Where was he? Had he left me to fend for myself, or had an axe murderer dragged him away and butchered him while I was sleeping?
I threw my coat on and scrambled outside. My feet sank into the squishy mud surrounding the SUV as I searched for a familiar head of dark hair.
“Sebastian?” My voice echoed amongst the trees. “Where are you?”
No response.
Okay. That was fine. This was fine. Everything wasjust fine.
Think, Maya, think.I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes in an effort not to freak the fuck out.
Sebastian had the keys, so I couldn’t drive anywhere even if I managed to get the car unstuck. A quick check revealed my phone was dead, and I couldn’t charge it because, once again, I didn’t have the keys to turn the engine on. That ruled out calling for help, even though cell service was probably still nonexistent.
“Seb!” I called out again. An image of his mangled body flashed through my mind, and my throat tightened. “This isn’t funny!”
Still nothing.
Tears prickled my vision. I blinked them away, furious at myself for getting emotional when I should have been brainstorming a solution.
If Sebastian was gone, he was gone. Me yelling for him wouldn’t change things, yet I couldn’t bring myself to give up.
“Sebastian! I swear to God, if you’re fucking with me, I’ll kill you!” I spun around. “Where—”
“You have a habit of screaming first thing in the morning, don’t you?” a familiar voice drawled.
Sebastian came into view a second later. He was wearing the same sweats as last night and appeared perfectly whole, healthy, and alive.
I’d never been so happy to see his stupid smirk.
“Where the hell were you?” I demanded. My voice sounded thicker than usual.
“Nature called. You were sleeping, and I didn’t want to disturb you.” His smirk melted as he looked down at me. “Are you crying?”
“No.”I thought you were dead, you idiot.A tear escaped down my cheek, and I wiped it off with more force than necessary. “I mean, yes, but it’s because I’m so hungry. I get, um, emotionalwhen I don’t eat a proper breakfast.”
He gave me a strange look, but he didn’t question my lame excuse.
“I checked out our situation earlier,” he said. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Bad.”
“I can’t get the car unstuck.” He nodded at the tires. He’d placed floor mats beneath them for better traction, but that obviously wasn’t enough. “The mud is too deep, and the SUV is too heavy.”
“Fuck. Okay.” I breathed in deep. “What’s the good news?”
“We can follow the path back to the main road. It shouldn’t be that far. Once we get there, we can look for help.”
It made sense, but the thought of leaving the relative safety of the car to go traipsing through the woods made me antsy. “Are we leaving our stuff here?”
“We can bring the essentials, but anything more will slow us down.”
I didn’t like it, but we had no choice. Our car was stuck, our phones were useless, and our food supply had dwindled to half a bottle of Gatorade and a protein bar. Plus, it was almost noon; we’dwayoverslept. If we didn’t find help soon, we’d starve to death or worse.
I didn’t mention the chocolate bonbon he’d tossed at me last summer, which was still sitting at the bottom of my purse.
Sebastian and I packed our must-have items in his duffel bag and set off. It started out fine. The path was a straight shot back to the main road—until it wasn’t.
“You’vegotto be kidding me.” I stared in dismay at the expanse of churned mud and broken undergrowth before us. The remainder of the path had been completely washed away by the rain, and it was impossible to gauge where itusedto be.