The Missing - Kiersten Modglin (the reading strategies book TXT) 📗

his shoulder. “Like the white of the birds. Pretty ones too…seagulls, maybe? I don’t know. Either way, there was no woman. Or, if there was, she’s long gone.”

Harry ushered me away, one hand still on my shoulder, and I was pretty sure he thought I might be having dehydration-induced hallucinations, but he didn’t say as much. Instead, he kept a firm grip on me, leading me away from the place where I’d stopped and toward the sound of the rushing water.

When we finally reached the source of the sound, a fast-moving stream with crystal-clear water and dark rocks throughout, Harry chuckled to himself.

“I can’t believe we actually found fresh water. This is amazing.” His hands dropped from my shoulders and I moved forward, leaning down over it and dipping my hands in before rinsing my face.

“Is it safe to drink?” Noah asked cautiously.

“It’ll be safer once we boil it. We’ll set up camp here tonight instead of the clearing. It’s probably okay, with the rocks and moss to help filter it, but I don’t want to take any chances. We don’t have anything to help if someone gets sick.”

“Someone should head back and tell Ava and James that we’re eating here instead,” Noah said, not offering to do so himself. I bent down, letting the water wash over my calves and arms, its crisp coolness refreshing. I hadn’t realized how dry my body felt, how much I craved water in every way.

“I’ll go,” Harry said finally. “I need to get the sack anyway, so we can start boiling some water. Will you be okay here?”

I nodded, sinking down in the water, my teeth chattering from the chill of it, but I found myself unable to move. “I can go with you, if you want. Just give me a minute to rinse off.” I brushed the water up over my shoulders, washing my face.

“I’ll be fine. They’re not far. Just stay right here and relax, but don’t drink anything. Be careful getting it too close to your eyes, nose, or mouth.” With that, he was off, disappearing through the trees, and Noah and I were left alone.

He stepped into the water, keeping a safe distance between us as the whites of the crashing rapids slapped into his calves. “Did you really think you saw a woman back there?”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know… It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He gestured toward the water, the answer in his movements.

“You know why I didn’t say anything about that.”

He nodded. “I do, but I didn’t honestly expect you not to.”

“Well, I didn’t. And now here we are, and none of it matters anymore.”

“Our secret isn’t our secret anymore,” he said slyly, staring up at the trees. “What do you think we’ll find out here? Someone? Something?” A pause. “Nothing?”

The question weighed heavily on me, and I wondered what exactly I hoped we’d find. Did I want to find people? Someone who’d put us here? Or was it easier to believe it was an accident somehow? But then…what about the note? And the SOS signal? No, there were too many signs that pointed to this not being an accident, but rather, by design. So, then, the question became, did I want to confront the person who’d brought us here or would I rather go on not knowing?

I finally settled on, “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“What do you think they want from us?”

“They?”

“The people who brought us here. Whoever they are…”

I hadn’t truly considered that there were multiple people involved, though I guess it was more logical than thinking one person had managed to do it all themselves. Was the blonde woman just one of many? “I don’t know, honestly.” The truth was, whatever scenario I managed to come up with, it just didn’t make sense. “I mean, we can’t be on a TV show, it’s just ridiculous. But they’re obviously setting us up for something.”

“To kill each other,” he said, sucking in a breath. “Look, we could make a pact, you and me.”

“A pact?” I scoffed.

“Why not? You already know you can trust me, and I know I can trust you. We kept the secret about the water. It’s perfect.”

“I’ve already told you, Noah, I’m not going to hurt anyone.” I couldn’t even make myself say the word.

“I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying… I mean, if shit hits the fan, you’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours.”

“Fine, but I’ve also got Ava’s back, and Harry’s, too. I care about them.”

“But if it came down to it, if you had to make a split-second decision and save one of us…” He waited for an answer, one that I couldn’t give.

“I don’t want to play this game,” I said, standing up out of the water finally and making my way to the shore. The mud squished between my toes as I kicked out of the flip-flops I’d been wearing. “I don’t know why you feel like we have to all pit ourselves against each other. Why you need an alliance. Why you need secrets. The boar you killed feeds us all. The water Harry will purify gives us all something to drink. The shelter they built kept us all safe. Can’t you see we’re all in this…” I stopped, refusing to make the High School Musical reference he was waiting for. “We can’t do this alone. None of us. If any of us get off this island, we all do. When will you accept that?”

He bent down in the water, brushing it up over his bare stomach. The tops of his shoulders had started to turn pink, and I realized he still hadn’t asked for his shirt back. “Probably around the same time you accept that it’s just not feasible for the five of us to live on this island forever.”

“I don’t want to live here forever. I want to go home.” Tears pricked my eyes at the truth in my words. Our time on