“Run, Lara. Run!”
I can almost hear Noah’s voice calling to me through the trees, even now. As we move closer to the stream that became our lifeline, I notice so much more than I did before. All the birds, the sounds, the way the trees link together, the vines we could have used. So much. So simple. Now I’m looking at it without fear. As we reach the stream, I count the coconuts that have fallen to the ground. Eight, to be exact.
Our footprints have solidified in the mud beside the water.
I kneel down and run my fingers over them, closing my eyes and remembering.
It takes me well over an hour to complete this, and then I have to very carefully come back, stepping as close to the edge of the track as I can, making sure I cover every one of my new footprints so he doesn’t figure out what I’ve done. It takes me a good long while to get back to Noah, and when I get there, I find him slumped against a tree, head dropped, eyes closed.
I run forward. Fear clogging my throat.
“Noah!” I scream, dropping to my knees in front of him.
I take his shoulders and shake, panic gripping my chest. No.
His eyes flutter open. I make a strangled, relieved noise.
“I was just resting, Lara,” he croaks.
Tears burst forth; I have zero control over them. They tumble down my cheeks in rivers. “I thought … for a second I thought…”
He reaches up, gripping my chin. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”
I nod, sniffling, trying to suck back my sobs. Noah’s fingers move to my jaw and then glide up until he’s cupping my face. “We’re going to get out of here.”
I don’t know if I believe that anymore.
“Lara?” Noah calls. I look up at him.
The three officers behind us are letting me have my moment, standing back respectfully.
“We need to follow this stream down. It could take a while, but it’s how we found the cave.”
“How did you know the cave would be in there?” Walters asks.
“We took a guess. It seemed like a logical thing and it paid off.”
“That’s clever thinking.”
I shrug. “Not really. He knew about it. For a while, though, it gave us hope.”
I glance at Noah and our eyes lock. Understanding.
“A moment before we go into the stream?” Noah asks.
Walters nods and he and the other two men find a log to sit on. Noah comes over to me, cupping my face in his hands. “You’re incredible, the way you’re leading this search, the strength you’re showing. I know how hard it is to be back here. I feel it, I hear it, I breathe it, and all I want to do is run. But seeing you, so fucking brave…”
I lean up on my tiptoes and kiss him, long and deep. When I pull back, I whisper, “I got my second chance here, Noah. Those kids didn’t. It isn’t about me.”
“You take my breath away,” he whispers, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “Just like the first night I met you. You had me hooked then, and you have me hooked now.”
“Except this time, I’m not going to be stupid enough to let you go,” I breathe, cupping his jaw with my hand.
“I’d never let you run again. I should have chased you harder. I should have fought harder.”
“We’ve had our fight, we’ve had our chase, now let’s just keep us.”
“Deal,” he murmurs, kissing me again before waving the men over.
I step into the water and we move, far more easily now than we did last time we were here. It takes us a few hours to reach the big pool before the cave. I stop, legs carefully flailing around in the water as I keep myself from going under. The officers are behind us, also in the water. I am sure the other entrance to the cave would be far drier, but we never did see where it emerged.
“I can’t go any farther,” I say. “I don’t think I can handle seeing them, but that’s the cave in there. We’ll wait for you on the side.”
“We understand,” Harry, the kind officer who was with us from the start, says.
“Just go up and walk through that waterfall,” Noah offers. “We’ll wait by the stream.”
They nod and disappear into the waterfall. I swim to the edge and climb out into the all-too-familiar clearing and sit, running my fingers over the soft, dry earth.
“Are you okay?” Noah asks, sitting beside me.
“We made it out,” I say. “Against all odds we made it out. There were so many times I honestly believed we wouldn’t. I very nearly gave up because I thought we had no chance. But here we are.”
“Here we are,” he says, taking my hand. “Your nan would be so fucking proud of you right now.”
My bottom lip trembles and he reaches over, taking my hand.
“She would, Lara. She believed in you more than anyone I know. She would be telling everyone she knew you’d make it if she were here.”
I laugh weakly. “She would. She’d be proud. You’re right, she would be glad to see that I’ve found myself again, but I didn’t do it for Nan. I did it for you.”
“It took a lot of guts. I’ll be forever thankful,” he says, his voice a low rasp.
“I don’t think I’ll ever fully forgive myself for what happened to Nan, but I’ve accepted it and I’ve learned from it. I push a huge part of myself down because of what happened, and part of it was my fault, but the other part was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with horrible people. Just like the situation we were in. Sometimes you can’t control fate, no matter what you do. I never should have buried who I am. I should have simply learned a lesson and bettered myself.”
“You’re doing that now. That’s all that matters.”
I snuggle closer to him. “There were so many times I thought we’d never get out of here, and now here we are sitting back in the place that was our nightmare.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s so fucking beautiful.”
“He honestly thought he had us pegged,” Noah says, gliding his thumb over my open palm that’s resting in his hand. “He was so sure he knew how this would go, how we’d act.”
“We proved him wrong.”
Noah squeezes my hand. “We proved him wrong.”
EPILOGUE
2 years later
I smile over at Noah, who is holding our daughter. She’s gurgling as she looks up at him, chubby hands waving around. I move closer to them, stopping at the back of the couch and leaning over, pressing a kiss to his neck and then reaching down and taking Bethy’s hand, letting her curl her tiny fingers around mine. She has her daddy’s eyes. In fact, she is all of him.
Perfection.
“You’re not going to the station today?” I say, pressing my nose to his neck and breathing him in.
He sighs. “No, got a day home with my girls.”
“Hmmm, I wonder how we can spend that?”
He growls and turns, pressing his lips against mine. “That’ll all depend on your daughter.”
“My daughter?” I giggle. “So she’s mine when she’s being naughty, but yours when she’s good?”