Page 118 of Catch the Sun

“Ella!” the voice calls out, another body trailing beside her as the two figures stare out at the slow-rippling water.

Brynn and Kai.

I race forward, cupping my hands around my mouth. “Brynn!”

Her high ponytail whips her in the face when she spins around. “Max…I’m still looking for Ella. I–I can’t find her anywhere.”

It’s after 1:00 a.m. now. Fear grinds into me like a dull knife. My gait slows when I reach them, sweeping shaky fingers through my hair. “Do you think she left with somebody?”

Brynn’s face is pink and panicked. Her eyes bulge to saucers and glimmer against the moon as she shakes her head, arms crossed over her chest. “She wouldn’t leave without telling me, right? That’s not like her. I looked in all the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the garage…”

“Me too,” I whisper. “Fuck. Do you think she went for a walk? Got lost? Fell?”

It’s fucking cold outside. My mind races with images of Ella with a broken ankle, dragging herself through sticks and branches in the deep, dark woods. Both hands link behind my head as my thoughts spiral. “We need to look for her. She’s not answering her phone.”

“I know. I keep calling her,” Brynn says.

Kai points over to the shadowy tree line a few yards away. “Over there is a hiking path. Maybe she wanted a better view of the fireworks.”

I’m running before he finishes talking. “Why isn’t she answering her goddamn phone?” I wonder aloud, listening to their footfalls jogging behind me.

“No service?” Kai calls out. “I never get service in the woods.”

A few cracks of lagging fireworks paint the sky in splashes of violet and blue as we make our way through the opening, trudging up the inclined path. I pluck my phone from my pocket and switch on the flashlight, trailing the light over the rugged terrain in hopes of spotting something of relevance. Gnarled roots, moss, underbrush. Nothing of value.

“Ella!” Brynn calls out, Kai’s voice following.

I shout her name into the midnight sky and dancing tree branches. “Sunny!”

“Ella!”

Our voices pitch and bleed together as we tromp up the craggy hill, pelts of icy wind stinging my skin. Brynn bolts ahead of me, her ankles twisting in her glittery high heels. “Ella!” she yells, veering toward a small clearing overlooking the lake.

My chest aches from breathing so hard, more panic than exertion. The only thing I see littered along the bluff is a miniature bottle of Jim Beam.

Ella doesn’t drink. She’s not here.

I move to the left, while Brynn and Kai swing right. I’m slicing my way through tall brush when I hear it.

The scream. The ear-splitting, hair-raising scream.

My blood chills. My muscles lock up as the universe shrinks to a pinpoint.

And I know.

I fucking know my world is about to be rocked, shaken, and split in two.

Brynn’s scream morphs into an ugly, wretched sob, and I turn, turn, turn, the moment a slow-motion swirl of horror. She collapses to her knees, her gaze pinned on whatever nightmare lies below. Kai’s face twists with agony. They both stare over the edge of the bluff until I find myself beside them. I don’t remember moving. I don’t remember the howl that wrenches from my throat, even though I hear it echoing back at me and shredding my eardrums.

But I’ll forever remember that image of Ella.

Lying in a heap, thirty feet below us.

Motionless and bloody.

My Sunny Girl.

My mind is a cloud, a lethal blur. I squeeze my hair in both fists as I stare down over the ledge of the cliff to where Ella is sprawled out in a bed of grass and weeds, having missed the lake by a few feet. Dark water laps at her hair like it’s trying to draw her in.

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