Chapter Twenty #2
"No, just unlikely," he said. "And if it were something airborne, we’d probably still feel it—nausea, headaches, at least some disorientation. But we’re fine. Physically, anyway. Plus, if there was something in the air, wouldn’t the birds or squirrels have been acting weird too? They seemed completely normal."
The sun was setting, and the world around us started to lose contrast. A heavy cloud from the north threatened more rain.
Our hopes of reaching the car before the downpour were dashed.
The air grew cooler, and the first raindrops splattered against us, forcing us to pull on our hoodies and raincoats.
My second pair of shoes was soaked within minutes.
By the time we reached the parking lot, we were both drenched and miserable. Surprisingly, another car, a lone mud-splattered Jeep, was parked on the opposite side of the lot.
"Who the hell hikes in this weather?" I muttered, shivering.
Exhaustion and cold seeped into my bones, numbing my thoughts.
I just craved warmth, dry clothes, and a hot meal, leaving the dark, twisted memories of the woods to unravel like a fraying thread.
We got into the van, shaking off as much water as we could.
As we settled in, our phones sprang to life.
My screen lit up with notifications. Two texts from June: "Are you dead somewhere?
" and "Where the hell are you?" And, of course, a flurry of messages and missed calls from Mitch.
Along with that, there was one missed call from my mother, accompanied by a terse text: "What’s going on? Where are you?"
"Oh shit!" I gasped, realizing that today was the latest date I’d given my mother for my return home.
"What happened?" Nick asked.
My face flushed. The childish "My mom’s gonna kill me!" almost slipped out, but I drew a deep breath and said, "I gotta call my mom." Nick gave a small, understanding smile.
His phone was also overwhelmed with notifications. I let him quickly update Mitch, telling him we were on our way back without going into much detail. He didn’t linger on it and started the car right away.
"Where are you?" my mother demanded, skipping the pleasantries.
"Sorry, Mom. I got held up, and my plans got delayed."
Her tone turned suspicious. "What do you mean, ‘held up’? What’s going on?"
"Something came up."
But she wasn’t having it. "What is it? Is this about that boy? For goodness’ sake, Nellie, are you still trying to find him?"
I glanced at Nick, who remained focused on the road, but I knew he could hear my mother’s loud voice on the phone.
"Can we talk later? I’m driving," I lied.
But she persisted. "Where are you?"
"Bye, Mom!" I hung up and pinched the bridge of my nose.
Nick offered a sympathetic smile. "Sounds like she’s not a fan of Lucas."
I shook my head. "She’s not a fan of me, period. And anyone I care about gets caught in the crossfire."
He chuckled, and the sound eased some of the tension in my chest.
"I bet she loves you and is just worried."
This was true. My mother did love me, but her love was a suffocating shroud, conditional on my conforming to her expectations.
She made me feel guilty for wanting space, for needing my own life, where I could make my own decisions, my own mistakes, and take responsibility for them. I was expected to follow her script.
My right hand twitched toward my left wrist, reaching for the bracelet.
I did it without thinking, a habit that kicked in whenever I was nervous or too tired to think straight.
But my fingers met only bare skin. I blinked, staring at the empty spot like it might reappear if I waited long enough.
It must have fallen off somewhere back in the woods.
I couldn’t feel anything right away, just this strange buzz under my skin.
Another piece of Lucas, gone. Like the closer I got to finding him, the more he slipped away from me.
Mitchell and June were waiting in the hotel room, visibly worried.
"What in tarnation? Where’ve you been?" Mitchell asked the moment we stepped through the door.
"I convinced her to go search the woods with me," said Nick, taking the blame.
I couldn’t bring myself to care about Mitchell’s accusations. The most important thing was that something was off in those woods, and we needed to investigate it further, properly equipped.
In the warmth of the hotel room, the scent of the forest clung to my clothes. I shed my coat and sweater, letting them fall to the floor, my body craving a shower to wash it all away. But duty called, and I settled beside Nick on the couch for the debrief.
Nick, too, carried the musky aroma of wet leaves, moss, tree bark, and damp earth. Yet, on him, the scent was oddly fitting, almost like an extension of his natural presence.
I let Nick recount our grim adventures, beginning with the woods and circling back to the cemetery, where the Reverend had allegedly cleared out Sammy’s hiding place, and worse.
"What about you? Did you find anything?" he asked in the end.
"Just this." June retrieved a wrinkled piece of paper from the coffee table. Nick took it, flipping it over. Under the bold heading "MISSING CHILD," Sammy’s face stared back at us.