Page 38 of Searching Blind

His pale eyes shifted toward her. “I’ve done it before. When I was hallucinating. I hurt myself and others.”

Her heart gave one hard thump. “Did you poison your dog, too?”

He flinched, and she realized the question had come out harsher than she’d intended. “Even if you had somehow cut yourself in a PTSD-induced nightmare, you wouldn’t hurt her. Not in a million years.” She peeled open a bandage and gently placed it over the wound. “Tell me what happened.”

Sawyer sucked in a deep breath. “I was working on the radio. I got through to Ash for a second, but I don’t know if it was enough. I kept trying to get him back, and I must’ve drifted to sleep because the next thing I remember is someone shoving a knife into my throat and demanding to know where Pierce is.”

“Pierce?” That was not what she’d expected him to say.

“Yeah. They also said something about Maya and Pierce and—” He leaned forward, pressing his hands over his eyes. “Jesus, saying it out loud, it sounds crazy. It’s entirely possible I dreamed it. I’m worried about Pierce. I’m upset about what happened to Maya, and it all just swirled together in my head.”

Lucy rested her hand on his back, feeling the muscles under his shirt tense then slowly relax beneath her touch. “That still doesn’t explain Zelda.”

He dropped his hands to his lap. “I need to get back to her. I trusted Ethan to watch her, and maybe that was a mistake. Maybe he was the one to—fuck, I don’t know anymore. I wish I could fucking see.”

“Hey.” She hugged him, and after a tense moment, his arms circled her, tugging her close. He buried his face in her hair and exhaled hard. He was shaking. “Zelda will be okay. We’ll find Pierce, and we’ll get off this mountain.”

“I appreciate you trying to comfort me, but the fact that you’re sitting here right now doesn’t bode well.” He released her and stood. “You couldn’t find a way down, could you?”

“No,” she admitted with a heavy heart. “But we have other options.”

“Options?” He gave a bitter laugh and rubbed the back of his neck, wincing as his fingers brushed against the bandage. “We tried the radio. We tried to hike down. What other options do we have?”

“A cell tower. I saw one still standing in the distance and tried to send some SOS messages but… nothing. The signal comes and goes.”

He frowned in thought. “Think it would work if we got closer?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“How far away is it?”

“Maybe… ten miles. It was hard to tell. But we only need to get close enough for a phone to pick up the signal. So maybe half that distance?”

“If it’s a 4 or 5G tower, we’ll have to get within three miles.”

She shrugged. “So more than half. I can do it, but I’ll have to take everyone’s phones with me. The more I have, the better chance I’ll have at getting a signal.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said after a beat. “What do we have to lose? But you’re not going alone this time.”

“Sawyer, you don’t have Zelda?—”

He turned away and started up the path toward the fire tower. No dog, no hiking pole, but he moved confidently like he was sighted. “I promise I won’t slow you down.”

Lucy sighed. She didn’t like that note of bitterness in his voice. This wasn’t her Sawyer—the man who held her when she cried, who made her laugh when she’d forgotten how. the one who quipped and flirted with reckless abandon. This was a wounded, desperate man bent on proving his worth to himself and the world.

And it frightened her.

“There you are!” Bea’s voice boomed from the tower as Sawyer and Lucy emerged from the trees. “Your girl’s coming around. I think she’s going to be okay.”

Sawyer cursed himself for not bringing his cane. He couldn’t move as fast as he wanted to without risking falling on his face, but once he reached the bottom step of the tower, he raced up. “Zelda’s okay?”

Bea grabbed his shoulder in a reassuring squeeze. “Yeah, she’s all right. Woozy, but seems to be in good health.”

Sawyer felt his way through the cabin to find Zelda exactly where he’d left her on the floor in front of the radio. He ran a hand over her. She was awake with her head raised and gave a happy whimper when she saw him. Her tail thunk dully on the floor.

He exhaled a shaky breath and hugged her. She was still alive, and that was all he needed. “You had me scared there, girl.”

“Looks like she was just drugged,” Ethan said. “I found some empty packets of Benadryl stuffed in the trash bin right after you left, and there’s a bit of pink powder mixed in with her kibble.”

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