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

I looked up, my head rubbing painfully against the rock, to where Harry was standing near the edge of the cliff.

“Harry?”

He put a hand up over his eyes, looking out over the forest. “There,” he said, pointing straight ahead.

“What?” Noah said, moving toward him.

I turned over, standing up and making my way over.

“Holy shit, is that what I think it is?” I stared at the odd shape at the base of the mountain several miles away, the space that had been cleared, the strange rust-colored space that had replaced rock. I watched as the smoke billowed out of the top of it, an odd mix of terror and hope filling my stomach.

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “Yeah, I think so. I’m pretty sure it’s a house.”

Chapter Sixteen

“What do you think it means? Do you think that’s where the woman lives?” I asked. As far as we could see, though we couldn’t completely see the far side of the island, the entire jungle appeared uninhabited aside from the house. From where we were standing, we could see a vague outline of the beach—our beach—and the rest of what we could see was nothing but trees and mountains.

It appeared there had never been any type of civilization here, no ports, no villages. It was just us and whoever lived in the house. But whether or not they would help us wasn’t clear. My emotions kept flipping between outright terror and cautious optimism.

“I don’t know,” Harry said, still trying to look for a sign of anything else. “Someone obviously lives there.”

“We have to go there,” Noah said, his jaw tight. “We need to go and see if we can confront them.”

“That isn’t smart,” Harry disagreed. “We don’t know who it is. How many people there are. Whether they’re armed. We have to use our heads here.”

I shook my head, needing it to make sense. If someone else was on the island, which we had all but confirmed, I couldn’t just sit around and wait to learn whether they were going to harm us. I couldn’t stay on the island a moment longer if I didn’t have to. Despite all that, I knew Harry was right. He was always right. “For all we know, it’s just a random woman who lives on the island and is as scared of us as we are of her. She was there last night, and she didn’t try to hurt us. She just ran away. And she may have left us weapons. If she were planning to hurt us, why would she have armed us?” I struggled to find a sensible reason.

“Then how do you explain the note?” he asked. “You’re forgetting that people brought us here and dumped us on an abandoned island with nothing to eat or drink and no explanation, and then they left a note that said we should kill each other in order to get off the island. What part of that makes you think these people are friendly?”

“Because they haven’t hurt us,” I said, grasping at straws. “And they could’ve. If they have weapons like what they brought us, why haven’t they hurt us yet?”

“Maybe this is all a test. Maybe they want to see who’s good and who’s bad?” Noah offered, though even he didn’t look like he believed it.

“A test for what, though? And why this group of people? We’ve already ruled out any of us being connected before. It all just seems so random…” Harry paused. “Look, I’m not saying we aren’t going to go to the house, I’m just saying we have to be smart about it. If we march up to the door and knock on it today, without knowing what or who is behind it, we’re setting ourselves up to be ambushed.”

“So what are you suggesting instead?” I asked. He was being logical. I knew he was right, but it didn’t make it sting any less. I wanted answers, and I wanted them right then.

“We need to get back to the clearing and tell the others what we’ve found. Then, we can start making our way toward the house, set up a camp nearby, and keep an eye on them. Sooner or later, someone’s going to come out of the house. If it’s just the woman and she’s unarmed, we can confront her. If it’s an army of people with military gear, on the other hand, maybe we take a breath and come up with a game plan from there.”

Noah swiped sweat from his forehead, breathing out heavily. “Okay, fine. Let’s do that. We just need to get down from here and out of the sun. Can I have a drink?”

I reached for a coconut from the sack and handed it over, spying my cell phone still in the pocket of the sarong.

“Hang on, I just want to try something.” I pulled the phone out and pressed the button to turn it on. Noah slurped down some of the water before passing it to Harry to finish the rest. They watched carefully as my phone lit up, immediately warning us of a low battery. Honestly, I was sort of surprised it turned on at all after days in the blazing heat, sand in all its crevices, and no time on a charger.

I went to my call log, selecting my husband’s name with my thumb, and closing my eyes to send up a silent prayer that it might work. What would I tell him? That we were still here. That he shouldn’t give up looking. What had happened. I’d spill it all in seconds, crying and trembling as I heard his soothing voice, his promise that he’d never give up. That he’d search night and day until he found me.

The vision was so clear in my mind, for a second, I almost believed it was real.

Instead, a beep sounded, and when I opened my eyes, my heart fell.

No Signal

The alert was displayed on the screen, crushing any amount of