Enemy Basis | COMPLETE

31| let's see the light

DORRAN

There wasn't any concrete evidence to suggest that Darcy was missing but I just knew, with all certainty, that something was wrong.

On Saturday, Lennox had texted her and she hadn't replied. The guys, Lennox included, said this wasn't something to worry about. It was only now when Monday had arrived and she still had not made it out of the woodwork, that my concerns seemed valid to the rest of them.

A dread had settled over the five of us as we stood in East Bridge's parking lot, next to her car which seemed untouched and forgotten. I had tracked her phone which led us here in the first place, hoping she'd be here but she wasn't. The fog that had settled this evening wasn't helping anything, and only furthered to increase my anxiety.

"Where the hell is she?" I heard Lennox ask, pure dread coating his voice, sending the hair at the back of my head ramrod straight in tension.

I ignored him and his stupid, futile question which did nothing just highlight the hopelessness of this situation as I tried to search inside the car to see if she had left her phone in there somewhere. When I couldn't find it, I got on my knees and searched underneath her car, suddenly seeing her phone lying by one of the wheels, cracked and forgotten, I picked it up whilst standing, clenching the mobile in tight hands as I realised what this meant.

As the others saw what I picked up, a collective tension gripped them as the weight of all the dreaded assumptions settled on their shoulders. The darkening sky mirrored the gloom settling over us, a foreboding reflection of Darcy's predicament.

I'd initially placed a tracker on her phone so she could lead me to her father, but now, I was grateful for it, though for reasons I couldn't fully articulate. I wasn't sure what was happening but what I felt for her was morphing into something different, something more protective and that urge to shield her almost felt inevitable, once I started uncovering her mysteries.

However, despite uncovering so much, there were still so many unknowns surrounding her. She was young but she had so many people out to get her, making it impossible to pinpoint the specific threat. She was in danger and yet, we were utterly helpless in this moment and it felt like there was nothing we could do to help her. The phone in my hand felt heavy, a reminder of our only lead, and now a lost one at that.

Tracking her phone had given us an answer, but offered no solution, no Darcy. Hopelessness bled in my veins, leaving me numb to the harsh breeze of the ending day and the conversation starting up beside me. I forced myself to remain calm, to appear unaffected by this growing dread.

My thoughts fixated on her: those big, piercing green eyes, always calculating, insightful, and intelligent. Her dark hair framed a face of delicate but fierce beauty, her lips full, her head always held high and proud. But her strength, her stubbornness, kindness, uniqueness and utter disregard for the people who I had pitted her against.

Something had irrevocably changed between us since that night when I confessed my darkest secret. I felt a strange lightness after that confession, perhaps even a connection between the two of us and since then, our paths had veered onto a new, uncertain course. It was down to learning more about her, realising that she was nothing like her father, that his darkness had no place within her. She was the opposite to him - so pure, so kind, so light and yet, I had treated her as if she was anything but. Still, I couldn't change the past, but I was determined to rectify my mistakes and make sure that she would not get hurt by anything again, me included. I thought it might've been the guilt that made me want to protect her, but there was a nagging suspicion that there was more to my feelings for her than something so simple.