Find Me Series (Book 4): Where Hope is Lost

by Dawson, Trish Marie

  “We can’t stay here,” Jin interrupted, staring up at the sky. “Night is coming.”

  “Yeah,” Cole sputtered, spitting blood out into the snow. “And there’s a pack of wolves out here.”

  The group fell silent, and Drake and Connor made eye contact. “Not anymore,” Connor said.

  “Yeah there is,” Cole argued. “We heard them.”

  “There’s only one left,” Kris lamented. The wind lifted the hair off the back of her neck and she visibly shivered.

  Connor cleared his throat. “Where’s your place? It’s probably closer than ours at this point,” he asked Jin.

  “Not far.”

  “Let’s go then,” Drake said. He rotated Riley’s weight, and Connor helped him stand her upright. She groaned again, opened her eyes once, then dropped her head to her chest. “We’ll have to carry her.”

  As Connor reached out to take Riley, Drake bent and hoisted her into his arms. Every nerve in his body resisted the urge to pull her free from the larger man and into his own embrace, but it made sense, since Drake was the bigger of the two. That fact didn’t keep him from spending the next ten minutes walking up the trail behind him, cursing Drake’s very existence and the mother who birthed him.

  After twenty steady minutes of climbing up the hill, and none of them talking, Connor broke the silence to ask how much farther. The sky had changed from a light blue to a darker tint, and the sun had dropped below the horizon. Though it still provided some light, he knew it would go out soon.

  Jin stopped at a thin, young pine and leaned against it. “We’re here,” he said, gesturing around him.

  Connor saw nothing. No structure, just trees cramped together. Confused, he pushed by Cole, who spent half his time walking backwards up the trail to stare back at a very moody Kris. “Where?” He followed where Jin nodded, and finally saw the tree with the railing wrapped around its base. Jin’s gaze was lost in the branches, so Connor assumed whatever he looked at had to be several stories high.

  “Are you kidding?” he laughed. “A treehouse?”

  Jin led them forward, and Cole hung back so he could be the last one up the ramp. Drake made it halfway to the top before struggling, and in the end, Connor helped carry Riley after all. Once inside, Jin guided them to an overstuffed papasan chair and they set her carefully on it. Once each of them crowded into the cabin, he began to feel wobbly, like his equilibrium was off. Looking out the windows didn’t help, so he silently vowed to stay away from them.

  “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Drake sneered at him.

  “No, not the height. It’s the fall that bothers me,” Connor grumbled back.

  “You’re safe here,” Jin said, dropping his pack in the kitchen. With a heavy sigh, he filled a pot with water and began pulling mugs out. He lined them up on the small counter and dumped a teaspoon of herbs into each one.

  After Kris covered Riley with a blanket, Zoey jumped up to stretch out beside her. Even the girl couldn’t get the dog back on the floor. Cole was careful to not touch Kris as he sat in front of the fireplace, lighting a handful of kindle on fire. Fifteen minutes later, the fire was large enough to warm at least half of the room. But Connor was frozen.

  Standing still gave him the opportunity to feel his joints, and where he had bruises from the fight with Drake. His entire body ached, and even as the cabin began to warm, he shook from a deep chill. Reluctant to leave Riley’s side, he hovered in the small space between her sleeping head, and a plush sitting chair. He didn’t want to sit in it, because it was backed clear up to a window, so he remained standing with his arms crossed, staring at each member of the group, and rehearsing what his first words to Riley would be.

  He scratched at his face and picked the dirt out from under his nails, suddenly concerned with how scruffy he looked. When Jin distributed the mugs, he sniffed his, made a face, then drank it greedily. It was hot. And he needed heat. It burned his entire tongue, but it was the lowest level of pain he’d endured in a long time, and easy to ignore. Drake was not. He’d kicked off his boots and set them in front of the fire, as had Jin and Cole, and was sipping his own tea while lounging against the same spot Riley slept. What a dick, he thought.

  The night came silently, like a dark blanket being pulled over the land, tucking the world to sleep. Eventually, his legs grew too tired to hold him, and he pulled the chair away from the window and closer to the fire. When Drake chuckled, he imagined how easy it would be to pull the man out the door and toss him over the railing to his death.

  Connor was certain there was only one person in the room that could possibly miss the prick, and slowly, as if coming out of a coma, she was waking. As he inched closer to her, Connor realized that Riley had most likely saved Drake’s life that night, but she would never, ever know it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  RILEY

  It was deja vu, waking up in the cabin with one side of my face hot from the fire, and the rest of me cold. Except the first time there wasn’t an audience. One look at my legs explained why I couldn’t move them. Zoey had curled tightly in a ball between my knees, one paw over my shin as if holding me in place. Drake was sitting at the base of the chair with his head resting on the papasan cushion, an arm casually propped by my foot for support. Kris was near the fire, facing the flames, holding onto one knee and rocking slowly in place, and then there was Connor above me, sitting in the window chair that he’d pulled close, into the center of the room. An herbal floral scent drifted by, and I looked over my shoulder to see Jin, a cup in his hand, smiling down at me. Behind him stood Cole.

  I pushed upright, breathing in sharply from the ache in my muscles. Drake’s arm reached over to touch my leg as he pulled himself as close as he could be to me without climbing into my lap like the dog had. Kris turned around, and Connor stood from his chair.

  “Either I’m dead and stuck in some sort of nightmarish hell that has literally frozen over, or all of you have graduated from standard B-movie creeper status to expertly done horror-movie stalker status. Were you all watching me sleep?” I asked, glancing between their faces.

  A few of them smiled, Connor almost laughed, and the dog whined. “Or,” I continued, staring at the ceiling and studying a wooden beam, “…maybe I’m crazy, and none of this is real.”

  When Connor touched the side of my face, I jumped. “We’re really here, Riley,” he said. “If you’re crazy, so are the rest of us.”

  “Uh, I think plenty of y’all are crazy,” Cole joked.

  Kris spoke with her chin on her knees. “I mean…he’s not wrong.”

  Zoey climbed up my body and buried her snout under my arm. I traced the scar that ran across her chest with wonder. It was a miracle she had survived. “I can’t believe she made it,” I whispered. “How did you find her?” I had so many questions, I didn’t know how to process them.

  “Keel and I found her at the old church. It was a close one,” Drake said.

  “You and Keel found her?” He nodded and I looked up at Connor. “You weren’t there?”

  The only sound in the room was the soft popping and hissing in the fireplace. “We all came as soon as we could,” Kris said, picking up on the awkward vibe. “Well, most of us.”

  Cole had said one of us had fallen. Jacks wasn’t with the rest of them, but he had Lily, so it would be absurd to find him wandering through the woods with a baby strapped to his chest. But I had to know. I had to know who it was.

  “Is Jacks okay?” I whispered.

  “He’s okay. And Lily, too,” Connor answered, leaning forward in his chair. He took my hand, and I gently pulled it back. I didn’t want to touch anyone.

  “Win?”

  After a long pause, it was Drake who cleared his throat and answered me, “No.”

  With a nod, I bit down on my lower lip and stared at the red and yellow flames as they licked at the inside of the chimney. Maybe it wasn’t real, I thought. Maybe if I closed my eyes and kept them that way, then non
e of it would be real.

  “How?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Kris squeaked.

  After pushing out of the chair, and ignoring Zoey’s cry, I padded over to the window that looked down at the valley and stared at the black space beyond the glass. “Poor Jacks.”

  An arm moved around my waist and I pushed it away. “Please don’t,” I said, not turning around to look at who the arm belonged to.

  Connor spoke just behind my ear. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “No, no it won’t,” I argued, turning around to look at him. “None of us are okay.” I reached up and touched his busted lip, then looked over his shoulder at Drake, who stood at attention only a few feet away. The fresh bruises on his face matched Connor’s in more ways than could be a coincidence. “Did you do this to each other?”

  Silence.

  “Fine,” I said with a sigh. “So, now what?”

  Zoey huffed once, and then sat on my feet. She stared up at me and nudged my hand. Love, it’s all she wanted to give, and all she wanted to receive. The dog was the only innocent one left in the room. She had no hidden agenda, and no grudge toward those who had wronged her. She just wanted love. With another sigh that hurt my lungs, I stared back out the window and pressed my warm forehead to the glass, letting the chill bring down my body heat, while I stroked the top of the dog’s head.

  When the soft patter of rain began to land on the metal roof, and the wind howled around the cabin, making the trees sway from side to side, none of us were surprised. Nature was unforgiving. With little words exchanged, the others settled into a place for the night, Kris in the loft, and the men scattered around the cabin in the chairs or on the floor. I stayed at the window. After Connor finally left my side and slumped into his chair where he promptly passed out, Drake joined me. His jeans were dirty from hiking, his undershirt stained from sweat, and he smelled like he hadn’t bathed in days, but I found his essence oddly comforting anyway.

  “You should get some rest,” he whispered, watching the shadows in the wind-blown trees shuffle around us.

  I shook my head. “I can’t rest. I don’t know how to do that anymore.”

  With a finger, he traced a curve through the condensation on the glass. “Still. You need to sleep.”

  “I just woke up,” I reminded him.

  His hand continued tracing, then fell away from the window. He didn’t touch me, but I could tell he wanted to. “Sit down at least?” he asked, gesturing at the empty papasan chair.

  “You take it,” I mumbled.

  “I’ll sit down when you do,” he countered. We both watched as tiny drips of moisture trailed down the glass from where he’d drawn on it.

  “Fine,” I said with a shrug. “But please…”

  “What?”

  “Please…don’t touch me.”

  A sadness I wish I’d never seen glossed over his eyes, but he nodded and moved aside to let me cross the room and sit in the rounded chair I’d spent the last several weeks sleeping on. Slowly, so the wooden squeaks wouldn’t wake the others, I adjusted the base, shifting the frame to be more upright, and sat on one side with my feet tucked under me, and pulled Zoey into my lap. When Drake bent to sit down on the floor in front of the chair, I patted the open space next to me.

  “There’s plenty of room,” I said.

  Without asking any questions, he lowered himself onto the cushion and shifted so that he was facing me with one leg bent between us, and the other over the edge of the chair, his foot firmly on the ground. He lifted his hands and tucked them under his legs, like he was sitting on them, and smiled. If only he could understand why it hurt to be touched by him. Or by Connor. I could never tell them what had happened to me in that camper. I hoped they would never ask.

  I looked away, hoping he didn’t catch my chin trembling, or see my eyes filling with tears, but he leaned forward and carefully pushed the hair away from my face. “Hey, hey…don’t cry,” he whispered.

  A need to be held and soothed became more overwhelming than the need to be alone. I turned into him and rotated the dog off my lap and to my side, then let Drake carefully pull me into his chest. His touch was so light I barely felt his hand, but I knew it was there. After I soaked the shoulder of his shirt with tears, I finally looked up at him.

  “It won’t be the same,” he whispered, before brushing his lips against my temple. “I know that. It will never be the same.”

  I think he knew, then. I think he knew it all. But still, he let me lean against him, and I let him drape one arm around my shoulders. When his head began to tilt backwards, I watched his eyes flutter closed, taking him into dreamland, and I stared at the window across the room, at the heart drawn on the glass and the tiny rivers that spilled off the bottom of it. It looked like a bleeding heart. My bleeding heart.

  DRAKE

  He woke with a jerk, like something sharp had been plunged into his chest. When he sat up, Riley wasn’t beside him. Neither was the dog. The cabin was still dark inside, but dusk was showing signs of a new day through the trees. He scanned the cabin, and saw no one. It was silent and still. The fire had died out while he slept, dropping the temperature so low that his breath was visible in puffs.

  “Where is everyone?” he asked.

  After receiving no answer, he pulled his boots on and rushed to the door. It was unlocked, and he flung it open, expecting to see the others standing there on the overlook, waiting for him. But they weren’t there. He threw himself against the railing and called out for Riley, for the others. No answer. As he stared deep into the surrounding trees, his hands slid along the rain-slick rail until his fingers jammed against a knot of rope. Confused, he looked down and saw not one, but six ropes tied to the rail. His heart thumped, and his mind told him not to look over. But he did.

  He screamed, and bolted down the tree, reaching the base in seconds. He tripped and flailed onto the snow, landing hard on his knees, and looked up at the bodies hanging from the ropes, swaying delicately next to each other. Connor and Cole, Jin and Kris, all stared down at him with blank black eyes, their skin tinted by the familiar bluish-purple signature of death. Riley’s eyes were the only ones he couldn’t see, because her blonde hair covered her face. But he knew it was her. Zoey hung from the end, her tongue protruding from her gaping mouth, and Drake began to cry so violently that his entire body shook, and he threw up in the snow.

  “Why?” he shouted at the floating corpses, suspended out of his reach. “How could you do this?”

  She moved then. Riley’s head rotated and the hair slid away from her dead eyes. He fell back onto his ass and stared up at her, horrified. When she spoke, clots of blood fell out of her mouth and landed in the snow not far from where he sat, paralyzed.

  “There’s plenty of room up here, Drake,” she said. “Don’t cry…join us. Join us, and you can rest forever.” Her head lolled to the side, and the skin of her neck split open.

  He couldn’t keep the scream in as he scampered to his feet, and ran into the trees, trying to block out the sound of her laugh. “There’s plenty of room, Drake!” she cackled. “Plenty of room!”

  “Christ!”

  He came out of the dream so quickly he could still feel the stinging cold nipping at his face and through his wet jeans, and smell the musky cologne of pine in the air. He swiped at his mouth, tasting vomit on the back of his tongue, and felt down the front of his shirt, positive he had puked on himself. When his hand, shaking violently, came back dry and clean, he almost laughed from relief. Riley stirred against him, lost in her own dream, and he settled back into the cushion, wiping sweat off his brow.

  “Nightmare?”

  His eyes darted over his shoulder at Connor, who was sitting upright in his chair, staring intently at him. He was wide awake, and Drake couldn’t help but wonder with more than a little unease, how long Connor had been watching him.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Drake mumbled.

  “Sounded like a bad one,”
Connor said.

  Drake looked away and readjusted Riley’s weight. “Aren’t they all?”

  Connor chuckled softly. It was a hollow and dull sound that lifted the hairs on Drake’s arms. “Some are worse than others.”

  The two men stared at each other in the dim light of the fire, not blinking, not speaking. Just sizing the other up. Preparing, Drake thought, for the next bloody fight. He imagined it would be more than fists that flew. It wasn’t intentional, but Drake’s arm tightened protectively around Riley, and she squirmed beneath him, groaning in her sleep.

  Connor noticed the subtle act of possession, and he smiled. “Game on, motherfucker,” he whispered.

  Sleep was a curse, and he fought it with all the energy he had left in his body until the sun peeked through the clouds. His back hurt from the awkward angle of the chair, and Riley’s elbow had lodged itself into one of his ribs, but he refused to release or disturb her. For that night, she was his again, warm and alive and safe in his arms. He only looked over his shoulder at Connor once during the night, and that was because the man had shifted in his seat, causing the frame to softly groan in protest. He was awake, Drake knew, watching him. He felt his eyes on the back of his head all fucking night.

  Still, as a strip of sunlight crept along the floor, he waited for someone else to stir before he did. It happened to be Cole, and when he woke, he didn’t do it quietly. Everyone heard him stretch, mumble about the hard floor he slept on, and bitch about how slushy the night rain would make the snow. When he stood up, he kicked the table on his way to the tiny bathroom, and cursed until Kris yelled at him from the loft. She tossed everything her hands could find down at him, and then groaned in agony when the curtain that served as a bathroom door did little to hide the sound of the boy urinating.

  Drake had to piss, too. Badly. Whatever was in the tea that Jin had made the night before had filled his bladder to the size of a basketball, but he thought about more important things during the night to keep his mind off pissing his pants. Like the fact that Connor was most likely going to kill him the first chance he got.