cruel summer. [ rini au ]

chapter twenty.

The rain was colder when Nini woke up. It ran in rivers down her arms, soaking into the fabric of the sweater covering Sofia. Her muscles ached as she tried to stretch without waking the little girl but Sofia stirred and raised her head.

"Where are they?" she asked, laying her head on Nini's chest. Nini shivered, fumbling at her wrist to read the time on her watch. The numbers looked blurry but she could see it was after midnight.

"I don't know, but I'm sure they're close. We can't move or they might miss us." Nini told her. "We just have to wait."

"Your hands are cold," the little girl pointed out and Nini gave her a weak smile.

"They're always cold," Nini reminded her.

"Ricky says you have icebergs in your blood," she replied, not seeing the pain through Nini's eyes.

"Yeah," she responded. "He does, doesn't he?"

They were quiet as Sofia closed her eyes, trying to go back to sleep. Curling an arm around her, Nini tried to focus on something other than her senses.

She wished Ricky was with her. She knew everything would be okay if she could just hear him say so. He was always so confident and self assured. She wished the last couple days had been different and instead of spending them lost in thought and defensive against his intentions, she had let him hold her a few seconds longer and kissed her a little harder. She wished this was some fairy tale where the princess was rescued by the knight before anything bad happened, but she knew that wasn't the case.

Swallowing a sob, she choked on her attempts to hide her emotions and began coughing. Leaning against the tree for support, she closed her eyes and tried to calm her breath. Princess or not, rescued or not, she needed to see Ricky to tell him her doubts were all wrong and she trusted him in everything. Clinging to the memory of them in the park on Friday afternoon, Nini told herself that to give in would mean letting him down and she was done enough of that in the past few days to let it happen again.

She just needed to find enough energy to do it.

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Ricky sat on the steps of Nini's empty cabin and watched as the park rangers and Dave discussed the search areas and the current weather. The rain had petered off into a heavy drizzle but the wind was still there, swinging the tree branches.

The counsellors had rearranged the cabins so the four girls from Nini's cabin could bunk in Charlotte's cabin while Hunter and Cam had split Ricky's campers and added them to their own groups. Ady was asleep in the first aid cabin and her parents as well as Sofia's parents had been notified and were on their way. Somehow, although Ricky wasn't sure when it happened, Dave arranged a schedule so that the counsellors could have a turn to sleep but also take turns watching Ricky to make sure he didn't run into the woods to find Nini himself. He threatened to do it each time a ranger team came back without any success.

Ricky glanced up, seeing Madi offer him a blanket. She ended up draping it over his shoulders, also handing him a mug of hot chocolate.

"You don't need to make yourself suffer just because you know she's cold," the girl told him softly, sitting beside him.

"I heard you taking to her the other day," Ricky said quietly. "You were in the theatre and I was going to go talk to her but she was venting to you instead and I couldn't help but listen and try to figure out why she was pushing me away."

"It wasn't you," Madi insisted.

"I know. You guys have spent all summer watching us go from two people who couldn't be in the same room, to best friends. She knows me as much or even more than E.J. does and I'm not even sure she realizes it. There is so much history before this summer that I don't blame her for having doubts. Two months isn't going to erase that." He told her, setting his mug down. "I just need to tell her that. I need her to know that I understand we need to keep working on thing and that there are still things we don't know about each other."

"She told me you're the strong one," Madi mentioned. "She told me that even though you're always on her case for never giving in, you're the one who would continue fighting as long as you had a reason to. She admires you for that. For the passion you pour into everything."

"She's got it wrong," Ricky said. "I fight for her. I fight with her and I fight with other people about her, but it's been her for a while and I just never understood why."

"If you know anything about Nini, it's that wherever she is, she's clinging to whatever reminds her of you." Madi told him, lapsing into silence as Ricky watched Dave.

The camp manager had a radio to his ear as he brought up his marker to pinpoint an area on the map. Standing, Ricky let the blanket fall as his long legs covered the distance between him and the map.

"What did they find?" he asked and Dave turned around.

"A blue baseball cap that Emma remembers Sofia wearing when she left. It was at the base of this incline here," Dave told him, indicating the spot. "They think that Sofia must have assumed everything uphill led to camp, so they are climbing the hill."

"How long will it take?"

"An hour at most. It's rainy and muddy, but considering an eight-year-old climbed it, it shouldn't be too difficult."

Ricky didn't know what to say without letting too much emotion show. He didn't want another lecture on how it could just lead to another route or possibility. All he had left was hope that all the things about the last several hours that didn't make any sense, had finally led to something substantial. Something that would bring his girl back.