Fifteen Minutes into Myrtle

"Turns out there's a limit to how much you can carry before you just stop walking and start crying in the rain like a complete disaster."

For fifteen relentless minutes, I marched along the trail, my footsteps resolute against the soft earth that had transformed into a treacherous mixture of mud and decomposing leaves. The rain continued its assault with Tasmanian determination—not the gentle patter of subtropical showers but the aggressive, sideways-driven deluge that seemed intent on stripping flesh from bone if you stood still long enough.

I hardly noticed the physical discomfort anymore. My body had moved beyond cold into that strange numbness that comes from extended exposure to miserable conditions, where individual sensations blur into a generalised state of "utterly wretched" that somehow becomes easier to ignore than specific complaints about wet socks or water running down your spine.

What I couldn't ignore—what consumed every available processing cycle in my brain—was the whirlwind of emotions spinning in my head with gathering velocity. Anger dominated, hot and righteous, flaring with each memory of Karl's hand gripping my arm, pulling me back like I was property rather than a partner. That was twice now. Twice he'd crossed that line into physical aggression that had no place between colleagues, between people who were supposed to trust each other implicitly.

But beneath the anger sat confusion, murky and complicated, making me question my own reactions and judgements. Why hadn't I immediately reported him? Why was I still here, following tracks into the wilderness rather than filing the incident reports that protocol demanded? What did it say about me that I'd covered for yesterday's outbreak and was apparently prepared to overlook today's as well?

And woven through both anger and confusion ran threads of something else—determination, perhaps, or stubbornness, or maybe just that peculiarly self-destructive tendency I'd demonstrated since childhood of doubling down on bad decisions rather than admitting mistakes. I'd started walking into this forest, and some fundamental part of my personality refused to turn back simply because Karl thought I should, because he'd given me an order, because admitting he might be right would feel too much like surrender.

The trail wound deeper into Myrtle Forest proper, the dense canopy overhead providing minimal shelter from the rain but creating an oppressive sense of enclosure. Ancient trees towered on either side—myrtle beeches with their gnarled bark, sassafras with leaves that gleamed wetly in the dim light, the occasional celery-top pine stretching towards a sky I could no longer see. The undergrowth pressed in close, ferns and shrubs creating a green wall that limited visibility to maybe ten metres in any direction.

Somewhere in this wilderness, Gladys Cramer had fled. The footprints I'd found suggested she was heading determinedly into terrain that would rapidly become impassable for anyone without proper equipment. Following them made tactical sense, or at least that's what I'd told myself when I'd started walking. Whether it still made sense after fifteen minutes of trudging through increasingly difficult terrain was a question I wasn't prepared to examine too closely.

For a brief, disorienting moment, I actually forgot what had led me down this path in the first place. The physical act of walking, the focus required to navigate treacherous footing, the overwhelming sensory input of rain and cold and the forest's oppressive presence—all of it combined to create a strange mental fog where the immediate present consumed everything else.

Why am I here again?

The question floated through my consciousness before memory reasserted itself with uncomfortable clarity. The bracelet. Gladys's bracelet with those telling initials. The abandoned car behind the toilet block. The impossible vanishing of vehicles that should have left clear trails. Karl's hand on my arm, stopping me from calling it in with that commanding "no" that brooked no argument.

Karl. Always bloody Karl. The centre around which everything else orbited lately, whether I wanted it that way or not.

"Sarah!" His voice pierced through my reverie, distant but unmistakable.

I consciously chose to ignore it. Kept walking. Put one foot in front of the other with the same determined rhythm I'd maintained for the past quarter-hour. His call was a tether trying to pull me back to reality, to reasonable behaviour, to all the sensible considerations that had somehow become less important than the simple act of forward motion.

Behind me, I heard the hurried footsteps of Karl running after me, his pace urgent, splashing through puddles and sliding slightly on mud but closing the distance between us with determination that matched my own stubborn retreat. The sounds grew louder—closer—until I knew he was perhaps only a few metres behind.

"Sarah, stop it! This is madness," he yelled, his voice laced with desperation that cut through the rain's constant percussion. The words carried genuine emotion rather than professional concern, suggesting he wasn't just worried about tactical soundness but about something more personal, more fundamental. "If Gladys is out here, we're never going to find her."

The frustration that had been simmering within me since he'd grabbed my arm—hell, since yesterday when his hand had connected with my chest—boiled over with sudden, explosive force. I whirled around to face him, mud sucking at my boots as I pivoted, rain streaming down my face in rivulets that probably made me look half-drowned and entirely unhinged.

"Why won't we find her?" I snapped back, my voice a sharp edge. The question carried accusation along with genuine inquiry—was he doubting my instincts? My capabilities? Or was this about something else entirely, some reason he wanted me to abandon this pursuit that had nothing to do with tactical considerations?

Karl looked at me, and his expression shifted to one of deep concern that seemed to encompass more than just the immediate situation. He wasn't looking at his partner who'd made a questionable tactical decision. He was looking at someone whose judgement he questioned, whose state of mind worried him, whose wellbeing he felt responsible for even when that responsibility clearly caused him discomfort.

"There's too much forest, and it's raining, wet and muddy. We're just two people out here," he reasoned, his hands reaching out to gently turn me towards him, an attempt to ground me in the present reality rather than whatever internal storm was driving me deeper into wilderness. His touch was careful this time—no aggressive grabbing, no commanding force, just gentle pressure meant to focus my attention.

The contrast with his earlier grip was stark enough to be almost disorienting. Which Karl is this? The controlling one who grabbed and commanded? Or the concerned partner who touched gently and spoke with worry rather than anger?

As his eyes met mine—really met them, with the kind of direct eye contact we'd been avoiding all day—something inside me that had been held together by sheer willpower and professional training suddenly cracked. The dam of emotions I'd been holding back with increasing difficulty broke completely, catastrophically, washing away every last defence I'd constructed.

Tears came unbidden and unstoppable, rolling down my face and mixing with the rain already streaming down my cheeks. Each one felt like a silent testament to the stress and confusion I'd been carrying, the accumulated weight of impossible situations and compromised positions and feelings that had no place in a professional partnership but persisted anyway.

I couldn't have stopped them if I'd tried. And I didn't try. Some fundamental exhaustion had overtaken my usual compulsion to maintain composure, to project capability, to never show weakness that others might exploit. I just stood there in the rain, crying, while Karl watched with growing concern that mirrored the chaotic turmoil I felt inside.

Karl's face grew even more concerned, his expression transforming from tactical frustration to something softer, more human, more genuinely worried. He wasn't seeing Detective Constable Sarah Lahey anymore. He was seeing Sarah—just Sarah—falling apart in the middle of the wilderness during a thunderstorm because everything had become too much to carry alone any longer.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice now a soft, caring whisper amidst the chaos of my emotions and the forest's continued assault. The question hung in the air between us, echoing the confusion and pain I felt inside, asking for explanations I wasn't sure I could articulate even to myself.

The forest around us seemed to hold its breath in that moment. The rain actually paused—or perhaps I simply stopped registering its constant presence—in deference to the raw vulnerability of what was unfolding between us. Time stretched, became elastic, made seconds feel like hours as I stood there whilst Karl waited for an answer I didn't know how to give.

What's wrong? Everything. Nothing. All of it. The case that made no sense. The violence he'd shown. The feelings I couldn't control. The fear that I was compromising everything I'd worked for. The terror that I'd fallen in love with someone who couldn't love me back, not properly, not in ways that were healthy rather than destructive.

How could I possibly explain that in words that wouldn't shatter whatever fragile connection still existed between us?

"Nothing," I replied hastily, the word slipping out more as a reflex than a true response. It was what you said when someone asked if you were okay and admitting the truth would require more energy than you possessed, when the real answer was too complicated to voice, when you suspected that honesty might break something that couldn't be repaired once broken.

My hands moved quickly, almost automatically, the back of my sleeves serving as an impromptu wipe for my tear-streaked face. The gesture was futile—within seconds, more rain had replaced what I'd wiped away—but it gave me something to do with my hands, some small action that felt like regaining control even when control was clearly an illusion.

The silence stretched between us, filled with everything unsaid, heavy with implications neither of us wanted to examine too closely.

Then Karl moved—slowly, carefully, with the kind of deliberation that suggested he was hyper-aware of how his actions might be received after earlier aggression. His hands cupped gently around my face, fingers spreading across my cheeks and jaw, thumbs resting near my ears. The touch was a stark contrast to the earlier roughness when he'd grabbed my arm—tender where that had been forceful, requesting where that had been demanding.

His gaze delved deep into my eyes with an intensity that felt almost invasive, searching for something, trying to understand what words hadn't conveyed. It was a look that seemed to transcend the chaos of our current situation—the impossible case, the bizarre circumstances, the professional boundaries we'd been steadily eroding. His eyes asked questions his mouth hadn't voiced, sought reassurance I didn't know if I could provide, offered something that might have been apology or might have been simply recognition of shared vulnerability.

In that extended moment of eye contact, something passed between us that defied easy description. Understanding, perhaps. Acknowledgment of complexity. Recognition that whatever was happening between us existed in territory neither of us knew how to navigate properly.

Slowly—so slowly it felt almost dreamlike—Karl pulled me in close to his chest. His arms wrapped around me in a tight, protective embrace that felt nothing like the controlling grab from earlier. This was different. This was shelter rather than restraint, comfort rather than command, an offer of stability in the midst of everything spinning out of control.

His chest was solid beneath my cheek, warm despite the rain and cold, rising and falling with steady breaths that provided their own kind of rhythm. I could hear his heartbeat—elevated from the run to catch up with me, strong and insistent beneath muscle and bone and damp shirt.

The embrace was a reassurance without words—a promise that despite the uncertainty and fear and impossibility of everything else, this moment at least was safe, this connection at least was real, this shelter at least was offered freely rather than taken by force.

"Thank you, Karl," I murmured softly. The words felt inadequate for what I wanted to express—gratitude mixed with relief mixed with something deeper that I couldn't quite name—but they were all I had.

I rested my head more fully against his firm chest, letting his physical presence anchor me when everything internal felt like it was drifting without mooring. In that embrace, amidst the relentless downpour that continued drenching us both, we stood in silence that felt more honest than any words could have been.

Slowly, as Karl held me with surprising gentleness, I could feel the tumult of emotions within me start to settle. Not disappear—the anger and confusion and fear were all still there, lurking beneath the surface—but they lost their sharp edges, their immediate urgency. The storm inside me began to match the steady rhythm of Karl's breathing, finding equilibrium in his solidity.

My trust in him, which had been momentarily shaken—repeatedly shaken, if I was being honest—began to return. It wrapped around me as securely as his arms, seeping back into spaces that had felt empty and vulnerable. This was the Karl I knew, the Karl I'd partnered with for months, the Karl who'd earned my confidence through consistent capability and genuine partnership. Not the stranger who grabbed and struck and commanded.

Perhaps they were both real. Perhaps people were complicated enough to contain multitudes—to be both protective and aggressive, both gentle and violent, both trustworthy and dangerous depending on circumstance and moment and internal pressures they struggled to manage.

But with the return of trust came something else, something new and unsettling that crept in and took up residence in spaces I hadn't meant to leave vacant. Fear.

It was a strange fear, not of Karl himself but of what I felt about him. A fear of the depth of my own emotions, of how far I'd fallen, of how completely I'd compromised my professional boundaries and probably my career prospects in the process.

For a brief, haunting moment, that fear crystallised into a single terrifying realisation: nothing Karl could do would ever change how I felt about him. No action, no matter how terrible, would ever diminish whatever this was that had grown between us—this complicated tangle of love and desire and dependency that had thoroughly bypassed all my rational defences.

The realisation was as frightening as it was profound, a testament to the depth of feelings that seemed to defy logic and reason and self-preservation instinct. I'd somehow fallen in love with Karl Jenkins. And that love—if that's what this was—had become powerful enough to overwhelm judgement, to compromise values, to make me complicit in behaviour I would never have tolerated from anyone else.

In that moment, held close in Karl's embrace whilst rain continued its assault and the forest pressed in around us with indifferent density, I was acutely aware of my own vulnerability. Not physical vulnerability—though standing in wilderness during a storm certainly qualified—but emotional vulnerability that went far deeper than anything bodily harm could touch.

The fear settled into my chest alongside all the other complicated emotions, adding one more layer to the impossible tangle I'd created. A reminder that love could be as frightening as it was profound, as destructive as it was compelling, as dangerous as it was impossible to resist.

Karl's arms remained wrapped around me, offering shelter that felt simultaneously safe and treacherous, comforting and compromising, exactly what I needed and, perhaps, precisely what I should have avoided.