Sacrificing Sloan (Sloan Series Book 3) (14 page)

“True.” Ray bit his lip so hard it looked like it might bleed. “Okay, we have two choices of trails to search.”

“We searched the road last night. Didn’t see anything.”

“Yeah, but that was at night,” Ray began to pace and scratch his stubble that I’d never seen him with. It made him look older, even older than his brother. “We might have missed something.”

“Same for Mackenzie. It was at night. And now she’s sick.”

“Okay…” Ray stopped pacing and ran his fingers though his hair. That didn’t seem to do the trick, so he tilted his head back and popped his neck. I cringed. The worst sound in the world. “How about this? You take Mackenzie to your car and take her to the hospital. I’ll go the other way to get her car and look for them.”

I sort of cringed. I guessed it was time to tell him. “Um… my car’s stuck in the mud.”

He took it about like I figured he’d take it… “Your… what?”

I explained and how my tires got stuck in the mud. And how I couldn’t get them out but he was disappearing down the road, so I had to go and all that…

He stopped me before I finished and just sort of rolled his eyes. Yeah… I felt the same way.

A little help here, God.

Ray sucked in an incredibly long deep breath. “Okay… I’ll take Mackenzie to her car and look for Aaron that way. Chances are, that’s the direction they went, since we really didn’t see any sign of them last night.

“Rain could have washed away their tracks.”

“Or we are just really bad trackers.” He said, which probably was the right answer.

“Whatever, we need to get Mackenzie out…”

“I’m fine.” Which was the first thing she’d said in about an hour.

Ray’s entire body language completely changed. He scooted back beside her and put his arms around her shoulders. “Sweetie, listen to me. You are far from fine. Having the flu out in this weather is not a good thing.” He put his hand on her forehead, and she leaned into it like it was the greatest feeling in the world. “You are burning up.”

“I’m freezing.” She snuggled closer to him, and he looked at me like we needed help, asap.

“Okay. Do you have cell service here?”

“I don’t even have my phone.”

“I do…” I pulled it out from my jacket pocket and got it out of the little plastic bag, praying that it protected it from all that water. Sure enough it lit up, but I didn’t have any bars. “But I have no service. I had service at my car.” I’d used it to text Detective Morgan. I didn’t have any messages from her. Could be because I was out of cell phone range. In all those TV shows that take place in the woods, their cell phones always work. In real life—in my life—they don’t.

“How about this? I’ll take Mackenzie back to her car. We will look for Aaron. If I don’t find him, I’ll take her to the hospital. You go back to your car and call for help. Tell them to meet us somewhere or to be expecting us… or just call the police and tell them about this cabin. That’s a better idea! Tell them about the cabin, and tell them to come search the area.

“I texted Detective Morgan that, but I don’t know if she got it.”

“This time call. Make sure they’ve got it, okay?”

“Okay. You two be careful! I don’t want to have to go searching for you, too.” I tried to make light of it, but I didn’t feel it. Ray and Mackenzie were going off in the wild blue yonder, but at least they would be together. I’d be all alone hiking in the middle of the woods. I prayed so hard that I’d be alright.

“You too. You sure you’ll be okay by yourself?” That was the Ray I knew and loved. The one who was so concerned about me. The one who was my friend.

“I’ll be fine. We have a long time before the sun goes down. I should make it to my car in plenty of time.” I hoped so, anyway. I couldn’t show being afraid because Ray might change his mind, and he couldn’t do that. It was a good plan. A plan that made sense, giving their circumstances, and I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t handle it.

He tilted his head as he looked at me like he was trying to figure out if I was lying. I was. I totally was. He couldn’t know. “Let’s go. Time’s a’wastin.’ We still gotta get across the creek,” he said.

“Yeah… fun times ahead.” He mumbled, as he helped Mackenzie out of the bench. Her legs gave way when she stood, and he grabbed her.

“I’ll do better on the walk back. I promise.”

He smiled at her and placed his lips to her hair. “I’ve got you. Don’t you worry about a thing. Except there is one thing I don’t understand. Why did you come all the way out here?”

“Because I love you.” She answered, her eyes half open.

Ray’s posture stiffened, and he automatically turned in my direction. “Must be the fever.”

“I don’t think so.” I smiled, and left the cabin. Sometimes fevers brought out a person’s true feelings. And sometimes, they brought out a person’s worst nightmares.

One of my nightmares was drowning, and here I was having to go across this creek again.

I steadied my shoulders, prayed for strength, and took the first step before I had time to change my mind. When I made it to the other side, I wanted to kiss the ground.

We had a plan. A good plan. We’d get help. People would come and look for Aaron. Everything would be okay.

As I watched Ray and Mackenzie disappear down the opposite trail from me, her leaning on him, his hand wrapped around her waist, I felt so lonely. I needed Aaron. Until I found him, nothing would be okay again.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Aaron

Time: Unknown

W
E HAD TO GO… WE HAD
… to go… before the sun went down. I could have left him, but what good would that have done me? I’d just have slid to the stupid trail again. No, the sad truth was that I needed Boyd, and I needed him to get off his butt and get us up the road.

I’m not a hard-hearted person. I felt horrible for Boyd and even, in my own small way, mourned for Mr. Lawrence, but the dead are gone, just gone. And no amount of rubbing their hair or rubbing their knuckles or begging God to bring them back will help.

Boyd would have to accept that.

He would have to move on and get us out of there because I sure didn’t want to end up like his father.

“Boyd…” I tried my best to keep my compassionate self toward the surface and shove what I really wanted to say down deep in my soul. “We need to go, man. We have to. The sun is going down. We don’t have much time.” Okay, so it was a bit of a lie. It was probably midmorning, so we had a few hours before the sun went down—not like Boyd knew that.

“I’m not leaving him.” His voice was far away again. I needed him here, here with me.

I had never felt so helpless in my life, and that was saying a lot. I liked to think that I had a lot of control in the things that happened in life, but I didn’t. Not really. I guess about as much as anyone else.

If I could have run, I would have. I would have just left him there with his father because—I got it—I got how bad he felt and how much he didn’t want to leave.

The problem was I couldn’t run. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t do anything without Boyd, and that was killing me.

I had to look very deep within my soul to try to keep my compassionate tone because, really, I just wanted to smack him upside the head and make him go. “Boyd.” I gritted through my teeth. “Boyd… we have to go. I know you feel bad about your dad…”

“You don’t know anything.” He yelled back. I took it as a good sign. If he was mad, then he was with me and not in some faraway land missing his father. Well, he still missed his father, but he was with me. I could work with that.

“I know you loved your father. I can understand that. He was a good man.”

“He died trying to get us help.” Boyd doubled over, and I thought he’d be sick. He couldn’t, though. Boyd had to focus because I didn’t know what time it was, but I was pretty sure we couldn’t stay out there and wait much longer. I had no idea how far the road was from us, but I bet it was longer than a few hours hike. We didn’t have time to waste, and Boyd falling apart on me wasn’t helping.

Calm… I had to stay calm. “Look, I know that, Boyd. I know he died for us. But don’t let his death be in vain. Don’t let everything he did be for nothing.”

He didn’t look at me, but I could tell his breathing was getting less erratic.

“Please, Boyd.”

Nothing.

“Please… If we don’t go, we will die out here. There is no denying that. We can’t survive another night… I can’t survive another night. So I am begging you… I am pleading with you…”

Then I had a thought. Not my best thought in the world, really, but it was a thought that I knew had to happen, for Boyd to help me. Sloan would hate me for it—if she ever found out, but what if I made it, where she never would?

Surviving sometimes took sacrifice, and that was what I would have to do there. It wasn’t that I wanted to do it. It wasn’t that I enjoyed it. It was because I had no choice. No choice at all.

“I’ll let you go free.”

As expected, that got Boyd’s attention. His head shot up in my general direction, though the direction of his gaze was a tad to the right. “Let me go free?”

I nodded… felt like a buffoon… and went on. “Yeah. Look. You want out of here, but you know that when you get back, you will go—and rightfully so—to jail. You don’t want that to happen. I need help getting out of here. There is no way I can make it without you. So… If you get up off your butt right now and help me get back to the main road, I’ll let you go free. We will stop the first car we get to, and I’ll tell them to take you in the opposite direction. Take you far away. I’ll wait for the second one and have it take me back to Chapel Hill.”

“Like I’m supposed to believe you? You’ll turn me in the first chance you get.”

It would be tempting… I took a very deep breath and tried my hardest to get through to the man. “I’m not a liar, Boyd. I never have been. When I give someone my word, I mean it. I’m giving you my word. I’ll tell the police that when we got to the top of the road, you hit me and knocked me out. When I woke up, you were gone.”

He looked skeptical. He had good reason. “And you are going to let me punch you?”

“If I have to.” Though it wouldn’t be fun. “Just come with me. Please. Come with me. Let’s get out of here.”

Boyd took a second to weigh his options, not like he had many. To stay with his father would mean to die too. To go with me, at least he had a chance. Even if that chance involved prison time, if he ever got caught. I hoped that thought didn’t cross his mind because I needed him to focus on the good and the positive. He needed to think about all the good things that would come out of leaving here. Because, truth be told, I was only using him. If it wasn’t for my leg, I wouldn’t have cared less if he stayed out there with his father and died.

Finally, after I wanted to crawl over there and shake him, Boyd got up on his feet and bit his lip. “You promise. You won’t tell the cops anything.”

“Not a thing. Just like I said. I’ll tell them you decked me and took off. Look, I won’t even tell them you are blind. No one has to know. You can start over.”

Boyd took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

I had him.

“It is what your father would have wanted.”

Just like that… JUST like that… Boyd’s expression turned dark, and I knew I’d said too much.
I was an idiot.

“You have no idea what my father would have wanted.”

I was an idiot.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Sloan

Time: Unknown

T
HIS WAS TAKING FOREVER…. FOR… EV….ER.

I kept slipping in the mud, so I’d go ten feet only to slide back down three or four. I was getting nowhere fast. All I could do was push on, though. Push on and hope that the police would get there soon.

I’d sent Detective Morgan a text and told her our location. But Ray had taken my cell with him and Mackenzie to see if they could get a signal when they got to her car at the falls.

However, Detective Morgan should be coming to me. She, or someone, should be coming to the formerly dirt—now thorn in my side—road and taking me back to Chapel Hill. Or at the very least, searching for Aaron and Boyd.

We’d found evidence of them.

Great.

Now we just needed to actually find them.

My ankle twisted as I slipped for the millionth time, and I held in a scream. It would have felt good to actually truly and loudly scream, though because I was sick of this mess! I wanted out of there! I wanted Aaron. I wanted this to all be over. Frankly, it hadn’t stopped. For the past five months, everything had gone wrong, thanks to Boyd—well, according to him, it was because I’d gotten saved and “changed.”

Good.

I was glad I’d changed. I didn’t like the person I was before. Didn’t like her at all. I was happy to change. Boyd wasn’t—not that I tried to get him to change, too. I sort of liked him back then—sort of.

I had to laugh. If I’d never gotten saved. If I’d never gone to church with Donna and if I’d never ever given my heart to the Lord, I never would have been in this situation. I would be home—probably with Boyd—smoking and drinking after a day full of sex. Now… not saying that all people who aren’t saved do that all day. Some of the nicest people I know aren’t Christians, but back in my “wilder” days, that’s what
I
would have done.

And I would have enjoyed it.

But something would have been missing, and I wouldn’t know what. I would just be going through life like I always had, and not know about God.

I also wouldn’t be walking through the mud right now in a rain storm to find my new boyfriend and my crazy ex. Oh, happy day.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I screamed as loud as I could into the woods because, really, who would hear me? The rain and the isolation were getting to me, and I couldn’t deal with it. It was starting to make the woods bow in on me, like looking in a fish bowl, and I felt my chest tightening. I knew what would come next… and it did. My breathing became shallower. My legs trembled. Every nerve in my body screamed for me to run. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just run.