugged her shoulders, folded her slim torso forward and shed his jacket like a snakeskin. She slid from his grasp and with a movement marked by both decision and precision, she was gone.

The edge was empty, as though she had never been there.





Day 4: Sunday Morning


Jill could see her own fear reflected in the three faces staring back at her. Her heartbeat thumped and she could hear the others’ rapid breathing. Overhead, the pocket of sky carved out by the trees was a dull grey. The wind shook the branches, sending a shower of water down on the group below. No-one flinched. Behind them, the rotten wood of the cabin groaned and settled as another gust blew through.

‘We have to get out of here,’ Jill said. ‘Now.’

On her left, the twins nodded immediately, united for once by their panic. Bree was clutching her arm, Beth supporting her. Their eyes were wide and dark. On her right, Lauren shifted, the briefest hesitation, then nodded. She took a breath.

‘What about –’

‘What about what?’ Jill had lost patience.

‘. . . What about Alice?’

An awful hush. The only sound was the creak and rustle as the trees gazed down on their tight circle of four.

‘Alice brought this on herself.’

A silence. Then Lauren pointed.

‘North is that way.’

They walked and they didn’t look back, leaving the trees to swallow up all that they left behind.





Chapter 34



Falk yelled Lauren’s name but it was too late. He was talking to empty air. She was no longer there.

He scrambled across the rocks in time to see her plunge like a dead weight into the water. The splash as she hit was swallowed up by the roar of the falls. Falk counted to three – too fast – but she didn’t surface. He dragged his jumper over his head and wrenched off his boots. He tried to suck in a deep breath, but his chest was tight as he took a step forward and jumped. All the way down, the only thing he could hear over the rush of water beneath him and the rush of air above him was the sound of Carmen shouting.

He slammed into the water feet first.

An eerie nothingness enveloped him and he felt suspended in a void. Then all at once the cold hit him with brutal force. He kicked upwards, fighting the urge to gasp until he broke the surface. His chest was burning as he sucked at the damp air, the cold of the water forcing the oxygen out of his lungs as fast as he could take it in.