Halfway down the tree, her body seemed to give up entirely. She felt her muscles go lax and then she let go of the trunk involuntarily, falling to the ground with a harsh thump. She cried out. The fall wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn’t already beaten to a pulp, but as she lay on the ground, she could feel every single bruise on her skin. She let out a quiet sob, but forced herself to her feet. If anyone was close by, they might have heard her painful drop. She had to keep moving for her own sake, even if it was hurting her to continue.
Her journey was gruelling and long. She was slower than usual to accommodate for her injuries, and it was hard to walk in one direction. All the forest looked the same. She had no idea if she was walking toward safety or danger. More importantly, she had no idea if she was walking toward or away from Jake.
And she was beginning to show symptoms that worried her. When she stopped to pee, her urine was far too dark; one of the first signs of dehydration. She felt weak and tired and every instinct was telling her to stop, but she needed to find water. If she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter if she found Jake or not. She wouldn’t live long enough to celebrate.
And then she saw it. It was like a mirage in the early evening warmth. A house. She thought at first that she must be imagining it. After all, it was in the middle of nowhere and too convenient. But she had to believe she’d found something to save her. Stumbling toward it, she prayed it would hold the answers to all of her problems.
The door was closed, but not locked. She opened it noisily and stumbled into a kitchen area. Her mouth was so dry that she couldn’t even muster some saliva to drool over the slightly moldy bread on the table, but she grabbed it and tore a chunk from it, stuffing it in her mouth. There was a bottle of water on the counter too and she guzzled it thirstily. It was making her feel nauseous as her empty belly was finally lined, but she didn’t stop. The water was a little stale, like it had been sat in the sun for a long time, but it was the best thing she’d ever tasted.
She still felt delirious. Her skin was blistered from the sun. Her bones were aching. All she wanted now was a safe place to rest her head. She stumbled through the dark house as though she was drunk and found a bedroom. Her body collapsed onto the mattress.
And hit a body.
Four
Megan
As Megan watched Jake stumbling along, muttering to himself, she had to wonder whether he was sane anymore. It felt like he’d come undone. Gone was the confident man who had been leading them through the uneasy times. Gone was the man who was ready for anything. Instead, he’d been replaced with a shell of himself.
Megan had to admit that at first, it had been nice to see him brought down to her level. He always acted like he knew everything and it was hard to watch for Megan. She knew that he secretly looked down on her, thinking she was useless just because she was emotional. It had been nice to imagine for a moment that she was the cool and collected one.
But then it became clearer to her that he hadn’t just lost his confidence. He’d lost his mind. He had no clue about where they were going and he could barely walk in a straight line, as though he was drunk. Megan kept searching her mind to figure out what had happened to them both - to Aby too - but nothing was coming back to her. The fact was that without him being a leader, they had no direction. She needed to get the old Jake back.
She fell in step with him as he continued to stumble down the road, but he didn’t look at her. She took a deep breath.
“You know, I’ve been thinking...about what happened.”
“Have you?” Jake muttered. “Okay.”
Megan tried not to be offended by the fact he was dismissing her once again. She was getting used to it now, for better or for worse. “Well...it looks like someone took the time to lay us down in that truck bed. So someone must have cared enough to do that, right? Maybe we were in an accident and whoever else was involved felt guilty and tried to help us out. What do you think?”
“I think it doesn’t make any damn sense,” Jake replied gruffly. “Just stop trying to solve a mystery that we can’t solve. We’ll never get those memories back if we don’t have them by now.”
“But-”
“It’s not a possibility,” Jake snapped. Megan had no idea what she’d done to make him so irritable, but she was getting sick of his attitude. All she was doing was trying to help. She’d followed him blindly along the road because she trusted him, but now her faith in him was dwindling considerably. If she couldn’t rely on him then maybe she should turn back...they’d been walking in a pretty straight path down the road. She thought she could make it back to the truck on her own. Maybe someone would come back for her....
But Jake would never go with her. She knew that as a fact. And even though he was maddening, cranky, rude and aggressive in this state, she knew that Jake wasn’t always that way. She would never forgive herself if she left him behind. He would surely die on the road alone, and he’d most likely never find Aby anyway. As far as Megan was concerned, she was gone. But she didn’t want Jake to think that. The second he started
