One By One by Freida McFadden(34)

“Whoa, sport.” My dad gently pried the rifle out of my hands. “You gotta be careful where you’re aiming that thing. You don’t want it to go off by accident.”

My mom’s eyes widened. She knew what I wanted to do. And if my father hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve done it.





Chapter 18


CLAIRE



Morning arrives and I have not been eaten by a coyote.

That said, I feel like shit. My head is throbbing from lack of water, and my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. My arms and legs are heavy like I’ve got a weighted blanket on me. Somehow, I slept through the entire night without tossing or turning. But it was not a night of great sleep. I feel hungover.

I look over at Noah beside me. His brown hair is sticking straight up and he’s rubbing his eyes. When he pulls his hands away, there are purple circles under his eyes.

“Sleep okay?” I say.

“I guess.” He groans and rubs his temples. “I hope we can find the hotel quickly.”

Warner is sitting across from us, also rubbing his eyes. He lets out a loud yawn. He’s a little worse for wear as well, but he still could easily be on the cover of some wilderness fashion magazine.

I reach into my purse and pull out my cell phone, hoping my reception miraculously returned overnight. Not only do I not have any service—not even one stupid bar—but my battery is at one percent.

I don’t get it. According to the guys, we are less than a mile away from the hotel. How could there be no cell service whatsoever?

I’m sure Penny called last night so the kids could talk to us. What is Emma thinking? She must be terrified. I hope Penny made up a good story. When I didn’t contact her last night, would Penny have called the police? Is there someone out there searching for us right now?

But no. Penny is not a worrier. Emma is the one who gets scared.

I feel this sudden, intense longing for my children. I want to gather them both in my arms and give them a giant hug. The feeling is so strong, I have to cover my mouth to keep from crying.

What if I never see them again?

“Michelle!”

My head jerks up at the sound of Jack’s voice in the distance. I suddenly realize he and Michelle aren’t around the dead campfire anymore.

“Michelle!” Jack’s voice calls out.

“What’s going on?” I mumble.

Noah just shakes his head, and the two of us get to our feet. Every joint in my body screams in pain as I stand up, but after a few steps, the pain subsides to a dull ache. Jack is standing at the edge of the clearing, a wild look in his eyes. His hair is as disheveled as Noah’s, and there’s a rip in the sleeve of his T-shirt. He cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Michelle!”

I clear my throat. “What’s going on, Jack?”

He turns to look at me. His puppy dog brown eyes are bloodshot. “I can’t find Michelle.”

“What?” Noah frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“I woke up and she was gone.” His eyes dart around like he expects her to pop out from a bush at any moment. “I don’t even see any footprints. I don’t get it. Where would she have gone?”

“She couldn’t have gone far,” I say. “She had a sprained ankle.”

Jack rubs his fingertips against his temples. “I know.”

“Maybe she went looking for water?” Noah says.

“Alone?” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. She wouldn’t have gone off by herself. Not without me.” He takes a deep breath, then yells out again: “MICHELLE!”

“Hey.” It’s Warner’s voice coming from behind us. We turn to look at him. “I found footprints I think belong to her.”

Sure enough, there is a single set of footprints leading off in a completely different direction. It’s hard to tell who the footprints would belong to, but they seem about the size of a woman’s sneaker. The footprints disappear into the trees.

It seems inconceivable to me that given her sprained ankle, Michelle would suddenly wander off by herself into the woods. But there’s no other explanation.

“Should we follow them?” Noah asks.

Jack nods silently. But then he goes back to our camp and grabs his backpack. He unzips it and pulls out a pillowcase. He starts pulling parts of something black out of the pillowcase. I watch him for a moment before I realize what he’s doing.

“You brought the rifle,” I breathe.

“Yes.” His voice is clipped. “I did.”

“You told Michelle you didn’t bring it.”

He lifts his bloodshot eyes. “I lied.”

It takes him a minute to assemble the pieces of the rifle. This whole thing is freaking me out. I had no idea Jack had a gun. Presumably, he only brought it for hunting. And maybe now that we’re stuck out here in the woods, it’s good that we have it.

But it makes me uneasy that he lied to Michelle and the rest of us about it.

Now that the gun is assembled, we all start down the path formed by Michelle’s footprints. I don’t hear any animal noises anymore, but it occurs to me that this is the same direction from where I heard the howling sound last night. What if she took a walk and ran into a wild animal?