Sage stared at the sleeping Bo next to her on the air matress, watching as the rising sun played and danced in his hair. His hand tightened into a fist and he cringed, but relaxed a few moments later. Sage knew she had to get up and get dressed to go to Missoula, but that was pretty difficult to do since Bo had twined one of his legs with one of hers, and had an arm slung over her so she couldn't shift away. Sage had been awake before the sun had even started rising, and occupied herself by playing with his hair.
She listened to the sounds of Cooper snoring on the couch, his face pressed into the pillow to keep the sun from shining on his face. The creaking of the stairs told her that someone was approaching the living room, ready to start the day. She glanced over at the sound in time to see Will headed to the kitchen for his morning coffee.
"Will, would you be ever so kind and help me out of this?" Sage whispered, nudging Bo a little without waking him. "I can't really move."
Chuckling, Will shuffled over to the air mattress, motioning for Sage to raise her head. As she complied, Will lifted Bo's arm, shoving the pillow in between Bo and Sage. Sage began squirming but immediately stopped when she realized Bo still had a leg around one of hers. Slowly, Will unwrapped Bo's leg, gently laying it to rest as Sage scrambled off the mattress. Finally free, she followed Will into the kitchen, the floor freezing her exposed toes, and she sat at the table while Will made himself fresh coffee.
"He had you pinned down pretty well, didn't he?" Will joked, making her a cup of hot chocolate. Sage loved his hot chocolate. Will never used the store bought powder. He took the time to heat up some milk, melt some chocolate and mix the two together.
"Yeah, it's a good thing I didn't have to pee during the night or I never would've been able to make it to the toilet on time," Sage giggled, running a hand through her wild hair. "Then again, maybe I should've peed all over the place just to teach him a lesson. But I don't like sacrificing personal hygiene so that would've been overkill."
Will chuckled, sitting across from Sage at the kitchen table with their drinks. "That boy loves you like there's no other girl in the world. Why won't you give him the slightest chance?"
"Did you not just see how we were laying?" she snapped. "If I wasn't giving him the slightest chance then I wouldn't have slept next to him like that."
"You're toying with him," Will corrected, causing Sage's anger to reignite. "Don't you think I know that when I see it? You acted a certain way with each other back when you two dated. Now you claim to be giving him chances again, but you aren't acting the same, and he's too caught up in winning you back to notice that you aren't even giving him a real chance--"
"Well he doesn't seem to mind it!" Sage interjected, fighting to keep her voice low so she wouldn't be heard into the living room.
"Now he may not. Like I said, he doesn't realize you're only playing with him. But what about another five years from now? Are you going to be cruel enough to keep your little game going for all those years?"
"No," she scoffed. "I plan on being married to someone else and hopefully be starting a family by then. And I'm assuming he'll have moved on and have given up on me."
"You know he's not going to," Will stated, throwing her fear in her face. "Is that what you want? To have him be the idiotic creep that'll try and crash your wedding because he's still hung up on you?"
"Why not? There's one in every wedding," Sage muttered, earning a glare from Will. "He hurt me, Will. I was devastated when he left and you know that. You saw me."
"I did," Will agreed. "But that's no excuse for toying with him like this. Now, I love you, but that boy is my own flesh and blood. If you force me to pick a side, I'm picking his."
"That's not fair!" Sage hissed, unable to believe what he'd just said. "You let him hurt me like that and then keep taking his side just because you're related? That's just handing me the short end of the stick every time!"
"Let me ask you this. Did you even give him a chance to fight for you back then?" Without waiting for an answer, Will continued, "No. You didn't. You told him to end it and leave and every time he came back to see you, you managed to find a reason to get out of town. He told me ahead of time that he was coming, and I didn't bother telling you because if I did, you would've high-tailed it out of here. But in retrospect, maybe I should've told you so you would leave. At least then I wouldn't have to watch you set him up to rip his heart out."
"Then close your eyes! I'd hate to force you to watch!" Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she yanked on her shoes, the hot chocolate long forgotten. Sage stormed out the backdoor, ignoring Will as he called after her. Knowing they'd be able to track her more easily if she took a horse, she simply opted to run into the woods with no clue as to where she was headed.
She muttered incoherent words to herself while the cold nipped at her. She really was an idiot. Nobody walks out into snow in a pair of boots and pajamas. But if Will hadn't made her so angry, then she wouldn't have walked out without dressing with more layers.
Sage kicked a pile of snow out of her way, the impact of it not making her feel any better. The cold had gotten so far to her that it started hurting to walk. She was feeling breezes in places she shouldn't.
"Why is it I'm the victim and everyone takes his side?" Sage shrieked, kicking up a foot of snow. Sage felt as though she needed to beat the snot out of something. Nobody ever understood her. At least they did until Bo came around. "It used to be I was the way I was and everybody excepted that! And then he comes along and suddenly I'm always in the wrong and he's the only one that's important!"
Sage swung her fist around, scraping her knuckles across a nearby tree trunk and tearing some of her skin. She hoped to get lost somewhere in the woods and never be found. She hoped to just disappear and be free from putting up with the rest of the human race.
She hoped to just lay down and die.
The angry tears singed her face as they slid down her cheeks, blazing a hole in the snow below. Farther and farther Sage walked into the woods, and farther and farther the sun crept into the sky. The one time she wanted to die was the one time her stalker hadn't shown.
The tears blurred her vision so she didn't see the tree root snaking up out of the ground that gripped her ankle and tossed her down the ragged hill and into the pile of rocks below. She felt the rocks cut her knees, slice into her hands, and bruise her face. Whimpers of desperation escaped her lips as she struggled to her feet and stumbled on through the woods.
"Fine. Don't want to let me off easy?" Sage muttered, coming to a stop in the center of a meadow blanketed in snow. "I'll do it myself." With that, Sage threw caution to the wind, lied down in the snow, and stared at the sky, waiting to freeze to death.
* * *
"Sage? Sage?" each one of them called out, hands cupped around their mouths to expand the sound of their desperate cries. The snow had started picking up again and none of them had seen her since Will had watched her storm out of the house. They'd gotten the police involved in finding her and even the neighbors but no one had had any luck.
"Where could she have gone?" Liz questioned, tugging her cap down to cover her ears. "This isn't a very big town, and she obviously left on foot."
"You'd think we'd at least find her tracks since she did trudge through the snow," Cooper stated, watching as Bo raked a distressed hand through his hair. "Bo, she couldn't have gone far. She's around here somewhere."
"We can't find her tracks because it's snowed too much since the time she left, and covered up just about any trace of her coming through here," Bo groaned, rubbing his weary eyes. "Will said when she left, she came in towards the direction of the woods. People have scanned those woods time and time again, and nobody has found her."
"Maybe that's because they aren't looking hard enough," Cooper simply stated.
Liz rolled her eyes. "Cooper, I like you, but sometimes you can be so dense. There's only so hard you can look at something before you have to up and decide that there is nothing there and that area is going to be of no use to you. I'm sure a big city-boy like yourself wouldn't have realized that, so I'll forgive the slip this once."
"No, I mean, maybe she unknowingly left a trail, but nobody really knows what to search for," Cooper explained, frazzled with the 'I like you' comment.
"This isn't the first time we've had a missing persons issue," Liz stated dryly. "I think we all pretty much know how this shindig works."
"But is there somewhere or something Sage would've done that nobody is consciously thinking about, therefore, they aren't realize when they're seeing it?" Cooper pressed, causing the rest of the group to stop and stare at him.
"Cooper, I think everybody knows what a body looks like," Liz snorted, tossing his idea aside.
"No, not a body. Just--I don't know--something," Cooper again tried to explain. "Something off, somewhere she would've gone--"
"The meadow," Will breathed, shocked he hadn't thought about it beforehand.
"The what? What meadow?" Liz demanded, glancing at Will in shock.
Will sighed. "You have to climb through a ravine to get to it, unless if you're Sage, in which case you find the easiest, but most dangerous way into the meadow. It involves going down a pretty steep hill and then somehow managing not to slip and break something on the rocks below."
"How come she's never mentioned the meadow before?" Bo asked.
"She only goes there to vent her anger. The place makes her feel like the world is vast and endless and nothing can bring her down. She doesn't want anyone else there," Nick conveyed, his arms holding a very terrified and anxious Kate. "If we're going to find her, that's probably where we should've started."
"Then, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Liz yelled as Will led them in the direction of the meadow. Everyone followed, stumbling over loose rocks and tree roots hidden by snow, getting smacked in the face by tree limbs that popped out of nowhere, and growing chilled to the bone not only from the cold, but from the idea that they could all be too late.
"There's the ravine!" Nick called, pointing to an area on the other side of the woods barely seen through the trees. "That means the hill is around here somewhere."
One of the police dogs howled as he finally picked up a scent, tugging against his leash in the direction the scent led him. Hesitantly, the cop holding the leash trudged through the snow towards the edge of a trail. "I think I found the hill!"
Bo came up beside him, his eyes widening as they fell upon the hill. Obviously someone had been through there. The snow was tainted with the familiar shade of blood. Sage's blood, no doubt.
"Why don't some of us try to go down here and the rest go through the ravine?" Bo asked.
"I'll go," Cooper volunteered, clapping a comforting hand on his best friend's shoulder. "Someone's got to save you when you fall."
"I'll go," Will interjected, smacking Cooper on the back of the head. "Someone's got to keep you from doing a cartwheel down that hill."
Cooper sniffled, mockingly rubbing a fake tear from his face. "You know me so well."
"I guess that means I'm going," Nick concluded. "Someone has to keep you guys from killing each other." He looked back at Kate and Shawna with all the strength and encouragement in the world. "You two lead the rest of the group through the ravine. We will find Sage. She'll be all right."
Both women nodded, and with that the two groups parted ways.
"So, who wants to be the sacrifice?" Cooper joked as the men stood staring down the hill. How any could safely make it down there was beyond any of them.
The dog that had picked up Sage's scent howled again, jerking free of the cop who had a hold on him and leapt halfway down the hill. The men watched as the dog skidded to a stop, shoved his nose into the ground and howled once more to let everyone know he still had the scent. Slowly, he began creeping down the rest of the hill, shifting his weight from each leg and lightly stepping over loose rocks that could cause him to lose his balance. Within minutes, he had made it to the bottom and began searching for her scent again, pausing to wait for the others.
"How is it a dog can do that without fear, and the rest of us are trying to figure out who should go first?" the cop chuckled, scratching his head.
"Well, Bo is in love with her, so he should go first," Cooper stated, gesturing for Bo to take the lead.
"Yeah, but Nick is her father, and as the first man in her life, he needs to go first," Bo countered, passing on the torch.
"Will's the reason she stormed off in the first place," Nick protested.
"But Cooper has absolutely no point of being here, so obviously if anyone is going to get seriously injured it should be him," Will concluded, glancing at Cooper expectantly.
"Wow, you really don't like me do you?" Cooper said, feigning a sniffle.
"You hit on my wife!" Will exclaimed.
"I hit on lots of women!" Cooper snapped, waving away Will's comment.
"Guys!" Bo interjected. "Every second you spend arguing is a second closer to Sage freezing to death. Now who's going first?"
The other men all exchanged glances. "You," they agreed as Cooper stepped forward and shoved Bo hard enough to send him down the hill. Much like the dog, Bo skidded to a stop before he had the chance to crush and tumble down the rocks. He slowly inched forward, careful not to lose his footing. He adjusted his feet as he stepped over the rocks, coming safely down the hill without so much as a scratch. The cop followed his example, then Will, then Nick, leaving Cooper standing at the top by himself.
"Well?" Will called up to him. "You coming or what?"
"I'm contemplating the most awesome way to descend the slope!" Cooper answered.
"It's a hill! Just come down!" Will hollered back, growing irritated.
Cooper backed up so none of the men could see him behind the trees. He took off full speed and leapt up, doing a cartwheel in the air and somehow managing to land neatly on his feet. He crouched down on the ground and came up with his feet in the air so he was doing a hand-stand. He used his hands to walk down the hill without even pausing to check if he was going to slip. He stood up-right after reaching the bottom of the hill and comically took a bow. "That is how you go down a hill."
"I was hoping you'd crack your skull open," Will stated, rapping his fist on Cooper's head.
"Where is she?" Bo asked, turning in a circle, his eyes scanning the meadow. "There's nothing here. Just a pile of snow! She could be dead by now!"
"Calm down," Nick cajoled. "If there's anyone that should be panicking, it's Will. If she is dead..." he stumbled over his words, "then someone is going to have to stop me from killing him."
"She's not dead. Our Rosabelle Sage is made out of tougher stuff than that," Will huffed. "If anything, she's probably developing a nasty case of frost nip." With that he started shuffling through the snow, dragging his legs heavily. "If we all walk through here like this, one of us is bound to trip over her at some point."
"What have we got to lose?" Cooper questioned, copying Will by pummeling through the snow in the opposite direction. Within seconds, he'd tripped and fallen flat on his face in the snow.
"Did you find her?" Bo called out to him.
"No," his muffled voice answered. "Just tripped over a rock."
"City-boys," Will grunted, turning to cover another expanse of ground.
The dog that had picked up her scent shoved his entire face into the snow, walking in random directions instead of in a straight path like the other men. Twice, Cooper and the dog collided and fallen in the snow. And still no sign of Sage.
"Are you sure this is where she would've gone? I feel like if she were here, we'd have found her by now. We've searched every inch of this place!" Bo groaned, raggedly raking a distressed hand through his mussed hair.
"Well, she was here," Nick stated, digging something out of the ground. Bo watched as a simple chain was pulled out of the snow, a glittering coin dancing at the end of it. As Bo observed closer, he was able to depict the design of two hearts surrounded by thorns carved into the silver. On the other side familiar initials had obviously been carefully written to blend in with the intricately carved lilies. "She never goes anywhere without this. Must have fallen out of her clothes."
"I gave that to her," Bo breathed, memories stirring from some deep hidden area in his mind. At the time, he had been about sixteen and she had been fourteen. He'd taken her for a drive around town just to get away from their folks when they wound up around thirty miles outside city limits near an old, abandoned house. Sage, being the fearless girl she was, had immediately jumped out of the vehicle and kicked the front door in so she could enter. Bo had followed closely behind as Sage explored and she even gave him the entire back-story on the decripit house. Apparently, the place dated back to the mid-to-late 1800's. The owner had been a recluse who moved there and built the house after the love of his life died after being run over by a horse. And after the owner had grown old, cold, and gray, he waited out his death by lying in bed. The last movement he had ever made was to try and place the coin that conveyed their love on the stand by his bed. As the two teenagers explored the house, Bo had found the coin--thankfully, there hadn't been a body--and two years later had given it to Sage after confessing his love for her. She had added their initials into the lilies the same day. "I can't believe she kept it all these years."
"I can't believe you actually let that girl get away without a fight," Cooper stated, peeking over Nick's shoulder at the coin. "The thing looks like it belongs down a garbage chute and she still loved it? If you had given it to me, I would've chucked it back at your face and demanded a diamond ring instead."
Will smacked his head again while everyone else ignored him. "Well, where is she?" Cooper snapped as the rest of the crowd emerged, having made it through the ravine.
"She's not here, is she?" Kate whimpered, wiping a stray tear from her face. Shawna wrapped her arms around Kate, saying soothing words that meant mostly nothing to everyone else. "I just want my baby girl back."
"I guess, we can check the house where we found this in the first place," Bo suggested, taking the coin from Nick. The silver felt good and comforting on his skin. "I doubt this is really a clue as to where she went, but it can't hurt to look, can it?"