Chapter 30
Alec
After thirty-eight miles, I spot deep tire-tracks in the mud on a brush-covered side road. I tap Tye’s shoulder, and he slows the van to a stop, then turns to face me.
“Do you think those tracks were made by the van?” I motion to the deep ruts in the earth.
Tye licks his lips and studies the markings, then nods. “They sure look like it to me.”
The van isn’t light. Even when it’s mostly empty, it weighs more than the average car or SUV. It’s either this fucking van or a truck, but it’s the best lead we have. Tye backs up a bit and turns down the side road, and the van bumps along the uneven ground.
We follow the tracks until they end in a circle. This must have been where Stacks stopped and dumped her out. If we even have the right forest. Tye turns off the van, and we hop out to begin our search.
“Tegan!” I yell into the night air. Insects and frogs respond, but there’s no sign of her.
Much to my frustration, the mud isn’t soft enough to take up footprints.
Off to the side, there’s too much grass and debris, so tracking is doubly difficult when we don’t have this sort of experience.
Tye and I are street-smart city kids. We could track her in an urban setting just fine, but the wilderness is another story.
“What do we do, Alec?” Tye asks as he rounds the van and comes up behind me.
“I don’t fucking know.” I sigh. “I don’t know where she could be if she’s not here.”
Hopeless desperation takes over me. I haven’t experienced this helpless feeling since I was a child, and I put a lot of effort into never feeling this way again. Part of that protection meant never getting too close to anyone. Tegan changed that. She got close to me without even trying.
We have to find her. This is all my fault, and I should have protected her. I have to make this right.
Tye shoves his hands into his pockets and looks around. “Maybe she—”
“Shh . . .” I hold up my hand and listen. “Do you hear that?”
Tye closes his eyes and listens, then shakes his head. “Hear what? Chirping frogs and wind?”
“The sound of water.”
“I don’t hear any water. Just all these goddamn bugs buzzing around.” He smacks his arm and kills the biggest mosquito I’ve ever seen.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking or sad, pathetic hope, but I swear I heard running water. The sound was distant, almost mistakable as wind rustling through the trees, but I cling to that sound and listen for it again. Another forest symphony greets my ears.
I’m desperate to hear that water again, and I strain until it feels like my ears will bleed.
If I can pinpoint the sound of water, that’s where we’re most likely to find her.
It sounds insane, considering her irrational distaste for showers and water in general, but Tegan said she used to go to the drainage pipe when she was scared.
If there were ever a time when she would be scared, this is it.
She’d head toward the sound of rushing water.
I close my eyes again and sift through the sounds until I catch that distant roar. It’s so faint that I truly might be imagining it, but it’s all the hope I have. Clinging to it, I open my eyes and face Tye.
“Follow me,” I say.
He doesn’t question me as I rush into the woods. The further we walk, the more certain I am that the water is real, and as we draw closer, Tye hears it too. It sounds like a waterfall.
Tegan’s words replay in my mind. “I love waterfalls.”
Despite my aching legs and the mosquitos driving me absolutely fucking nuts, the sound of that water propels me forward. Tye and I just keep picking up speed until the rushing sound gets loud enough that we know the waterfall is just past this line of trees.
“Do you really think she’s here?” Tye asks, and I hear the lack of confidence in every word.
Hell, I’m not even confident. This is a hunch—pure desperation to find my lost little pup.
“I hope she is,” I say.
The trees grow sparse, then disappear as the waterfall comes into view.
It’s magnificent, and I can see why Tegan took comfort in something so powerful.
Despite the anxiety rocketing through me, the scene calms me.
Water rushes over the rocks, barreling toward a large basin about fifty feet below.
The trees are sparse near the falls, but they thicken and crowd the furthest edge of the lake, blocking most of it from view as it narrows and goes deeper into the forest. I step closer to the edge and scan the rocks beneath the falls.
But I don’t see Tegan.
My eyes scan the edges of the pool beneath the rushing water, but she isn’t there either. Moonlight catches on every dewy blade of grass, every moss-covered rock, but not the girl. She isn’t here.
“Maybe she kept walking,” Tye offers. “I mean . . . I think you were right. She had to have come this way. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If she followed the roads out of the park, we’d have seen her on our way in.”
I stuff my hands into my pockets and peer out at the water. “There could be any number of waterfalls in this park. She could have run to any of them.”
“So what are you saying? We should give up?”
I pin him with a glare. “The fuck? No! I will never give up on her.” I turn back to the water. “Never.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He cups the sides of his mouth and yells her name into the darkness.
I’d join him, but this feels so hopeless. Even if she’s out there, the falls swallow our voices. She’d never hear us calling for her. Despite that, I take a deep breath and shout her name.
But only the roar of the water answers me.