Find Me Series (Book 3): Finding Hope

by Trish Marie Dawson

The tears had stopped days before. After the first night in the camper, an uncontrollable urge to bottle up the pain and anguish had kept me silent in front of Jay and Lee. Some would call it stubbornness; I called it survival. But after the bird vanished far above the clouds, leaving me truly alone with my misery once more while the wet grass soaked into my jeans, the sobs began to come. On their own, my fingers dug into the earth, pulling out chunks of grass and clods of dirt, as my heels pushed into the ground in an effort to kick off the memory of what Jay had done to me. What he’d taken from me. Of what I’d lost.

  Even while wailing in grief and regret and shame, I told myself I had survived. I was alive. No one else came to save me - I did that. And never again would I revisit that wretched week with tears and screams. One good cry. That was all I would allow. One. Then I’d leave the old me with her broken shell of a being behind and get up off the ground, wipe the mud from my hands and get back on the road.

  And anyone who dared to stop me along the way would pay the ultimate price. There was no such thing as trust, not anymore. I’d learned my lesson.

  The old Riley Davison was dead.

  * * *

  “Where does that lead?” Drake asked from behind the wheel.

  He more felt than saw Keel shrug in the passenger seat. He wasn’t happy about the arrangement, and made that clear to Drake every other mile. “Up the mountain. From the looks of it.”

  Drake wanted to pivot in his seat and drive his elbow into the man’s throat. Instead, he gripped the wheel tighter and sucked in a deep breath. “You’ve never taken this road, then?”

  “Never had a reason to. Ain’t no stores, gas stations or housing communities to strip clean at the top of that thing. Why waste the gas just to get a nice view?”

  Both Drake and Keel leaned forward over the dash to stare up at the steep mountainside. It was hard to make out the road’s path. And it was a wicked road. Deeply rutted in places - washed out from the recent rain - and dark. Trees and other forms of foliage had overgrown the little bit of shoulder that had once been cleared, but it wasn’t too narrow to drive.

  “It’s a waste of time,” Keel grumbled, sitting back hard in his seat.

  “I think we should look.”

  Keel bitched at his side. “Just because I owe you one for what happened back at the Ark, I didn’t sign up to come out here and get killed in a wreck.”

  Drake put the truck back in gear and revved the engine, ignoring Keel’s complaints. Yeah, the bastard owed him. And Drake wasn’t going to let him forget it. They took the road slow, spitting up gravel on the turns and hitting the occasional low branch from one of the waterlogged pines as they passed by. The shadows in the tree line taunted him. They danced and swayed and swirled in the early breeze, and he found himself distracted easily, looking into the woods as if someone was there - beckoning him - but he knew better than to trust his eyes with things that moved in the darkness. The dead used the gloom of shade as an escort, fooling any hapless fool that dared stare too long into the abyss. Drake had no desire to wander down that path.

  The image of Riley’s startled face as he stood with the others, silent and refusing to defend her, came back to him. Why had he let them look at her like she was the crazy one? His decision on that day changed everything. He had to find her. He had to. If for no other reason than to say he was sorry. Because he’d seen the dead too. In his heart, he figured they all had. He had doubted her. A mistake he’d never make again, if only he could find her. Every day that he didn’t see her, made Drake realize one terrifying thing. He’d fallen in love with Riley.

  At several points, perhaps three miles or so up the mountain, the road widened out considerably before shrinking and turning abruptly at yet another steep incline. He imagined the wide berth in the road every quarter mile or so was to allow for oncoming traffic. Not that traffic was much of a concern for Drake. He smirked at that thought, of how it used to be when people filled every livable space with their bodies, their homes, their cars, their stuff. The traffic of society was dead, like everything else. He set aside his clouded thoughts briefly enough to glance back at the trees, which he was quite certain were chasing them up the road.

  He put his foot down harder on the gas pedal, eager to get up the mountain before a sinister claw came out from the forest and dragged him deep into the earth. He could feel something inside the trees, watching them. Something that didn’t want him there. And he could have sworn it was running through the pines.

  The early morning sun bounced off the windshield and blinded Drake more than once, distracting him from the road and his wild thoughts, which was how he managed to plow directly into the van on the side of the road. The impact spun the truck in a half-circle, and the air-bags deployed just as his head struck his window, temporarily transporting Drake from the waking world to the dreaming one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The woods were quiet and empty, with only the sound of my loosely tied boots awkwardly crunching through the snow patches and fallen branches. Twice my legs became tangled in brambles; they tore at my pants and snagged the soft cuffs of my coat sleeves, but I ignored the cuts and scratches and kept following the downward slope of the mountainside.

  There was the sound of a vehicle not long after I left the van, and that was the only time I ran. Like the devil was chasing me, I bolted through the pines, pushing off the rough bark of each tree trunk for momentum until the only sound left was that of nature. Well, that and my labored panting.

  Several times I crossed paths with the road, but the woods felt safer than being out in the open. My inner beast felt alive in the wild. No restrictions. I could run free. Hide right there in plain sight. Scream till I laughed where no one could hear me. My hands were streaked with filth and dried blood but I’d never felt more pure. Not till reaching the bottom of the mountain, where the trees opened up and the road took over, did I lose that sense of freedom.

  I’m not sure how long I ran for. Or how many times I hid behind the trees from some nearby shadow, or called out to the birds, but the feeling of dread and death came back the instant my feet met the pavement.

  “You again.” I stood atop an empty and dark waveless sea of tarred gravel.

  The main street led in two directions. Neither of which I wanted to take. My feet remained firmly planted in the narrow space between shoulder and road, unwilling to move. With a long stare over my shoulder, I watched the woods and wondered if I could survive the winter amongst the trees. If they would protect me until spring. But my recent refuge dimmed before my eyes, turning sinister and threatening. Something from within watched and waited.

  “Have you forsaken me already?” I asked the forest. My answer came in a swift and chilly breeze, pushing me forward onto the highway, pushing me away.

  So I began to walk again. My legs took me to the west, away from the hills that harbored the Ark. Away from everyone I knew. And that was the way I wanted it. It was the only way it could be.

  * * *

  “Shit, Drake! Were you aiming straight for it?!”

  His head felt unnaturally heavy, weighted down as if an anchor was attached to the back of his neck, pulling him underwater into the void. Keel’s bitching from the next seat kept him from fully drowning into the blackness again. Drake’s breaths were long and deep, and with each chest heave, his chin moved, making his head sway back and forth. It was an uncomfortable way to breathe, so Drake forced his eyes open and lifted a hand to his face, straining the muscles in his neck until they worked again. When he was fully upright, the first thing he saw was the ejected airbag. Part of it rested just on top of his thighs, and looked as if it had been vomited from the steering wheel into his lap. A fine splatter of blood drops covered one side of the material, and Drake felt along his left temple, where the throbbing that echoed inside his brain seemed to start from. All five fingers came back wet with blood.

  “What happened?” he asked his hand.

  “You went straight at the
fucker, that’s what happened, you ass!” Keel yelled.

  Drake turned to see Keel safely strapped into his seat, shaking small pebbles of broken glass out of his hair. “What are you doing here?” he asked Keel, confused to see him.

  “I’ve been asking myself that for days. This mission of yours is a waste of time…totally pointless.” Keel glanced at Drake and opened his mouth for another insult but let his jaw fall slack before swallowing. “Great. You’re bleeding all over the damn place. What’d you do, hit the window?”

  “Hit the window?” Drake touched his temple again and winced. “We’ve been in an accident.” Slowly, and with great straining on his mind, the reason for being in the truck with Keel was coming back.

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Keel leaned across the truck cab and twisted the ignition key. The engine started on the second try with an ugly squeal and Keel sat back in his seat, relieved. “Still works. Move. I’ll drive.”

  The sun outside sparkled over a small patch of diamonds. It took Drake a moment to realize there weren’t real jewels scattered on the road outside his window; the glint was simply glass from the accident. He noticed a van across the street pushed completely off the shoulder, its back end firmly pressed into a tree. Judging by the black skid marks between the van and where their truck rested, he knew it was the object he had struck.

  “Anyone hurt?” he asked Keel, who’d already exited his side of the truck and was walking around the front, stretching his neck and cursing.

  “Just you, dumb ass.”

  “I didn’t see it. The sun…” Drake said, pointing outside. “There was something in the trees…”

  “Move over.” Keel opened the driver’s door and pushed Drake toward the passenger seat. “Put this on your head, and stay put.” He tossed a rolled up handkerchief at him before turning away from the truck. “Damn, what a mess.”

  Drake blotted at the cuts on his head while watching Keel circle the van. He came back a few minutes later with concern clearly etched into his face.

  “What is it? Did I kill someone?” Drake asked nervously.

  “No, it’s empty. Whoever was driving is long gone. But the van…I recognize it. And the front seat is covered with blood smears.” Keel leaned on the door frame and followed the upward curve of the paved road with his gaze. “This has to stop soon, we’re almost to the top of the damn mountain,” he mumbled.

  Drake stared at the damaged vehicle resting in the embankment, noting its faded white paint job and newly smashed front end. One of the tires had exploded from the accident, causing the frame to tilt precariously toward the driver’s side. His brows furrowed as he tried to place where he’d seen it before. And it came back to him as Keel hopped into the driver’s side and slammed the door shut.

  “Those bastards on the highway that wanted Riley…that’s their ride,” Drake said. His mouth filled with the sharp taste of iron, and he spit blood onto the dashboard from where he'd bit a hole into the side of his tongue.

  “Yeah, what are the chances, huh?”

  The two men looked at each other briefly before Keel put the truck back in drive and slowly pulled away. They listened to the crunch of the tires moving over the broken glass in silence.

  Please don’t let her be with them, Drake thought to himself. Please don’t let those animals have Riley.

  * * *

  Walking was nothing new to me. After all, I’d been doing it since the day I left my home. But Zoey had been by my side then. My forever best friend, even with her quirky sensibilities and knack for running off when frightened, came back for me. She always came back for me. But my Zoey was gone.

  The log beneath me was cold and damp, but I ignored it. I concentrated on the taste of canned beans instead, and the large bottle of flavored mineral water I’d dropped in my back pack before leaving the camper. Carefully, so as not to lose even one morsel, I tore open a drug store bag of mixed nuts and poured a small amount into my hand. They were stale, but still edible. As the wind blew and the trees whistled, I sucked the salt off a peanut and stared at the open trail. With no real map, I was walking blind, but all trails and roads led to somewhere. All I needed was a roof with four walls. The rest could be figured out later.

  Before the last bite of food had a chance to hit my stomach, my feet were walking again. I greeted each tree like we were old friends, called out to the birds for assistance with directions, and pleaded with the wind for a shift to help push me along the trail. It did change, but not the way I wanted. The breeze moved from my front to my side, constantly pushing at me, daring me to fall over. The struggle hurt my body all over, making it hard to ignore the pain in my healing ribs. Eventually, I had to cup a hand over my ear to quiet the ominous voices that the wind dragged through the forest. There was the soft barking of Zoey, the young laugh of Mariah and lulling voice of Fin. Drake and Connor were there in the woods too. Telling me to turn back. To find them at the Ark. But Connor didn’t want me anymore, and Drake shouldn’t. So I walked with my ears covered, humming my favorite tunes, or the ones I remembered, and kicked my way through the trail, following the curves, scrambling over the rocks that blocked my way, and cursing the branches that reached out and grabbed at my clothes for a taste of my flesh.

  Even when the shadows grew longer and matched their pace with mine, I could have sworn there were faces peeking out from behind the trees, watching, but I kept walking.

  My stride continued until the night came and went. Until the days blurred together and the canned food and nuts were gone and the mineral water too. I walked until my legs gave out and dropped me on a forgotten trail, overgrown and damp from the weather. It was there, under the stars of winter, that I finally slept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “We searched for days. All up and down the mountain.” Drake leaned against the wooden planks of the cafeteria porch, exhausted and emotionally drained.

  “And this is it? This was all you found?” Connor stood with Riley’s shirt in his hands, torn and bloodied. He turned the material over, inspecting each fold and blood smear. “You even sure this is hers? It’s a man’s shirt.”

  “It’s mine, actually. She was wearing it,” Drake said.

  Connor struggled to remain calm and keep his mind clear, but it was impossible to not imagine Riley and Drake together. At the same time, he was aware he’d lost the right to judge. If he’d had any doubt that she was dead after being shot off her horse in Los Angeles, he would have kept searching for her. And whatever was going on with Ashlyn would have never happened, as nice as the girl was.

  The wind picked up, chilling them all. The night sky had a crisp, clean look, but felt threatening. Like they were stuck under a glass ceiling that might fall at any time. Connor felt the cold in his bones. And something like dread.

  Keel ran a hand through his hair. “That’s all we found. Well, and those guys we told you about.”

  “Dead,” Connor said.

  “Nah, man,” Keel said, with a hard swallow. “It was more than that. They were…they were…”

  “Butchered,” Drake said flatly.

  Keel nodded and scratched at his short beard. “Yeah.”

  “So, she’s still out there. Alive somewhere in the woods,” Jacks said. Connor noted he was doing his best to not look at the shirt in Connor’s hand. He’d been standing off to the side with Winchester, unsure how to react. Connor still couldn’t get over the bundle in the man’s arms. A baby. He’d missed so much.

  “We’ll go out and find her. And we won’t stop till we do,” he promised.

  “You were just released, man. There are rules here and your group has already broken half of them. Or is Riley being kicked out not sinking in? We don’t know she left that camper alive, if she was there at all,” Keel argued. “Whoever, or whatever, gutted those men could have run off with her. She could be half-way across the States by now. Besides, if she’s alive, where the hell are you going to look that we haven’t? We searched everything within a twenty m
ile radius of that camper. Never found a trace of her or anyone else. All that’s up in the mountains is that broken down assholes’ empty van. We looked everywhere. Wouldn’t we’d have seen some sign of her by now?”

  Connor glared at the man. “Clearly you don’t know Riley. If she’s running from someone, she won’t be on a damn road.” The leaders of the Ark had released him and two others from his group to keep the remainder of his former crew from attempting to break him out and cause more riffs through the community. He understood things were tense, but couldn’t figure out how Riley’s departure made any sense.

  “How will we find her?” Winchester asked. Connor turned around and gave him a half-hug before releasing him.

  “If she wants to be found, we’ll find her. But this time I’ll need help. Are you in?”

  The others nodded and Connor looked down the far side of the porch, where Ashlyn sat silently on a bench. Dark circles hung from her eyes, and it was obvious to him that she was struggling with what had happened. That what they had started might be over before it had much chance to really begin. Connor didn’t want to think about that. He couldn’t. To him, as long as they could find Riley, everything and everyone would be fine.

  He left the others standing in front of the community hall. They meant well, he believed that, but none of them knew Riley the way he did. She was out there. Alone, likely. Scared, probably. And hurt. With Riley’s shirt tucked into his back pocket so he could use it later, he avoided the few people he saw between the community building and the main lodging bunker. His burns were still healing and his skin felt stretched-out and paper-thin, but his legs worked just fine. Someone at the Ark was going to give him a car. Even if he had to beat the keys from them and crash through the compound gate on his way out.

  Connor was going to find her. With Zoey’s help.