AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We have to find them.
“Yeah, of course,” I say, still searching everywhere for a sign of our friends or the car, hoping with everything in me to see it waiting on the side of the road, ready to rescue us.
I know it’s no use. The car is gone, and I can only hope it took our friends to safety with it.
“Paulette!” We hear Austin cry from the other side of the woods, his voice loud and echoing. “Logan! Where are you guys?”
“How could the car just leave us? How could they let it?” Mara says, her voice high-pitched and breathy.
“Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they didn’t make it in time. Or maybe they went to get help. They wouldn’t abandon us.” I need her to believe it as much as I need to believe it myself. We traipse through the dark woods, leaves and sticks crunching underfoot as we struggle to make sense of the shadows.
I keep losing my sense of place, forgetting where I am and which way we came from.
Mara stops suddenly, bending forward over her knees and struggling to catch her breath. “Check and see if they made it to the car. If they were picked up. You can check in the app, can’t you?”
“Oh, right.” I should’ve thought of that. If my mind wasn’t racing with fear and the need to find them, maybe I would’ve. Maybe I’d be thinking straight. I pull out my phone and check the app. As soon as it opens, defeat crushes me from the inside. “It shows the ride was canceled by the driver.” My heart rises to my throat. If they didn’t get in the car, where could they be? I don’t want to think about the worst. If the neighbors caught them, they could be in the cellar with Ethan and the Hawthornes soon.
We all could.
“I’ll try to call her again,” Mara says, unlocking her phone screen. “Please, Paulette. Please answer.”
“We need to keep moving,” I warn. “Come on. We can’t just stand around here waiting to get caught. We have no idea where the neighbors are or if they’re coming back.”
“Please, Paulette,” Mara cries, holding the phone out and staring at the screen.
“Mara, come on,” I beg through gritted teeth. Before I can process or make any decisions, I spot a pair of taillights on the road. Somehow, my heart both leaps with hope and freezes with trepidation in the same second.
A car is sitting on the shoulder, idling. A thick cloud of exhaust funnels out of the tailpipe.
“Is that the driver?” Mara whispers. “Could he be waiting for us?”
I swallow. “I don’t know.” I don’t think so, but I don’t want to quash her hope, even if it only lasts a second longer.
With careful, quiet steps, we cross the woods, making our way closer to the road. When we’re nearly there, I freeze, holding out a hand in front of her.
“It’s the neighbors.” I grab her arm and pull her backward, nearly tripping in my hurry to get away. I grab hold of a tree to stop myself from falling.
“Are you okay?” she cries, holding my arms with both of her hands.
“I’m—”
“I know you’re out there…” The man’s voice is closer than I expected, calling toward us from the edge of the treeline.
“Hide,” I warn her, trying to pull us farther into the trees, but it’s too late.
“I see you there, kids. I can hear you, too. Come on out.”
I grab her hand, my feet pounding the soggy ground and wet leaves as we barrel through the woods, no longer caring about being seen or heard.
My lungs burn, and in the distance, I hear a car door shut. I have to warn Memphis and Austin. We have to find them.
What if he found Paulette and Logan? What if he got to them before we could and…
I can’t allow myself to weigh the possibilities. They’re just too heavy.
We make it to the road and head back toward the side of woods where the boys disappeared just as the car turns down our street, following us. He stops just before the tree as if he knew it was there. As if he chopped it down himself. I realize then, for the first time, that maybe he did.
The driver’s door opens, and the man from next door steps out, staring directly into the trees where we’re standing. “There you are. Didn’t you hear me calling for you back there?”
