Page 54 of Summer's Edge

I hand him her phone. “She’s not here.”

There’s nothing to say after that so no one does, but the silence is so thick with hurt it’s screaming.

“She can’t be far,” I hear myself say. “I’m going on.”

The forest here is vast. I don’t even have to check on the map to know it’s true. I feel its ancient heart pulsing all around me. And it has Summer. She’s a part of it now. I am too. We all are.

It will show me the way to her.

“There’s no way we’ll find her like this,” Ice says.

I feel how much it pains him to say those words. To give up. I’m not giving up.

“I’ll find her,” I rev up my bike and drive on.

Onwards along the path. She’s still alive. She has to be. I’ll find her. I have to. And that’s all I know.

The going’s slow because the path is not a path anymore here. Just forest. But my heart’s beating in tune with it now. And it’s guiding me. To Summer. To joining her. Wherever she is.

Maybe it’s all that time we spent naked in the forest, alone in the moonlight when all this began, but I feel her with me. Her heartbeat is joining the pulsing of the forest, the thudding of my own heart.

Strong at first, but growing fainter.

And there’s nothing in front of me but forest. Nothing around me but trees. Tall, suffocatingly oppressive. Trees like the ones that grow over unmarked shallow graves.

I hear the bikes of my brothers behind me and all around me.

I almost miss the van parked amid the trees to the left. It’s just a black mound slightly darker than the night.

I rode up to it so fast one of the guys standing next to it has no time to react before I run him down. My bike buries him, and he doesn’t move.

Now it’s just me, Summer and the guy holding a knife to her throat. A great, big old hunting knife against the delicate skin of her neck that I love kissing so much.

“You think you’re on time,” the guy snarls at me. “You’re too late.”

He flicks the knife and a drop of blood forms on Summer’s neck. He’s wrong. I’m right on time. And I’m not here to talk.

I don’t think, I just lunge at him, the element of surprise on my side, making him stumble backwards and remove the knife half an inch from Summer’s neck. It’s all the opening I need to bump him away from her, knock him to the ground, and start punching his ugly, psycho face with all I got.

Each time my fist connects, something crunches. But it’s not enough. I need him to hurt worse. I need him to feel all the fear and all the desperation I felt riding here tonight. I need him to know death is coming and fear it.

“It’s OK, Edge,” Summer says quietly. “I’m OK. He’s dead.”

But he’s still twitching. He’s not dead yet. So I don’t stop.

“I need you to hold me, Lucas,” she says, laying her hand on my shoulder.

I freeze and stand up. Wrap my arms around her and hold her so tight I don’t think I’ll ever let go. She leans against me, soft as a breeze, yet more solid than anything I’ve ever held in my arms.

The others are here too. I can hear them talking all around us. But I don’t hear their words, all I hear is Summer’s heart, beating strong and fast.

“I love you,” I whisper into her hair.

I haven’t said those words to anyone for a very, very long time. I never planned on saying them again. Yet they roll off my tongue as effortlessly as breathing.

“I know,” she whispers back. “I love you too.”

“Summer, are you all right?” Ice asks and I let her go so she can go to him.

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