What kind of grim fate awaited me when he returned? The writer in me conjured up all sorts of scenarios—not one of them good.
I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I knew what was coming. I knew the kinds of things that a man who kidnapped women wanted. I shuddered and leaned against the damp, muddy wall. I should prepare myself.
How did one prepare herself for rape and grisly murder?
Just when despair seemed ready to take a giant bite of my sanity, the phone buzzed.
I need to know where you are.
It was Nathan. He hadn’t forgotten about me. He was still out there; he was still trying to help me.
I sank down the wall until I was sitting on the ground. My body sagged, weak with relief. Nathan was my best hope for survival.
Renewed hope took root inside me and blossomed like a flower in the spring.
Quickly, I texted back my reply. I’m in the woods. In a hole. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I would have done a happy dance when it went through.
Where?
Not sure. I was in Slatington when he took me. On the trail. I worried that it wasn’t going to be enough information for him to find me in time.
Do you have GPS?
A GPS? Did he think I just walked around with one of those strapped to my ass? God! I cleared out of the message, frustrated, and stared down at the phone. My eye went right to the maps app. Oh my God, I did have a GPS!
I pumped my fist in the air. I didn’t even care that it made my ribs scream.
Yes, I replied.
This is what I want you to do…
It took a few more minutes for the rest of his message to come through, and my stomach knotted as I thought I’d lost the connection again. But then the phone vibrated in my hand and I glanced down.
Type in directions. Use ur current location & get directions to somewhere. The map should pull up ur location when it pulls up directions. Text it to me.
Could this phone really be smart enough to know where I was? Was the signal strong enough for it to calculate a route while I was in a deep hole? How far off the beaten path did that man haul me? What if Nathan was too late? What if I was far away?
Enough. Just do it.
I snapped out of my internal freak-out and did as Nathan instructed. Why hadn’t I thought of this? It made me angry that I hadn’t. I knew I should give myself a break, that I was likely in shock, was injured and scared, but now wasn’t the time for weak emotions. Now was the time for action.
It took the map a long time to load. The screen went dark twice while I waited. I stood and began pacing, unable to sit a second longer. My knees wobbled as I walked, but I ignored it and continued moving.
Finally, my location pulled up.
Reading a map wasn’t one of my better abilities, so I took a screen shot and texted it to Nathan.
It failed the first time I tried to send it.
The second time took five minutes, but it went through. By the time the job was done, there was only thirty percent battery remaining.
I slid down into the dirt and leaned against the wall.
And I started to pray.
12
Nathan
I parked haphazardly in the yard by my house and rushed inside. I kicked off my sneakers and shoved my feet into my tan work boots. I tossed a ratty baseball cap on my head and went down into the unfinished basement and dug through my gear and loaded my pockets with everything I thought I might need.
My weapons were already in my Jeep.
Back upstairs, I shoved some vanilla-flavored power bars in my pockets and grabbed a bottle of water and a jacket on my way out the door. The sky was dark, no stars in sight, and the wind was picking up, making it feel much colder than it was outside.
I hoped Honor had some kind of protection from the elements wherever she was.
Once I was settled into the Jeep, the screenshot of the map came through my phone. I plugged my own phone into the car charger and turned on the engine. There in the darkness of the cab I studied the map.
It gave me a general idea where she was—about fifteen miles outside of the town of Slatington. She was definitely in the woods because there were no roads mapped around the little dot that marked her location.
I would drive as close as I could and then go on foot.
I decided to take the back roads, the ones least traveled. Due to the pileup, I figured a lot of the roads were going to be congested and I didn’t want to get caught in it. I was glad when I got stationed here six months ago that I took the time to drive around, learn the area, and scout out roads.
It was more or less something I was trained to do and even though it wasn’t really required for where I was working now, it was clearly proving useful.
As I drove, images assaulted me, images of the desert, of a gunfight, of blood. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. The stress of the situation was just putting my mind into overdrive.
I felt this insistent need to find Honor, to save her. Maybe it is because I wasn’t able to save them. The thought drew me up short, but once it was there, I couldn’t deny it.
It was quite possible the reason I was going off alone, rogue, to find Honor was because I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else dying—someone I knew I could help.
I turned off the main road and onto a lane that literally curved up the side of a mountain. The sign beside the gravel entrance read: Travel at your own risk.
I drove the Jeep forward. The sound of loose gravel hitting the underside of the vehicle was loud and startling in the dark. I continued up, looking at her map and cross-checking it with the one I had pulled up. The farther up I went, my headlights illuminated the narrow gravel road, and I hoped no one else was out driving tonight because only one car would fit at a time.
On the right side of the road was a steep drop. It was lined with trees and plants. I figured if something did happen and I happened to lose control and fall off, then I likely wouldn’t plunge to my death. Surely the many trees would stop the Jeep from going too far.
Off to my right were more woods. I couldn’t see very far in because it was so dark, but I figured if she was anywhere, it would be over to this side. When I realized I was around the area where she was, I stopped the Jeep and got out, walking into the trees to search for a place to put my Jeep. Leaving it out in the open seemed like a bad idea.
About a mile farther than I wanted to be was a small clearing beneath a canopy of trees. I jogged back to the car and drove it forward, using my four-wheel drive to go off the gravel road and basically four-wheel through the trees and over the uneven ground. I nudged the Jeep between two trees with low-hanging branches and then cut the lights and the engine.
I sat there a long time, listening to the sounds of the woods, wondering if anyone else was out there. The night remained still, except for the distant rumbling of thunder above.
I prayed the rain was moving away from us and not closer.
Before starting off on foot, I pulled out my phone and sent word to Honor. I think I’m close by. If you hear me call out for you, answer.
I didn’t get a reply right away and I hadn’t expected one. My service was low and I knew hers was worse. Hopefully she would at least get the message.
I palmed the pistol beneath the front seat and tucked it in the waistband of my jeans and then tucked the knife I always carried in my front pocket.
Then I pressed a few keys on my phone and held it to my ear.
Patton answered on the second ring. “Hallow,” he drawled.