Cursing under my breath I shoved the note into my pocket and pulled the glove back on, squinting into the woods behind the gated yard. I knew it must be pitch-black under the cover of the thick trees, but what could I do? I wasn’t about to go back to ask the bad guys for a flashlight. Right now, all that mattered was finding Noelle. If she was out there, alone in the woods somewhere, she was probably terrified and about to freeze to death. There was nothing to do but go forward.
I unlatched the gate and pulled it toward me. It let out a squeal roughly the same decibel level as a sonic boom. Behind me, I heard a shout. That was when I started to run. I raced across the small space of snow between the fence and the woods and dove under the low branches crossing over the path, my foot slipping out behind me in the wet snow. My breath already came in ragged gasps, as if I had sprinted a mile in ten seconds. One glance over my shoulder told me no one was gaining on me, no one was on my tail. But then I saw the footprint I had left in the snow and realized it would only be a matter of minutes. In this terrain, they could track me anywhere. Besides, they probably knew where I was headed anyway. My only hope was to get them off my tail. To confuse them long enough that they’d give up—long enough that they’d leave me out here alone to do what I had to do.
Don’t veer off the path.
So much for that. This was a matter of survival. Mine and Noelle’s. I took an abrupt turn, and dove into the trees. Shoving aside branches and jumping over a fallen log, I tried to keep my bearings. If I could keep a straight line and remain perpendicular to the original path, then I’d be able to find my way back. I had to get to my hands and knees to crawl under the low-hanging bows of an evergreen, and when I stood up again, muddy pine needles clung to the legs of my jeans. At least Gruff’s gloves were vinyl and waterproof. Nothing could touch my fingers in those. After what felt like an hour of jogging, jumping, ducking, and the occasional scratch to the face, I glimpsed a huge oak tree looming up into the sky. The perfect hiding spot. I ducked behind it, took a deep breath, and attempted to calm my wildly beating heart. I tried my best to listen.
There was nothing. Wind swirled through the bare branches overhead, but other than that, silence. Had I just imagined that shout? Or had I gotten so far away from the path that I couldn’t even hear them coming after me?
I tugged my phone out of my pocket, cupped my fingers around it just in case, and hit the screen to light it up. The time read 9:46. And the battery indicator was seriously low. Perfect. That’s what you get for leaving your phone on twenty-four-seven waiting for psycho kidnappers to text. For a split second I thought about calling Josh. Thought about telling him everything and having him call in the cavalry. But the original instructions still applied. Tell anyone and she dies. I was on my own. I shoved aside my frustration and I told myself I would give it five minutes. Wait until 9:51. Then I would start back for the path.
Those five minutes dragged on for days. The longer I stood still, the more alone I felt, the more scared, the more frozen. I had to get moving. I took my first step the moment the clock ticked over.
Okay. All I had to do was retrace my steps. No problem whatsoever. Just keep to a straight line and I’d find myself back on the beaten path. Then all I had to do was hook a right and the path would take me to this shed, which would lead me to Noelle. I turned my phone on to the flashlight app to help guide my way.
I stepped over a thick branch I remembered vaulting over moments ago, then shuffled through a pile of wet, fallen leaves. Soon I was passing through a semi-familiar clearing. But then I paused. That evergreen I had ducked under … hadn’t it been right on the periphery of this clearing? Dead ahead, all I saw were white birches and elms. Not an evergreen among them.
Instantly, my heart started to panic. I turned around, looking for the evergreen. And there it was, just to my right. I took a deep breath and blew it out. I must have just gotten confused in the dark. No worries. Now I was back on the right track. This time, I walked around the tree, not feeling so daredevilish now that I wasn’t being chased, and continued on my way.
It took about five minutes for me to figure out it was the wrong way. Because I hadn’t jumped the little stream I was now standing beside. And I was sure I hadn’t come down that small hill on the other side.
Okay, Reed. Don’t panic. Do not panic. Just go back to the clearing and see if there are any other evergreens. Maybe you picked the wrong one.
But when I turned around again and retraced my steps. I couldn’t even find the clearing. It was right there a second ago. Right there. And it wasn’t small. How could I have lost an entire clearing in the space of five minutes?
Now my pulse really started to pound. I was lost. Plain and simple. Noelle was out there somewhere, counting on me, and I’d gotten myself completely lost. All I’d had to do was stay on the path. Stay on the damn path. And I would have found the shed by now. I could have outrun Gruff and Cheese Breath and Zit Lady. And if I had, I could have gotten the next instructions, found Noelle, and the two of us could have hidden in the woods together until the coast was clear.
“So stupid,” I whispered to myself, turning in a circle. “So, so stupid!”
Why didn’t I ever stop to think? Why did I have to make such rash decisions? This was a life or death situation I was in here. And I just jumped off the path? Who did I think I was anyway, some Survivor star?
“Okay, wait,” I said to myself, stopping my crazy, dizzying circle. “This is not the end of the world. You survived days alone on an island, you can survive this.”
Of course, there was a difference. At least on the island it had been warm. If I spent another hour out here I was going to freeze to death.
Then, suddenly, my phone vibrated in my hand. My heart leapt into my throat. There was one more difference. Here, I had my phone.
The vibration was a text from Portia asking where the hell I was. I yanked off my gloves and started to text back, but then paused. What was I going to say? That I was lost somewhere in Soldier Woods and to please come find me? Telling her that would mean Noelle’s death. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I looked down at the half-written text and was about to just finish it. Let her read it and call the cops. Maybe they could get here before the kidnappers figured it all out and hurt Noelle. I couldn’t do this alone anymore. I didn’t even know where I was. But then, the screen suddenly went blank.
“No,” I said, hitting the screen over and over again. “No, no, no!”
Shouting, of course, wasn’t going to do anything. The battery had died. And now I really was on my own. I stuffed the useless tech into my back pocket and told myself this was not the end of the world. Just pretty damn close.
My stomach grumbled audibly and I suddenly wished I had eaten more of that biscotti Tiffany had offered me back at the solarium. A stiff wind rattled the trees around me and I flipped up the collar of my coat, cuddling down into its warmth. It was time for me to find some kind of shelter. Someplace at least a little bit out of the elements where I could stop and think. Figure out what I was going to do next.
I kept walking in the general direction of the clearing—or at least where I thought the clearing would be—and came upon a little circle of evergreens. I stooped down to see between their trunks. Inside the circle was a bed of fallen needles, all dead and brown, and they appeared to be dry, as though the crisscrossed netting of branches above had protected them from the snow and rain. Turning to the side, I shimmied my way through the space between two trunks and sat down. I waited for wetness to seep through my jeans, but my butt stayed miraculously dry. It was far warmer inside as well, shielded as I was from the wind. I curled my dirty wet knees up under my chin, held my legs to me, and took a deep breath.
Okay, Reed. Just think, I told myself, listening to the wind above and the rhythmic creak of the branches as they swayed back and forth. Just think. There has to be a way out of here. There just has to be.
I woke up with a start and cried out in pain. My face was on fire. I yanked it away from the cold bark on which it was resting and winced as my delicate skin tore. Ripping off one glove, I reached up to touch my face. It was all mottled and dented and raw. When I pulled my hand back, there was blood on my fingertips. I had fallen asleep with my face pressed into the trunk of a tree, and now I was bleeding.
I had fallen asleep.
“Sonofa—”
I jumped up and smacked my head into a branch. At least it was a soft, bendy one and not one of the hard thick ones. But still, I momentarily saw stars. Sitting down again to take a breath and get my bearings, I heard something crinkle. There was a stark, white envelope sticking out from under my butt. It practically glowed in the dark.