Page 171 of Corpse Roads
“It isn’t different, though, is it? Leighton is afraid your parents won’t love him anymore. With Giana… I’m afraid of not being the person she once knew. And what that means for my future.”
“Your future is yours to decide,” he responds. “Regardless of what Giana wants. Leighton has to do the same. I know you’ll both be okay though.”
Pausing to scrape gelatinous mud off my walking boots, I look up at Hunter’s impassive face.
“How?”
He sends me a crooked smile. “Because you’ve got us. If you think me, Enzo or Theo are letting either of you off the hook, you’ve got us all wrong. We’re a family. We support each other.”
Emotion envelops me. Even with the abject terror of our unknown surroundings, I can’t help but feel at home in Hunter’s presence. He doesn’t scare me anymore. I feel whole around him.
“I’m not sure I deserve a family,” I say thickly.
He sticks his hand out for me to take. “Everyone deserves a family, Harlow. Even fucked up people like us. Maybe we deserve it even more for that reason.”
Letting his hand engulf mine, I accept his help over another rocky obstacle in the path. Hunter doesn’t let me go after. The forest is a green blur around us, but he’s the anchor stopping the fear from overcoming me.
A couple of hours into our search, we stop to drink some water and raid the energy bars in Brooklyn’s backpack. She checks in with Hudson and Kade through our comms, gnawing her lip until she hears they’re safe.
We pour over our map, marking the section we’ve scoured with a pen. The chapel was abandoned so long ago, nobody knows exactly where it is anymore. The others haven’t reported a sighting yet either.
“Let’s try further east, in this section here.” Hunter points to a different patch of woods. “I read a land survey from the late 1800s that mentioned Mary Magdalene Chapel being further over.”
Enzo’s frown deepens. “It’s off course. Harder for backup to reach us if we need it. They’ll need to approach from the other side.”
Nodding, Hunter tightens the laces on his boots. “I just have a gut feeling. It’s too overgrown where we are. These trees are old, they would’ve been cleared for building materials to be transported during construction.”
“Alright.” Enzo sighs. “Brooke?”
She studies the map for a second longer. “Hudson’s group is coming at it from another angle. Between us, we can clear that whole section.”
They all look to me next. I nod in agreement, itching to set off again. Every second, I’m glancing around me, searching for Pastor Michaels’ savage smile. This place is spine chilling.
Plunging deeper into the forest, we climb across a series of small streams. The sound of rushing water slices through my brain, bringing with it more disjointed flashes.
I slipped and slid that day, wading through water and mud, cutting my hands as I fought to escape. The memories are becoming clearer. Hobbling through a forest with broken bones was excruciating.
Another two hours and we’re fighting against the sinking sun. Enzo has snarled at the map several times, checking the compass attached to his backpack and shouting down the earpiece at Fox.
As Hunter and Brooklyn stop to dig out their water bottles, I stroke my fingers on the gnarly bark of the closest tree. They seem to be thinning out a little, even though we’re miles into the unknown.
Another stream runs parallel to the route we’re taking through thorny bushes and tall trees. Jumping down into the stream, I turn and begin to walk down, following the flow of water instead of going inland.
“Harlow!” Enzo barks. “Wait for us.”
But I’m enchanted by the fast flow of the water, breaking over rocks and the odd fallen branch. Something about the trees and slightly lighter moss is calling out to me.
I continue walking down the centre of the stream while the others stumble to keep up with me. It’s cold and slippery, but I keep wading through, even as it gets deep enough to reach my ankles.
There’s a splash as Enzo joins me. “Come out of there, little one. You’ll catch hypothermia at this rate.”
“No, we need to keep going.”
“It’ll be dark in an hour. We’re going to turn back and regroup on the southern edge of the forest with Theo’s team.”
He huffs in annoyance as I ignore him completely. My feet are aching from the cold water seeping into my boots, but it’s setting off an alarm bell. Something is calling out to me in sinister whispers.
“The basement flooded a lot,” I reveal to him. “Whenever it rained really hard, water gradually pooled on the floor. It seemed to seep in from beneath us.”