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

Please let them make it.

I sent up the silent prayer. I harbored no ill will toward the couple, despite our differences of opinions and methods. We all just wanted to make it home alive.

They made it out past the first group of heavy and rapid waves, and I felt myself breathing easier. It might actually work. My whole body was tense as I watched them growing smaller, harder to make out on the dark horizon.

“There’s a big one coming,” Noah said, his voice powerless. I watched the wave rolling, saw them see it, their paddling stopping at once. “They’re not going to make it.”

His words sat like a weight between us as I watched the scene unfold, unable to do anything. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Paddle this way!” he cried, but they couldn’t hear us. They couldn’t hear anything, I was sure, as the wave gained more traction, more height, moving toward them and picking up speed as it traveled.

Ava sat still, watching it come as James began to paddle this way and that, each direction more hopeless than the last. I watched it crash into them, the wave splashing around them in every direction as the raft overturned, tossing them from it. Just like that, as if they’d never been there, they were gone.

“No,” I whimpered, touching my lips and holding my breath. I waited to see their heads, but Noah darted past me, diving like he so often did in the falls when he’d made it out far enough. I stood alone on the shore, crying silent tears as I saw the logs from the raft bob up to the surface finally, all separated and broken apart. I still didn’t see them, but refused to give up hope as I watched Noah swim toward them. I had to believe with everything in me that he saw something I didn’t.

As another large wave picked up momentum, I watched him stop. My insides were at war, half of me hoping he’d turn around, the other half hoping he’d keep going. I wanted him to save them, but I wanted him to save himself. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to lose him.

I felt a chill and checked behind me, feeling like I was being watched.

I was, of course. As we always were on the island.

Then, I looked back to the water, spying Noah as he swam back to me. “Noah!” I shouted as the wave grew closer. Please no. Please don’t take him from me.

The wave hit with a force similar to what had slammed into Ava and James, and I held my breath—waiting, watching. Please. Please. Please.

Seconds passed, dragging on like hours, and he didn’t resurface.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lose him.

I stepped forward, letting the tide hit my ankles as I watched the ocean’s undisturbed surface. If it had consumed three lives that night, it held no evidence. It scooped them up, sweeping them away as if they never existed. I fell to my knees, the crushing reality of what had happened weighing on me.

He was dead.

He’d left me.

I’d never see him again.

They were gone.

They were all—

No.

Yes.

His head was up.

His body was up.

Out of the water.

He was there.

He was okay.

He was alive.

Noah stood from the water, sopping wet and panting as he shook his head, his expression broken. “I’m…sorry. I couldn’t…” He was crying, though you couldn’t see it through the water already on his face. “I tried, Katy, I—”

I rushed forward, catapulting my body onto his and wrapping my arms around him. I smashed our lips together with so much joy in my heart, I thought it would explode. I felt his body tense with shock, then immediately relax, his hands on my face, my waist, my neck.

“That was really stupid,” I told him when we broke apart for air.

“I know.”

His lips were back on mine, the waves crashing around our feet, and if it hadn’t been tragic, it would’ve been romantic. He gripped my waist, pushing me backward gently with cautious steps. I followed his lead, no longer caring about anything. I almost lost him. I almost never had the chance to feel this way.

I let him guide me down to the sand, let his hands explore my body, let our tears combine on our cheeks, and eventually, I let him have every piece of me. Our friends were dead, and we were broken. We’d never leave, our families would never see us, and no one would ever know what happened. This was good and this was bad, and everything in between.

My mind raced, my heart pounding in my chest. Nothing about this was okay, and yet everything about it was perfect.

It was what I needed.

It was the only thing to help.

And so, we let it happen, and our pact was sealed with our bodies, no longer just our words. We’d protect each other no matter what.

That mattered more than anything, now that we were the last two survivors.

Chapter Twenty-Six

When the sun rose the next morning, rousing me from a restless sleep, Noah was already awake, sitting next to me with a blank expression. Remembering the night’s events, I shot up, staring out at the horizon.

“Anything?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been watching since dawn. The logs made it back”—he gestured to a few of them scattered along the shore—“but your cover up and, well…nothing else came with them.” No one else, he meant.

The weight of it all, the reality of what had happened hit me harder than I’d been expecting it to. Harder than the night before, even. I’d been so swept up in the thought that I’d lost him, that he’d drown too, that when he’d resurfaced, nothing else mattered.

But now, several things mattered. The fact that our friends were most likely dead, drowned in an accident I should’ve prevented. The fact that I’d slept with Noah. The fact that we were the only two left, which could result in peace or