Page 34 of The Hideaway

And with one more step backwards, as his body started to disappear into the lush green foliage, Mira caught sight of him turn and begin to stumble, alone, into the dense rainforest.

NAYA

‘Scott – stop! Don’t leave – it’s not safe for you to be alone. Whatever it is, let’s talk about it, we can deal with it...’ Naya called out after him as he backed through the thick vines.

It was too late; Scott had disappeared into the foliage frighteningly fast. Now Naya wasn’t sure whether to risk trying to follow him and ending up lost – evenmorelost – herself.

She turned back to the others, shaking her head. She could feel the heat rising through her body, another wave of nausea taking hold.Not now, baby – please. Give your maman a break.The stifling humidity, the growing heat of today’s sun, the terror and trauma of yesterday – it was all joining forces with her hormones to force thick, hot bile to rise up in her throat. She swallowed it back down, took a breath.

‘Bordel de merde, why would he run off like that?’ she said. ‘Of all the times to disappear... Even if he’s got some extra food he’s been hiding, it’s hardly the worst thing in the world – not after everything we’ve just been through!’ She looked at the group, saw the confusion registered in their faces, mirroring her own.

‘That was a bloody stupid move,’ said Carly, shaking her head. ‘He’ll neverfind the way back out of the jungle by himself. And besides, this is the time to stick together. The rainforest is a dangerous place at the best of times, but after what happened to Hannah – well, there’s good reason to think there are more lethal things out here than just bloody snakes and spiders.’

Carly was right: it was insane, what Scott had just done – even more so when they needed him, with his expertise in the wilderness, to help them navigate out of there.

They needed him –sheneeded him.

Naya gave a grunt of frustration, flung her backpack over her shoulders, turned on her heel and started to walk in the direction of where Scott had just vanished into the jungle. ‘I’m going after him,’ she said.

‘No, Naya, hold on,’ said Ben. ‘Just wait a second – let’s think this through.’ He paused, cleared his throat; it sounded dry, scratchy. They were all nearly out of water, and after the amount of fluid they’d all lost, sweating their way through the sticky, humid jungle, they needed to drink something – and soon.

She peered at him: the surface of his skin was greyish, dull and clammy; his lips were dry, with small cracks appearing at their edges. The area below his eyes was sunken, hollowed out. The signs of dehydration were settling into his face. Hers would start to look the same soon, given the humidity of the air and the effort of pushing through dense jungle in the oppressive heat.We’ve got to get back soon.Perhaps there was a water source they could find on the way, if they got desperate – or could they collect some rainwater somehow? She resolved to keep an eye out.

‘Running away like that by himself, when he must realizehow dangerous it is to be wandering around alone,’ Ben was saying. ‘It kinda feels like the behaviour of a person with something to hide, don’t you think? And I mean, more than just sneaking extra snacks in his bag and hiding them from us.’ He paused, then added: ‘Maybe there’s something else he doesn’t want us to find out.’

‘I know what you mean – it does looks suspicious,’ Carly agreed. ‘And did you hear what he said just before he turned and ran?’

‘Yeah,’ said Mira, her face grim. ‘He did say he was sorry. But surely he just meant he was sorry he’d kept some extra food without telling us. I can’t imagine there being anything more to it than that...’

She tailed off, and Naya looked at her closely. She was on edge, like they all were, but she looked crestfallen; lost, just like she had ever since the mudslide; or was it since they’d found Hannah’s body? She looked as though she wanted to give up. There was something disconcerting about seeing someone with Mira’s quiet strength, someone who had survived everything she had, looking so completely beaten.

‘Look, you’re probably right,’ said Carly. ‘I can’t picture him having anything to hide – but all I’ll say is this: if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my job, it’s that people often aren’t who they seem to be on the surface.’ She waved away a fly buzzing near her face. ‘I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen clients for therapy who would swear blind they were victims of some kind, the ones to feel sorry for, the good ones – they’d suck me in completely and only in the end I’d realize...’ She paused; swallowed. ‘Well, I’d realize I was wrong,’ she said softly.

Naya paused, let this sink in. She’d considered the fact that any of them could be hiding something – she barely knew them, after all. But even if some of them were keeping secrets, holding things back – there was simplyno wayScott would be capable of something sinister. She was getting to know him; she had a sense of him. Everything about him – his energy, the way he spoke – was gentle. She felt like she could trust him.

But I’m just basing my trust of Scott on intuition, warned a voice inside Naya’s head. And her intuition had been wrong before, more than once. Perhaps it was wrong again now; Naya’s relationship history was living proof that she shouldn’t trust herself. Mathieu had made out that he’d be the perfect partner, the model father. She’d trusted him, and she’d fallen for it – over and over again, even after she’d caught him in lie after lie. He was just so good at it; he still was. And worse than that, even after all his deceptions, she’dstillslept withhim.

A moment – rather, an entire night – of madness, when he’d actually shown up for the children, done what he’d said he was going to do and more. He always knew how to get to her; the kinds of things she wanted from him. The kinds of things she wanted him to say, too.

How wrong; how stupid. How could the desire for a quick fuck have been enough to pull her back towards him – and now with these consequences? Was she really that easy to get into bed, that desperate to feel someone’s touch? She’d been so young when they’d met and married, barely twenty-four when she’d first got pregnant. Now, at thirty-three, she already felt washed up; an invisible, exhausted mother. Of course she’d fallen for his whispered compliments, his empty sweet talk.

Naya sighed, rubbed at the spot between her eyes – then moved her other hand instinctively to her stomach, as if to say,Don’t worry,I’ll protect you.

‘Sorry, Carly, but there’s no way we could have got Scott that wrong,’ Mira was saying. ‘And anyway, it doesn’t feel right, leaving him out there on his own – we’re much safer as a group, aren’t we? We need to stick together, like you said.’

At the mention of Scott being out there alone, an image flashed through Naya’s mind: turning to look back at the school playground when she’d dropped Marcus off at school the morning before she left, standing to watch a few minutes longer than usual, with no work to rush off to, only packing to do at home.

Seeing him standing there by himself, dragging his schoolbag along the concrete ground, watching other children form playful huddles; all of them brushing past him, not so much as looking at him. Her heart ached for him that moment outside the school gates; it ached for him again now – and, she realized, it was aching for Scott too, not able to articulate what he wanted to say, and now alone, afraid, in a hostile place.

‘I’m with Mira,’ Naya blurted out. ‘She’s right – of course we can’t leave him out here. He’s exhausted, in shock, starting to get dehydrated like the rest of us – he could die out here without water and proper rest. We can’t let that happen, no matter what he might have done – which, in all likelihood, is nothing more than keeping a couple of snacks to himself.’ She paused, glanced at the others. ‘I’m going after him now before he can get too far away from us.’

‘Hang on,’ said Ben. His jaw was tense, his eyebrows furrowed, creating a deep crease along the centre of his forehead.He looked like he was wrestling with something, as though there was something more he wanted to say, but couldn’t quite spit out. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, repeating this a few times, goldfish-like, before finally saying: ‘Before we go after him – there’s something I need to show you all. It’ll only take a second, then we’ll go after him. I should have told you before now, but...’

Naya watched as he unzipped a section of his backpack and took out a small piece of paper; no – not paper, she realized. It was a photograph. Why did Ben need to show this to everyone, now of all times?

Ben swallowed. ‘I found this on Hannah’s dead body,’ he said.

There was a stunned silence.He... what?

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