FIC: Point Zero 23/24

[niceandfluffy2]

FIC: POINT ZERO (23/24)
Beta: Mandy the Panda
Rating: NC17 for horror/violence and sexual situations





Chapter Twenty Three

He ran. Orlando had run so he was running, chasing the boy as though his life depended on it and trying not to think of what lay behind them. Where he was running to he had no idea, just focusing on having one foot in front of the other, over and over again until he caught up. Whether he could find his way back was another question he really wasn’t in the mood to think about. Eric Bana just ran, hard and as fast as he could and determined not to see Orlando disappear into the darkness once more. He knew Dave was following him, every so often catching a glimpse of him as they twisted around corners, but Wenham could work out his own path. For now, he was simply focused on getting hold of the boy in front of them and possibly shaking the bastard to death.

Of course getting hold of him was easier said than done. Orlando had always been fast but now he was like a cheetah on speed, ignoring the scenery around him as he ran to whatever goal he had been planning. Eric scowled inwardly. No doubt it was going to be the head, a big lump of rock that someone had probably carved on a rainy day and placed in an isolated place and those places always attracted stories and myths and superstitions that no-one truly believed in anymore but no-one truly forgot either.

And now it had killed Karl.

He had no idea how long they had been running for. It felt like forever but couldn’t have been more than five minutes at the most, his heart pounding in his chest and his breathing forced out of his body each time his feet hit the soft floor yet his eyes never moving from his prey that ran so delicately in front of him. And yet each time a corner was turned the boy was a little further ahead, a flash of brilliance against the dark green backdrop as the kid sprinted along. Bana snarled, in spirit if not vocally and stepped up the speed but his body had no more speed to give. What he had he was giving. And that, it seemed, might not be enough.

*

For a moment Sean didn’t think he was going to make it. His fingers clawed impotently at empty air, the only texture against his fingertips the rough, loose earth of the cliff rather than anything resembling Karl’s lifeline. And then suddenly, incredibly, he felt the rough feel of the rope against his palm and grabbed it with all his strength, falling backwards trying to find something to hold on to in order to save both himself and Karl from tumbling any further. He could feel Karl’s weight on the end of the rope, a comforting sign but fuck did it bugger up his shoulder.

Sean swore in the privacy of his own head and gritted his teeth as he put as much power as he could to keep them there and scrabbling to find something else, his arm getting more and more desperate as Karl’s sheer weight dragged him towards the cliff edge. And then, finally, just at the point where his shoulder was threatening to be wrenched out of its socket and his feet were trying to find footholds that just didn’t exist, he felt a hand seize hold of his own and hold.

“ That’s it,” Viggo’s voice was in his ear but Sean didn’t dare turn his head to look. “ Keep going. I’ve got you,”

Somewhere behind him he felt Viggo move, realising that the man had looped the rope around one of the nearby rocks as the weight began to ease from his shoulders with blessed relief. Now of course all they had to do was pray that the rock didn’t gnaw away at the rope like a rat with a cracker.

Together, slowly and little by little they began to pull the rope back up. Even with the rock bracing them sweat was pouring down Sean’s face, stinging his eyes and making him almost blind but Viggo was still murmuring encouragement in his ear with his body tight to his own and with his confidence and guidance smoothing the way. The weight hadn’t lessened and what he had taken to be his own cursing soon took on the distinct tones of Karl’s rough voice, although even the language couldn’t disguise the shock within it.

One second .. two… and suddenly like a cork out of a bottle Karl took more of his own weight and Sean almost fell on his face, panting heavily and every single muscle feeling as stretched and as loose as a well used rubber band. His hair falling over his eyes, Sean gave himself a few moments to recover before pushing himself upwards and looking at the younger man who was still bent over on hands and knees, his head bowed as though in worship to the ground.

“ Karl,” he said softly, offering his hand. For a moment nothing happened. And then finally, with agonising slowness Karl raised his head and focused on the hand immediately in front of him. Eyes moved from the hand to Sean in a confused question, who offered the kid a small smile. “ Aye, lad. Take it,”

Karl reached out an arm that was obviously shaking with nerves and grasped Sean’s hand like it was the lifeline the rope had been. Sean could see the rope burn on Karl’s skin where the rope had obviously ripped away before Karl had managed to hold on for dear life, but more than anything he could feel the way the man was trembling under his touch, nerves and fear combining to turn Urban into emotional mush.

“ Are you hurt?” ever the pragmatist, Viggo was there with the correct words rather than ‘oh shit’. Karl looked confused for a moment then nodded slowly, his hand tentatively touching his arm as though he was half worried the damn thing had fallen off in the meantime.

“ Hit the rock when the rope went tight. Damn near ripped it from my grasp,” a foot was waggled as Karl tested it. “ Cliff’s not straight down though. Had a bit of slack when I bounced off a ledge,” Dark and guilty eyes found Sean’s. “ Lost the gun though,”

That he was more worried about losing a borrowed weapon spoke volumes about him. Sean chuckled and ruffled the dark hair with more affection than he had felt in a while. Daft bastard. Karl looked shocked before grinning back at him awkwardly, Urban’s breathing slowly coming back under control.

“ We’ll survive,” Sean answered.

“ I’m not sure we will,” Viggo answered, his voice a little way behind them. Sean frowned and looked behind him where Viggo was waiting for them. Viggo and an entirely empty glade for that matter.

“ Ah, shit,” Sean muttered and meant it most sincerely. The dog had slipped its leash and now there was a whole jungle for it to hide in. He only hoped the others had been on its tail.

*

The path had led to the head, of course. Eric hadn’t really doubted that it would eventually, the huge stone featuring again and again in his dreams as though it held a season ticket to his very mind. The vines that criss-crossed the stone changed every so often but the fundamental aspect of the stone remained, unable to be hidden regardless of what the jungle threw at it.

What men threw at it.

And here it was again, more dark and imposing than any piece of sculpture had a right to be. The hatred boiled up within him with an intensity that almost choked him as he slowed down and stared at the rock in hostility. The jungle had been more inventive in its attempts to swamp it and the majority of the rock face had now been smothered by a sea of green vines and mosses. A sea of vines and mosses that Orlando had already begun to utilise, the boy climbing higher like the monkey he had come to resemble for a destination that Eric just couldn’t see.

Dave had stopped dead as well, a strange look in his eye that was a mix of surprise and disgust and Eric had a suspicion he knew the reason why. Climbing on the rock was almost blasphemous, shouting at the altar of God and tempting the thunderbolts to come for a visit.

“ We should get him down,” Dave started forward but Eric’s hand caught at him, Bana unable to take his eyes from the rock.

“ This is what we came here to do. He’s on the head. He’s got the necklace,” he said in a low voice. Dave pulled his arm from Eric’s grip angrily.

“ And he’s still got to do it,” he hissed. “ This isn’t some great game of hide and seek, Eric! Something has to happen,”

And Dave was damned right. Trouble was neither of them had been privy to exactly what that something was and Bana had a suspicion that even Viggo had only the haziest grasp upon the practicalities that awaited them. However Orlando seemed to know exactly what he was doing and that was either very good or very bad. If it was very good then they had no need to worry. If it was very bad then they weren’t in any bloody position to be able to stop it and that was a problem. That was a big problem.

“ Get the other side of the head,” he murmured towards Dave. Incredulous bright blue eyes turned to him.

“ And do what?”

“ How the hell should I know! Use your imagination!” Eric waved his hand towards the other side of the head and thankfully with the minimum of dubious expression Dave disappeared towards the other side of the head. God alone knew what happened if there was a back entrance to the head – whatever that might look like – but at least they were covering both sides of the damn thing. He wasn’t in the mood to start allowing magician’s tricks to sully the mood as well.

Eric raised his head and stared upwards. He could stay down on the floor, he knew that. But he knew just as well he wasn’t going to; the feel of vine under his palm was but a moment away and as soon as he had begun the climb he realised that reality wasn’t planning to disappoint, not in the slightest. Despite the layers of plant, and the fact that the handhold was never the handhold that he expected, Eric’s path was swift as he pushed, pulled and general hoisted himself up further.

It was clear when bush turned into stone. The touch of the handholds had been strange before but now it nearly tingled when he grasped them, as though he had slapped his palm down hard and the abused nerves were making their objections known. Eric hesitated for a moment as he felt the hairs of the back of his neck prickle with anticipation, but the sound of Orlando moving spurred him forward, Karl’s panicked yell mixing with the delighted chuckle of a four year old child loud in his memory. There was no way he was letting this kid go, not now, not ever.

Finding another handhold Eric pulled himself up and almost fell as he gazed into one large dark space that was and wasn’t an eye at the same time, a hole filled with darkness that had so many levels within it that for a moment Bana couldn’t take his gaze off it. After a while the little details suddenly came into focus. The curves of the rock. The gentle rise of the moss. The blood.

Oh yes, the blood.

The rock was stained with it, the shadows occasionally allowing a flash of greasy dark red to show in the light before returning it to the usual textured grey shadow. Eric hesitantly out his hand, gently touching the hollow with his finger and feeling the prickle travel down from his neck and work on his back and shoulders. The shadow met his gaze head on, uncomfortably knowing, and Eric stared back at it silently, unable to rip his gaze away.

“ Eric, watch out-“ Dave tried but the cry was too late to do anything but react to a situation he wasn’t even sure of. Eric dodged out of the way of the kick, his hand scrambling for a handhold as he tried to move his weight away from the threat. Seizing hold of a branch, it held his weight for a moment before cracking with a dusty, dry sound and ripping him from his position. Bana saw the flash of dry white bone for a mere second before losing his balance completely and half falling, half sliding down the head, hitting every branch and rock ledge on the way down. The thud as he hit the floor was meaty, hard and unforgiving, the breath torn from his body and every single muscle waving the little white flag as he lay as he had landed, staring up at the head that seemed to tower down over him. From above he could see the flash of movement as Orlando stared down at him, jabbering something that Eric couldn’t understand before the boy moved slightly back as Dave arrived to land on his knees beside him.

“ Eric? Eric!”

Groaning, Eric brushed off the hand that was resting on his chest and shakily pushed himself up. With a glimmer of morbid humour he realised that the bone he had grabbed had fallen with him, the white shard pointing upwards in the greenery of the jungle floor but that too was simply another distraction, the horrors muted to a mere whisper in the night. It didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was the boy on the rock, still staring at him in hostility and whispering in that strange language as though it might in some way make sense.

Their eyes met, brown on brown, as intimate and as knowing as lovers. The boy held up the stone by the end of the cord, the polished stone swinging back and forth lazily at the end of its leash. Orlando smiled, a corner of his mouth rising sadly.

“ No,” Eric whispered but there were no words that could apply anymore, nor anything that he could appeal to. He grabbed hold of Dave’s hand, and from the sudden surprised gasp he knew he was gripping too tightly but even then he couldn’t tear his attention away from the rock and the stone and the sheer power that seemed to be running through his body as Orlando raised the stone over the eye socket of the rock and smiled directly at him.

It managed to take mere seconds and yet last for hours. Eric could see the stone fall in his mind’s eye, turning over and over again in the light and knew almost instinctively what was about to happen. He shoved Dave towards the head just as Orlando screamed the high pitched noise of a wounded animal and fell, just as Bana had known he would. This time Wenham was ready, breaking the boy’s fall but sending them both tumbling to the floor in a mess of leaves and limbs.

For a moment the jungle was still as though someone had flicked a switch, the silence almost deafening after the scream. Neither man had moved from the bottom of the statue although Eric could see Dave’s eyes were open and blinking, the red-head obviously tying to recover before he attempted to move the dead weight of Orlando’s body that was covering his own.

And then slowly, gradually, like rabbits creeping out of the burrow after the fox had gone, the silence was replaced by the noises of the jungle which wrapped around them in a comforting blanket of noise. As Eric’s body slowly eased he realised he had been holding his breath, gradually releasing it through god near clenched teeth as he cautiously pushed himself upwards again and crawled on hands and knees to where the other two still lay. Dave was still trying to push Orlando off and failing miserably, not being in a good position to get any type of leverage. Their eyes met as Eric crawled closer, a silent message passing between them before Bana gently took hold of Orli’s shoulders and gently began to move him. The adrenaline was still pumping within him and yet the scene felt almost unreal and it was that, he realised, that was stopping him from immediately running to the hills. Unreal. Like a movie set. And hell, he could do movie sets.

“ You okay?” he murmured to Dave as he worked. A raised eyebrow and a rueful smile answered his question, and a groan added to the mix as soon as he was freed from the barrier that was an unconscious Orlando Bloom.

“ For a small guy, he’s remarkably heavy,” he grumbled quietly.

“ We’ve got to go-,” Eric said automatically but Dave shook his head and held up his hand to shush him, testing his ribs with the other.

“ No. We’re here now. I’m not doing this again in a week because we bailed too early,” he said firmly and moved to look critically at Orlando’s face. “ Got any water?”

Frowning for a moment, Eric fumbled with the canteen he held at his belt and held it out to Dave who promptly took hold of it, unscrewed the lid and calmly tipped the liquid over Orli’s upturned face. Untactful it was but at least it did the job, Orlando spluttering back into life once more. Eric’s hand on the boy’s shoulder stopped him from instinctively sitting up, Bloom lying back down with the look of the terminally bewildered in his eyes as he stared up at them.

“ It’s okay,” Eric soothed, not wanting to terrify the boy.

“ Does he still have the stone on him?” Dave was clearly trying to win the brisk matter of fact award, his hands beginning to work their way through Orli’s pockets. Orlando squirmed at the contact, then looked desperately back up at Eric for reassurance.

“ Stone?” Orlando echoed the word nervously. Dave’s interrogation hesitated, blue eyes looking in surprise and suspicion at Orlando before he turned to Eric, silently asking whether he’d heard the same thing he had. Eric had. There had been more intelligence from Orlando in that one word than had occurred in the past couple of weeks and that meant that finally they might get answers that didn’t rhyme.

“ The necklace,” Eric was keen to continue this line of communication, one hand curling in a fist on his chest to indicate where the stone had once hung around his neck. “ The stone necklace. You had it in your hand,”

If the eyes that were turned to him were lying they were doing a damned good job of it. Orli slowly shook his head in confusion before looking down at himself as though he could see it.

“ I .. don’t know. I haven’t seen it,”

“ You had it in your hand,” Dave prompted, his voice clearly showing his suspicions. “ The right one,”

The boy looked at his right hand as though it was hiding something from him, still bewildered but clearly wanting to help the two intense men that sat so close to him. Orlando didn’t make a peep as Dave continued to search around him, even lifting his body slightly so Wenham could search underneath him as well. Eric watched as Dave searched and rooted and dug under leaves and greenery in his desire to leave no reasonably sized rock unturned.

“ It could be still in the statue,” Eric murmured when it was clear that searching wasn’t finding anything but stinging ants.

“ There’s an ‘in’?” Dave said incredulously.

“ Eye sockets,”

“ Well, that’s a little disturbing,”

“ Tell me something that hasn’t been,” Eric pushed himself up and held out his hand to assist Orlando upwards, soon discovering that he was having to use his full strength just to stabilize him as the boy’s legs failed to listen to commands. Orlando was like handling a drunk, the man’s head and shoulders clearly having disputes with the lower limbs of his body for direction as he shakily stood, propped up by Eric’s own body as a living, breathing crutch.

“ C’mon,” Eric encouraged, slowly beginning to walk and having to tighten his grip to avoid Orlando landing face first on the ground. “ One foot after the other. This way,”

Dave stood stiffly, watching them for a few moments before turning to study the head once more with a scowl firmly imprinted on his face.

“ Hold on,”

Eric glanced back at him in confusion and not a small amount of irritation. Orlando wasn’t exactly stable enough to start doing sightseeing as well. “ What?”

“ Get him to say something else.” Dave’s voice held the determined tones of someone who wanted to make sure nothing else went wrong on his shift. The small amount of irritation suddenly decided to invite friends over, Eric shuffling Orli’s weight into a position that they were least likely to fall over from and returning Dave’s hard look with one of his own.

“ Like what? Quoting Shakespeare?” he asked, realising quickly enough that they were likely to get out there quicker working with Wenham’s paranoia than simply arguing about it.

“ Something. Show me he’s got enough sense to hold a conversation otherwise we’re not going anywhere,”

Clearly Karl’s stubbornness had rubbed off on Dave, although it was the thought of Karl that gave Wenham his little edge in his argument. Orli had tricked them before and he should supply more than a pair of puppy dog eyes before they abandoned everything.

“ Orlando?” he gently nudged the other man who stared at him with the same dazed eyes as before. “ Can you hear me?”

A little smile raised in the corner of Bloom’s mouth. “ Yeah. Cause you’re speaking,”

Okay, the sarcasm obviously was feeling much better. “ What can you remember last?” Eric tried as a vaguely sensible question to start at. Orlando looked at him funnily.

“ Did you bang your head?”

“ Frequently, but that’s not the point,” Eric replied. “ What can you remember last?”

There was a little sigh and Orlando waved a hand in thought which nearly toppled them entirely. “ Fish,”

“ Fish?” Eric raised an eyebrow and looked across at Dave who simply shrugged his answer. The funny look that Orlando had aimed at him suddenly increased, the boy clearly believing that they were winding him up.

“ Fish. You know, the wet things with scales that live in the sea? Splashy splashy? We were cooking them for dinner,” he looked at Eric then doubtfully across at Dave, the realisation that something was up creeping across his expression. “ On the beach? We were singing?”

“ We were what?”

“ Singing,” Orlando said, slowing his voice as though talking to an idiot although his eyes darted anxiously between the two, sensing the silent discussion. “ La la laaaaaa, that type of thing. When we were sitting on the beach and we couldn’t get the fire going, remember?”

“ The day when Karl wore those god-awful red shorts that blinded anyone who was unfortunate to look at them?” Dave asked grimly, his arms folded tight across his chest. Orlando nodded eagerly, then groaned as a stab of pain hit him from the movement. Eric frowned towards Dave, still trying to get onto the same page as everyone else.

“ I thought he was banned from wearing those before we got to the island..?”

“ He was. He threw them out on that day,” Dave’s grim voice hadn’t improved.

“ Oh.” Eric thought about that and then groaned. “ Great,”

Orlando was still watching them. “ Is .. that wrong?” he said doubtfully. Well, no. But it wasn’t making him happier by any means. Eric sighed and rubbed his eyes with a hand before letting it drop and taking a better grip on Orlando to avoid the boy sliding to the ground once more.

“ Can we go yet?” he asked tiredly. “ This has obviously done something,”

Dave raised his head slightly. “ He could be lying,”

“ Then we’d be back to square one and haven’t lost anything.” Eric replied as patiently as he could under the circumstances. “ Come on, this is giving me the …creeps…,” his voice trailed off as something wet landed on his cheek, Eric not daring to look up in case some other corpse had crept up on him unexpectedly. However when his fingers reluctantly wiped off the moisture it was only clear, bright water that met his vision.

There was another drip. And then again. Eric looked upwards then incredulously towards Dave.

“ It’s raining?”

He was suddenly thankful it was as Dave promptly moved towards him, taking Orli’s other arm and beginning to assisting them back to the path. Where words hadn’t worked, water had.

“ It might be raining now but it’s probably waiting for its moment to start pissing it down,” Dave murmured. “ And quite frankly that’s not something I want to walk around in. Let’s move,”

And no one had to ask Eric twice.

They headed towards the beach which seemed the safest route to go considering that he had been spun around so much that he had absolutely no idea which particular bush they had crashed through originally. Not that Eric really fancied crashing back through it, either. Life was complicated enough without the prospect of a twig sticking into his back as well. With the beach came safety. With the beach came direction. And with the beach came absolutely no cover whatsoever which had been a problem in the sun and it now began a problem in the rain as well as Dave’s prediction came true and the heavens opened up. Within a few moments they were soaked through, their clothes clinging to their bodies like huge, flat leeches and the world around them was hidden in a cloak of grey.

They stumbled along the line of the beach, every so often having to move slightly inland to avoid a particularly large rocky outcropping and discovering that the leaves and the vines and the bushes underfoot could also turn quite successfully into a slippy mess that offered little traction for the unwary foot. More than once Eric’s foot suddenly slipped further into the undergrowth than he had planned, almost causing them all to end up face first in mulch.

“ Are you sure this is the quickest way?” Dave panted as they stumbled their way blindly through the jungle’s outcasts.

“ No. But I’m pretty damned sure this is the safest way, so that works for me,” Eric replied in a breathless grunt, trying to juggle the tasks of keeping his footing with keeping Orlando on his feet. The boy’s spirit was willing enough but the flesh was weak, the knees every so often giving up and causing them to stumble and to lose precious momentum.

In the jungle the noise of the rain was startlingly loud. Each drop seemed to stamp on the leaves it landed on, the rustles merging together to form what was almost a drum roll in the jungle that was in turn accompanied by the sound of the waves against the rocks. Nature had its own music and apparently it was heavy metal. Eric panted and pulled Orlando closer to him, his hand slipping on the wet surface of Orlando’s jacket before finding a better grip to hoist him along.

“ We’re almost there,” Eric panted, having absolutely no idea whether they were or weren’t but knowing it was one of those things you said in these types situations, like shouting ‘we’ll make it’ when you were trapped on a mountain or ‘we’ll be fine’ in the middle of a horror movie where you just knew only one person was likely to get out alive. The presence of motto was a pretence that everybody was willing to share, although no amount of cheesy lines was going to improve his own mood. They were struggling in a direction that he still wasn’t convinced was going to get them back to the harbour. They had a kid who was either traumatized or acting enough to get them into a position where they would be killed in a bad way, not that there were many ways to be killed in a good way. He had no idea how Karl was or even whether the man was even still breathing, and that particular that fear that continually crept up to the surface of his mind to nibble away at his composure.

Fuck it. They would make it. They were almost there. And they would be fine.

So help them God.

He was concentrating so hard on getting one foot in front of the other that he didn’t notice the other man until he spoke, the water from the rain trickling down from his hair and all but blinding him as he immediately looked up. He could recognise that voice anyway, a slightly hoarse version of Karl’s normal tones. God, being the tricky soul that he was, had evidentially decided to listen and had chosen to send the most unlikely of angels.

“ Karl?” Did he dare hope?

“ Well of course me. Who else would be standing around in this bloody weather waiting for you guys?” Karl’s words were blunt but his voice was still pleased, his welcome and solid body moving in front of them to deftly sling Orlando’s fading body over one shoulder. Eric sagged as he was relieved of his burden, pausing to recover his breath a little before slowly following Karl back along his little path, wincing every time that either Orlando’s foot or buttock brushed against the bushes. Karl, being Karl, didn’t care.

Eric pushed himself on to catch them up, allowing his hand to gently brush against Karl almost to check it was really him. Karl glanced at him and grinned, that wide, casual, ‘sod it’ grin, and Eric felt a buzz settle in his body and refuse to shift. He was here, he was alive, and hell, they might just get off after all. Eric opened his mouth to say something when another crack from the jungle made him close it again sharply, staring into the jungle where the darkness stared back at him hungrily. Bana felt the gooseflesh return to his arms again with an unpleasant tingle of anticipation creeping up his spine. You had to be kidding him. They were out.

Their pace quickened without a word between them, working together to move the overhanging bushes and trailing vines out of Karl’s way as he attempted to get through pathways that even a goat would have difficulty in navigating. It seemed that the rain was steadily getting louder, the drum roll faster and faster and it was hard to listen to any external noise through the crashing that they themselves were producing in their movements. Vines were ripped from trees, twigs were snapped underfoot and bushes bowed and swung in slow, lazy ways as they fought their way through, raising two fingers to the concept of subtly. All Eric could think of was the shiver of the leaves as the tyrannosaurus rex from Jurassic Park moved through them, and in his mind’s eye could almost see the cruel reptilian eye as it peered through gaps in the foliage.

The experts were right. Television was definitely bad for you.

Just when he was beginning to think that there was no end and that the jungle would continue for miles and miles and miles without hope, they burst through the leaves and found themselves soaked, exhausted and filthy on the sandy clearing that surrounded the harbour. Orlando was the first one to hit the deck as Karl eased him off his shoulder and dropped him to the floor, the boy ending up on his back with Urban sinking to his knees beside him panting like a thick furred dog on a hot summer’s day.

“ What? Why are we stopping?” Eric asked anxiously, reaching down to hold onto Orlando’s arm ready to pull him back up again. He could see the boat, he could see it, bobbing on the waters edge like a white beacon in a sea of grey. So close. So damned close.

“ Viggo. Sean,” Karl managed through his ragged breathing. “ Went to find you. Other way. Have to wait,”

Fuck. But he was right, it was only fair. Eric dropped down to his knees and began to check on Orlando a little more thoroughly. The boy was awake but clearly tired, a little smile his response to Bana’s investigations but it was the softness in Orlando’s eyes that gave Eric confidence. Granted he hadn’t looked into many people’s eyes who had tried to throw someone off a cliff but he was willing to bet that soft, friendly look wasn’t normally part of it.

“ Okay. So we wait,” Eric confirmed.

As long as it took. He only hoped that was a short time.

TBC

Onwards to the final chapter

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