The Last Resort(20)

Scott shrugs him off. ‘Pina colada for me, please.’ He glances around. ‘Are you listening? Did you get that?’ He makes off down the hill at a pace.

‘Jeez, Scott. Wait up,’ Lucy says, marching off behind him. She looks back at them, eyes wide and questioning.

Amelia stares at James, not quite sure what to say. He holds her gaze, and she feels a connection forming deep inside. So far, he seems the most normal of the group and she wants to build on that. Things are already starting to get weird, and she needs an ally. Maybe this is intentional. Whether Tiggy was right or not about it feeling like a reality TV set-up, there are group dynamics at work. Is she just playing into their hands?

‘I guess we’d better follow them,’ Amelia says.

She and James head off down the hill after them as the track winds and twists towards the bay.

‘Those two need to go slower,’ James says. ‘This path is too unstable to be running so fast.’

‘Especially someone like Scott. It’s not long ago that he was huffing his way up the hill.’

James kicks a stone and it hurtles off the path, disappearing over the edge, somewhere into the rocks below. ‘I’d like to know what’s in this water,’ he says. He holds his bottle up.

‘You haven’t touched it?’

‘Not yet . . . I’m waiting to see if Scott keels over first.’

‘Wise. Although Lucy seems OK on it. Besides, I took a sip and I feel fine.’

He mutters what might be a ‘Hmm.’

They keep walking, and as the decline increases she starts to feel the burn in the front of her thighs. ‘What drink are you hoping for down there?’

‘Well . . . I think Scott’s choice is a good one, but a bit obvious. I mean, it’s a tiki hut. It looks like the set of Cocktail.’ He pauses, looks at her. ‘You probably don’t even know what that is.’

‘Eighties film. Tom Cruise. The Beach Boys sang the theme song.’

‘“Kokomo”! What. A. Tune,’ he says. He starts humming it. ‘Sometimes I think I’m the only eighties movie fan I know. And far too many people dismiss Tom these days . . .’

‘Oh, come on. Tom Cruise is excellent. He might have a questionable personal life – although I’m not one to judge – but he is the perfect action hero. Did you see that stunt he did on the wing of a plane for one of the MI movies?’

‘Legend. Only surpassed by him smashing his ankle when he jumped across a rooftop for—’

His sentence is cut short when they hear a piercing scream from somewhere below them. They both speak at the same time.

‘Scott.’

‘Guys, can you hurry?’ Lucy’s voice now, yelling up at them from further down the path. They can’t see her, but she can’t be too far ahead.

They pick up the pace, marching faster but trying not to step on any loose stones and staying as far from the edge as they can. Her thighs are burning now, but she ignores it – adrenaline kicking in. Their march turns into a jog, until Amelia slips on the path. Stumbles.

‘Careful,’ James says, grabbing her arm. ‘We don’t need another casualty.’

They slow down, and soon the path dips and they can see the others. Lucy is crouching next to Scott, who is lying across the path, one leg dangling over the cliff edge, the other bent at the knee, his foot turned inward. He is shaking and blubbering and, despite his earlier histrionics, clearly in real pain.

‘What happened?’ Amelia hurries around to the other side of him, keeping close to the inside of the path.

‘Tripped over that, I think.’ Lucy nods towards what looks like a gnarled tree root pushing out from the side of the bank. The tree is some kind of shrub – scratchy with thorns and bent from the wind. But the roots are wiry, and she can see it would have been easy to dismiss them. He’s lucky too, where he’s landed. He could have gone right over the side. The footpath is perilously close to the edge here.

James walks over and tugs at the clump. ‘Hard as nails and bedded in tight.’ He turns to Scott. ‘Unlucky, mate.’

‘You’re telling me,’ Scott says between groans. ‘I wish I’d brought some of my new painkiller formula with me. I could sure use it right now.’

Amelia leans in towards his foot. ‘May I?’

Scott lets loose a burst of expletives, ending with, ‘Don’t touch it!’

She leans away from him. ‘I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. I know how to set it, so that you’ll be able to walk on it.’

‘First aid training?’ Lucy says, crouching down beside them.

‘A little.’ She takes Scott’s hand. ‘Please? Otherwise I’m not sure what we’re going to do. I don’t think any of us can carry you.’

‘They’ll send someone, won’t they?’ Lucy says. ‘They know we’re here. Scott, tell your tracker you need some assistance.’

Scott groans again.

‘You know,’ Lucy says, ‘there was a wee flash of light, just before he fell. Like it came out of the bushes or something.’

‘It flashed right in my goddamn eyes,’ Scott says. ‘Coulda blinded me.’

James flinches. ‘Maybe a bit of broken glass or something. Sun just caught it. Like I said . . . unlucky.’ He goes back to the offending bush and rummages around underneath it. ‘Can’t see anything.’