The Missing by Kiersten Modglin (essential books to read txt) 📕

she’d be outnumbered,” he spat. They were nose to nose, both seething with anger.

“Listen! Wait. I think I have an idea.” I pulled Noah back, forcing the men to step apart as they waited for me to elaborate. I wasn’t sure it was the best idea, but I had to think of something before someone ended up hurt. “Look, there’s this woman.”

“Not this again,” Noah groaned.

“She’s real,” I said firmly.

“Who’s real?” Ava asked.

“The woman I saw in the woods. She…she lives here, on the island.”

“Where? In the cliff house?” James asked.

“I don’t know… I don’t think so. She said…she said they brought her here.”

“They?” Ava asked.

“The people in the cliff house, I think. She said they’re dangerous and that she was a friend.”

“Of ours or theirs?”

“When did you talk to her?”

The questions flew at me as I tried to make sense of the memory, recall what she’d said. “Last night.” I flashed an apologetic look at Noah. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. She said I couldn’t.”

“I don’t understand… What did she want?” he asked, looking distraught that I hadn’t told him. I knew it was a betrayal that would take a while to recover from, but this was important.

“We didn’t talk for long. She’s been following us for a while. I keep seeing her. She said that they brought her here and that we shouldn’t try to leave. She said they’d kill us if we did.”

Ava whimpered.

“I think she’s like us. Maybe she managed to build a shelter somewhere. If we could find her, I mean, she’s survived here this long, and she was dressed in nice, clean clothes. She obviously isn’t living in the wild. If we can find her, maybe she can help us figure out a way to help Ava. And the baby.”

“So she told you where she lives? Or where to find her? Did she say she’d come back?” James asked, hope in his eyes.

“No,” I said plainly. “She ran away before I could find out too much. But she must be somewhere close because she’s overheard some of our conversations, about the raft in particular. I think she must be running from them, too. She said they’re always watching.” A chill ran down my spine as I recalled the warning. “So we have to be careful.”

“So what? We’re supposed to search the whole island?” James asked skeptically. “That could take months!”

“We could split up and choose sections to explore each week and—”

“Meanwhile she’ll be more and more pregnant, and there’ll be less chance of her surviving any sort of escape attempt. We can’t wait that long. Please…please help me save her,” he begged, tears in his eyes. How could he care this much for someone he’d just met? But, thinking of Harry, and of Noah too, I knew. I knew because I felt the same love for the strangers I’d spent the last month of my life with. I knew because I knew I’d do anything to save them.

But how could we trust them? There had to be another way.

“Why should we when you just tried to do this? Even after you were awful to us this morning, even when you’ve been cold to us for weeks… We fed you, we took care of you. We were in this together, but now we’re not.” Noah took a step back. “I’m sorry you’re pregnant. And that you’re scared, but Katy’s right. This wasn’t the way. You guys are on your own. There’s no use pretending we’re together anymore, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to traipse around the island, putting myself in danger, for the person who was just about to have me killed. No, sorry, but no.” He turned, storming away quickly, and I rushed to follow him.

“I’ll be back,” I called, looking over my shoulder to where they stood to be sure they weren’t going to shoot us from afar. Maybe Noah was right. How would we ever trust them again after what they’d done? How could I turn my back on them or eat the food they prepared or sleep near them without worrying? I wasn’t sure I could.

As I rushed after Noah, whose furious footsteps and long legs could move faster than mine in the shifting sand, I realized maybe he was right. Maybe this really was the end of the group as we knew it.

But then…where did that leave us?

I was fully prepared to live in peace with Noah for as long as I could, but what if they planned to make that impossible?

If only one of the groups could survive, which would it be?

Chapter Twenty-Five

We stayed awake the entire night, watching the moon shift across the sky, casting its reflection on the water as the waves raged as angrily as our moods.

When I saw something moving across the water, I rubbed sleep from my eyes, sure I was imagining things, but it was still there.

“Do you—”

“See that,” Noah confirmed, finishing my sentence as he stood up.

Someone was out in the water. Something.

No.

As I realized what I was seeing, I rushed forward, moving as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. The world seemed to suddenly turn in slow motion, my vision tunneling, breathing shallow. “No!” I cried. “Don’t do this! Please!”

Desperate and lacking judgment, the youngest members of our group had decided to go on with the raft idea anyway. Just four logs—and not even large ones—were tied together with the sarong and long, flimsy tree branches, from what it looked like. Ava and James sat atop the logs, using thick, sturdy branches as oars.

Noah stood beside me as we both held our breath. Would it work? Would they escape, leaving us to waste away here? Would they send help? Would they find a boat and get picked up? They didn’t look back at us, too busy fighting the strength of the waves as they paddled, then floated backward, then paddled and floated. They weren’t making it far, and each time a wave crashed into