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

by Dawson, Trish Marie

  “Jesus,” he mumbled.

  “What is it?” Ashlyn asked from his side.

  He jumped, having forgotten completely that she was in his room. “N-nothing,” he stammered. “Just my mind playing tricks on me.”

  She put her hand on the small of his back and he stiffened. “Um, I’m going to take the baby outside for some fresh air,” he said, stepping around her.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  He forced himself to laugh. “No, no. I just…just need to get out of this room for a while.”

  “I’ll go with you, then,” she offered with a smile.

  “No.”

  She blinked at him, confused.

  “I mean, you don’t need to,” he said in a rush. “I just need a few minutes.”

  With a nod, she quietly watched him layer the baby in warmer clothes and then two blankets. He pulled a coat on, put the baby in her carrier, and then left Ashlyn standing in the room. Despite their recent intimacy, he had no desire to explain to her how he’d just seen his dead lover watching them from the woods. Jacks couldn’t explain it to himself.

  When he stepped outside, the back porch was in full sun, and Lily flailed her hands and kicked her feet, happy for the change of scenery. The snow wasn’t so deep that it would swallow him whole, but he still stepped carefully around the lodge, toward his side of the building, so as not to trip or fall into a drift. Aside from his own fresh ones, the only footprints were the slushy divots left by the others that led up the mountain. The woods were quiet, but not without life. A bird chirped, something ran up a tree, and the wind rustled through the canopy like a truck, but that was it. No Win. No people at all.

  “I’m losing it,” he cooed to the baby. “I’m losing my fucking mind.”

  She gurgled a reply over her slobbery hand. Under her beanie, little tufts of dark curls peeked out, and he smoothed them back so he could see her eyes. They seemed to change a little bit each day, getting darker around the rims, like a heather-soft bullseye the color of melted hot chocolate. He loved her eyes. Always full of innocent interest in the world around them, never judging or hating.

  “Don’t grow up, baby,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “Stay little forever.”

  As he turned away from the woods, he glanced up the mountain and searched the skyline for smoke. Seeing none, he sighed, worried that something bad had happened to Connor and Drake and Kris on their hike up the slope for answers. He couldn’t lie to himself, he’d have gone with them if not for Lily. Maybe, he thought, their neighbors weren’t homicidal cannibals. Maybe, he hoped, they had invited the others in for the night, and all was right with the world.

  Jacks laughed. The world would never be right again. As he stared across the white valley and at the foreboding slopes, chances were higher that his friends were dead, or dying. And there wasn’t shit he could do about it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  JIN

  It was a bittersweet morning, watching Riley wake up surrounded by her friends. He was happy for her, he was. But in the pit of his stomach he felt as if it was a bad omen, finding her people on the trail the way they had. She wasn’t in a good mental or spiritual place, and not at all well enough to travel, and Jin wasn’t sure how to explain this to the others without sounding a little crazy, or extremely jealous, or both. So, he did what he always did when life made him uncomfortable, he observed.

  The girl was solemn, quiet and reserved, most likely because of the boy’s presence. But Jin didn’t think she looked well, either. Her face lacked the sort of glow most pregnant women had. But he was a man, and had little experience in that department, so he chalked her languid appearance up to stress. And they had plenty of that to go around in spades. The air was thick with it, especially anywhere near the two men. Riley didn’t watch them as closely as Jin had. She missed so much. The body posturing. The glances. The silent promises to spill blood. Though he hadn’t heard them say as much, it was clear that both were in deep love with her. She hadn’t spoken much about her relationship with Connor or Drake, other than to say that it had gone from complicated to messy. He believed that to be true one hundred times over.

  As they packed up their things for the second morning in a row, he remained quiet, providing conversation only when invited to. He watched, and waited, and feared. The second time that Riley lost her breath from a coughing fit, he pulled her aside into the kitchen, pushing another cup of hot tea into her hand. It wasn’t going to fix her, but it was the only thing he had.

  “You need medicine,” he said under his breath.

  “I’m fine,” she answered, sipping the tea and grimacing. He’d not sweetened it.

  “Stay here. Let me hike down with them and get what you need.”

  She smiled, and surprised him with a quick hug. “You worry too much,” she said.

  With a frown, he glanced over her head at the others. They were lost in small talk, pulling on boots, coats, hats, gloves. None would side with him. “The cold isn’t good for your cough.”

  “Jin, they have more food down there. Beds. I’ll be fine, plus, I don’t think we’ll be outside for long.”

  “It’s a three-hour hike in the snow, at least,” he argued.

  “Or a few minutes if we sled.”

  He gaped at her. “So you can break your neck?”

  “There’s half a roll of heavy duty trash bags under the sink. Let’s use them.”

  Jin wasn’t understanding, and shrugged. “And?”

  “You had a boring childhood, didn’t you?”

  He pressed his lips together and glared at her. “You want to slide down this mountain, on sheets of plastic?”

  She beamed. “Yes!”

  “You’re going to die,” he lectured. “A painful, horrible death.”

  Riley smiled, then pushed him aside so she could sift through the items under the sink. She pulled out the roll and plopped it down on the counter. “Live a little, Jin. I dare you,” she teased with a wink.

  RILEY

  Each of us had at least one bag in our hands, and a spare shoved into our packs or pockets. We stood at the top of the slope, just outside the tree line that hid the cabin, and stared down the valley. In my head, the idea was a lot more exciting, and exceedingly less scary. It was a long and steep slope.

  “We can totally do this,” I said, more to myself than to the others.

  “Uh,” Drake answered, fidgeting with his bag. He’d unfolded it, but hadn’t opened it completely. “We can try, but…we’re going to eat shit, Riley,” he laughed.

  “Kris, you shouldn’t be doing this,” Connor warned.

  “No, you shouldn’t,” Cole agreed.

  “I’m fine,” she quipped. “You’re not in charge of me.” To prove this, she set her square of thick plastic down on the snow and carefully climbed inside it, pulling the edges up and around her waist, bending her knees and leaning backwards. She began to rock until the plastic started to slide. “See you on the bottom!”

  Connor lunged forward, missing her pack by an inch, but by then, she was gone, shooting down the slope. In a panic, Cole was the first to join her, though he seemed far less thrilled at the idea than Kris had been. This left me with Jin, Connor and Drake, plus the dog. And only one of them was smiling.

  “Drake,” I said, elbowing him in the side. “You ready?”

  He punched his feet through one bag and pulled it up to his chest, then dropped down to the snow and carefully positioned himself inside another. “Let’s do this,” he said with a grin. He made it several inches before he jerked to a stop and rolled onto his side, using his elbows as leverage to keep him from flying down the mountain. “Maybe I’ll wait for you,” he said with a grin.

  I laughed at him, and gestured for Jin and Connor to sit. “What are you two waiting for?”

  “How, exactly, do you plan on getting the dog down there?” Connor asked, glaring at me.

  “Ah, watch and learn.” I opened my bag and shook it in
the air, then lined it with a second. I stepped inside, like I would a sleeping bag, and sat carefully, digging my fingers into the snow to keep from sliding. “Tuck her between my knees,” I said.

  “You’re insane,” Connor stated, his blue eyes wide with concern, but a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Fucking insane.”

  As he lifted the dog, and set her carefully inside the bag on my lap, I tucked it under her chin with one hand, then squeezed the bag tightly around us with the other. With Connor holding my waist, I leaned back, almost parallel with the land, and smiled at him. “Would you have me any other way?”

  “Never.” He kissed my cheek, then gave me a shove.

  For a moment that day, we all became birds, flying through the air and feeling the cold rush of wind on our faces, and the thrill of speed beneath us. Though many of us wiped out, more than once, and the bags were shredded and destroyed by the time we hit the valley, no one was hurt. As we came to a stop, rolling off our makeshift sleds and into the snow, each of us were red in the face and happy like children. Because we were alive. Wonderfully, blessedly, alive.

  The exhilaration of sledding ended abruptly when I stood up and quickly fell to my knees, coughing until I couldn’t breathe. It brought everyone to my side, rubbing my back, patting my shoulder, asking if I was okay. After shaking each of them free, I turned and walked in a circle, patting at my chest, telling my lungs to function properly. Connor followed close, tracing my steps, and waiting for me to acknowledge him. When I could breathe, I sucked the fresh mountain air in greedily, ignoring the dull pain that had settled deep in my chest.

  “You good?” he asked.

  I answered him with a rushed nod, not interested in small talk. After another long breath, I stopped pacing the snow. “Quit looking at me like I’m made of glass. I’m not going to shatter into a million pieces from a cough.” He tilted his head to the side, and I remembered how his longer hair had fallen off his face when he looked at me that way. I missed it.

  “It doesn’t sound good,” he worried, shoving his hands into his pockets. His gloves hung from his wrists like empty seed pods.

  “Yeah, well, someone forgot to pack cold medicine when I was ejected from the Ark.” The statement was meant as a joke, but the moment it was said, the words festered in the air like an accusation.

  He stepped forward, removing one of his hands from his jeans. “Look, Riley. How all of that went down was wrong.”

  “You think?”

  “It shouldn’t have happened.”

  “No. They didn’t believe me,” I said over his shoulder, locking eyes with Drake.

  “I never said I didn’t believe you,” he argued, coming towards me. “Never. You don’t know what happened, Riley. It was fucked up.”

  I lifted my hand, not wanting to hear. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

  “It does,” Drake said softly. As he closed the distance between us, so did Connor. “Can we have a minute, please?” Drake snapped at him.

  “I’m not stopping you,” Connor snapped back.

  Zoey interrupted them, dodging between the men and hopping in the snow to be by my side. I bent to pet her, then gestured at the others, who stood awkwardly waiting by their torn trash bags.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Riley, wait,” Drake pleaded. “I just need a minute to talk to you.”

  He reached out and took my arm, and Connor stiffened. “Not right now,” I said with a sigh. “Later.” Hurt, he dropped my arm, and let me walk away.

  Connor’s feet crunched through the snow as he caught up to me. “There’s something you should know before we go in there,” he warned, gesturing at the lodge. It was close enough for me to count the windows, but not see what waited behind them.

  With a slow shake of my head, I patted my leg, keeping Zoey close. “Like I said, later, okay? I seriously can’t handle the testosterone spike between you two.” I didn’t look at him to see if he was as upset with me as Drake had been, and I didn’t give a fuck.

  As Connor backed off, Kris fell into step beside me, rubbing her lower back. When we were far enough ahead to be out of earshot, she whispered over her shoulder, “They finally tried to kill each other this week.”

  My laugh was harsh. “I’m surprised they made it this long.”

  “Yeah, it’s been rough.”

  I took her hand, and held her glove inside mine. “How about you? Are you feeling okay…is everything…going okay?” I glanced down at her midsection, hidden under her clothes.

  “I guess. Morning sickness is a bitch. I don’t get how anyone would have more than one child.”

  After a long and loud laugh, I coughed, and then pulled her into my side. “God, I missed you, kid.”

  “The feeling is totally mutual,” she mumbled into my arm. “Except right now you’re smashing my face.”

  Reluctant to completely release her, I settled on holding onto her arm as we walked. There was so much to say between us, we could both feel it, but it didn’t need to come out all at once.

  “Smell that?” I asked, stopping in the snow and sniffing at the air after catching a whiff of something sweet and smoky.

  “Fire?” Kris asked.

  I turned to look at the others, and Drake waved ahead of us, where the lodge loomed at me. “Probably coming from the chimney. We try and keep it going.”

  “No,” I said, turning around and looking out over the trees. “The wind is blowing down the mountain. This doesn’t smell like firewood either…but it’s familiar. Bodies?” Their faces fell. First, Kris’, then Connor’s and Drake’s.

  “Behind the property…we burned something the other day. How can you smell that?” Drake mumbled.

  “It’s not a smell you forget easily. Anyway, it’s gone now.” And it was. Lost in the air, drifting away from me and out across the valley. “Who was it?” I asked.

  Quietly, like she didn’t want the others to hear her even though we all stood within touching distance, Kris whispered, “There was a woman trapped in the ceiling. Like…from before.”

  Confused, I glanced at Drake. “It’s a long story,” he said with a shrug.

  “It’s taken care of,” Connor added, reaching out to squeeze Kris on the shoulder.

  A rattle shook in my chest and I tried to clear it out, but only succeeded in triggering another awful coughing attack that squeezed every little bit of oxygen from my lungs. Jin, eager to help, stepped forward, but I put my hand out and gestured at the lodge. Warmth was what I needed, not several sets of staring eyes.

  As we got closer to the building, I was struck by the simple rustic beauty of it. The windows were wide, their rooms mostly hidden by slated blinds or closed curtains. The deck wood had faded over time into a bone color that blended in well with the green and white shades of the paint trim under the slate gray roof. The lodge matched the scenery perfectly, especially with the snow on the ground.

  I was staring up at the second floor, counting the windows, when the back door flew open and Jacks bolted outside, sliding on the slick deck. He hopped down the stairs, two at a time, and ran at me. Before anyone could warn him to slow down, he tackled me into a hug and lifted me off the ground, burying his face into my neck. Though it hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes, we held onto each other until Connor put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Let’s go in,” he suggested softly, looking at the open lodge door. “It’s warm, dry…and Jin can make you more of that tea.”

  I nodded, but Jacks didn’t release me. Instead, as my boots dangled above the ground, he held me tighter and began to cry into my hair. “He’s dead,” he whispered against my ear. “Win’s dead…they killed him…”

  It’s amazing how many damn times a heart can break, like actually fracture and physically hurt from the process, yet keep you alive to feel every painful and jagged rip. We were all there in that valley because we had something to live for, someone to miss. But as Jacks held onto me while he sobbed, I realized th
at our little group was just as fractured as my heart, just as ripped up as his. Because, why? Why do any of it if the loss of one person could be so devastating? What was the point of living at all? When Jacks set my feet back down on the ground, and I swayed from the heavy pressure in my chest, I wondered how much time we had before we were dead like Winchester, and all those before him.

  He led me toward the lodge, and our solemn group slowly gathered in a cluster on the deck, and all I could think about was where Win was, and if that place was better than what he left. I suppose that was the only thing that had kept me from offing myself: the uncertainty of death, the terrifying permanence of the unknown. It could be worse, I realized, as I removed my pack and carried it into the lodge behind Jacks, death could be way worse. It probably was, because at that point, I felt as if my life had reached its limit for bullshit and pain.

  But then I saw Ashlyn just inside the kitchen, holding the baby with a giant fake smile plastered on her ridiculously elf-like face, and I realized I was wrong. Life could always get way worse. And never again would I forget that life was amazingly predictable at proving this point to me. Dreams I didn’t realize I had anymore were crushed and shit on the moment the two of us locked eyes.

  Fuck you, Riley. Life was telling me. Fuck you hard. And I heard the message, loud and clear.

  Chapter Nineteen

  CONNOR

  On a blustery and damp day in December when he was eleven, his dad came home early from work and caught Connor inside their flat, smoking weed and drinking suds with two of his mates, and thumped his ass till he cried. Then his dad took the pot and went upstairs into his own room and finished it off. The beating was noticeable on his face, and Connor missed a week of school, realizing on the first night that he’d lost one of his loose baby teeth. He was certain he hadn’t swallowed it during the thrashing, but still checked his shit every day that week hoping he would find it. Never did. His dad teased him about it for months. ‘Ever find that tooth of yours, boy?’ he would ask during dinner, and he would sit at the table, silently listening to his mother cry, and his dad yell back.