Page 5 of Escape

“Come on!” Jon shouts, his voice raw.

But it’s no use.

Arif’s body goes still, his face slack. The pulse that was once faint is gone.

“No,” I whisper, my voice trembling. I gather him into my arms, cradling his head in my lap as tears blur my vision. “No, no, no.”

Jon sits back on his heels, his hands trembling as he rubs them over his face. He is lost in thoughts for a moment before he turns back to Will, his focus shifting out of necessity.

“Will needs me,” he says, his voice tight with barely contained grief.

I nod, unable to speak, unable to do anything but hold Arif’s lifeless body. My tears fall freely now as I stroke his hair and whisper apologies he’ll never hear. This is all my fault. I was the one who made the call to go. Me. It’s my fault.

Above us, the storm rages on, uncaring and unyielding. The people who came to help move around me, their voices muffled. But I stay where I am, my arms wrapped around Arif, the weight of his loss pressing down on me like the mountain itself.

Jon’s voice sounds distant, calling out instructions, but I can barely register the words. All I can do is sit there, my heart breaking in the rain, wishing I were home with Owen.

Chapter 2

Owen

Heathrow is as chaoticas ever. The arrivals board flickers with updates, and the murmur of overlapping conversations is punctuated by announcements in clipped, professional tones. People move around me, rushing to greet loved ones or dragging tired feet toward taxi queues, but I’m rooted to the spot, my eyes fixed on the sliding doors ahead.

I check my watch again, my foot tapping against the polished floor. Mel’s flight landed twenty minutes ago, and I know it’s just a matter of time, but patience has never been my strong suit.

I feel like I’ve been holding my breath ever since I got the call about the accident. A landslide, they said. One team member medevaced, but she and the doctor stayed behind to finish what needed to be done before they were sent home earlier than the mission was supposed to end. I’d pieced the rest together from Mel’s carefully-worded texts and the sparse updates from GHHI.

“Everyone’s fine,”she’d said.“Nothing to worry about.”

Except I do worry. Because Mel doesn’t say “nothing to worry about” unless there’s plenty to worry about.

She’s good at pretending, always has been. When we were kids, she’d come to school with that same unreadable mask after her mum passed, smiling like everything was normal. She’s strong, sure. Resilient. But I know her too well to buy the act completely.

We’ve been best mates since school, ever since we were thrown together as the odd ones out. Mel was the only dark-skinned girl at a posh private school full of kids who didn’t know what to do with her frizzy curls or her Midlands accent. I was the scholarship boy whose hand-me-down uniform never quite fit and whose lunchbox was never the right brand.

The other kids made sure we knew we didn’t belong, but we found each other anyway. I still remember the day it happened. I was sitting alone in the corner of the dining hall, picking at my sandwich after some posh twat had called me "charity boy."

Then Mel plonked herself down across from me without so much as a hello.

"You don’t have to sit here," I said, not even looking up. "I’m fine."

"I’m not," she replied. "I’m avoiding the Barbie squad over there."

That made me look up. I didn’t smile much back then, but I couldn’t stop from giving her a reluctant grin. That was all it took. Since then, she’s been my best friend, the one person I know I can always rely on.

We house shared all through Uni, having the best of times. When my company finally made some money, I bought a flat from my first big payout. Mel was thrilled for me but gutted at the thought of losing me has a housemate. Like I would have let that happen! I had always intended for her to move in with me. I didn’t even ask, just showed her the room that was meant to be hers from the start.

I always thought nothing can tear us apart but since the accident, there’s been a distance between us. Not in words—her emails and texts are still filled with the same sarcasm and ridiculous observations—but in the way she avoids saying anything real. Anything about how she’s feeling.

The messages are just a little too chipper, the humour a little too forced. She’s fine, she says. It wasn’t a big deal. She’s fine, fine, fine.

And maybe she’s convinced herself of that, but I’m not.

I glance at the arrivals board again, then back to the doors. Every time they slide open, my chest tightens, but it’s never her. Families stream out, couples, business travellers looking knackered, but not Mel.

The doors slide open again, and this time, there she is.

Mel, with her worn rucksack slung over one shoulder dragging a suitcase alongside her. She looks... tired. Not the kind of tired you fix with a good night’s sleep, but the kind that settles deep in your bones.

---