Page 64 of Searching Blind

She stumbled forward, eyes darting around the dark forest, every rustling leaf and groaning branch making her jump. He wouldn’t have left without saying anything. Something must have happened.

Crackling leaves underfoot made her freeze, hand clenching into a fist. A shadow moved in the fog—Zelda. The dog emerged from the underbrush, gaze focused and serious.

“Zelda,” Lucy breathed out in relief before her worry returned in full force. “Where’s Sawyer?”

The dog whined, moving to nudge against Lucy’s knee before turning around and heading back into the underbrush. Lucy followed without hesitation, fear knotting her stomach tight.

Zelda led her off their makeshift path into denser woods. The faint light that barely seeped through the thick fog had an eerie, haunting quality to it.

Don’t trip. Don’t stumble.

Zelda was a few feet ahead of her, her tail wagging anxiously.

“Sawyer?” She called again, heart pounding in her chest as she finally broke through the dense foliage.

He stood on a ridge overhead, bathed in the soft, ethereal glow of the early morning light that cut through the fog. His hair looked wilder than usual, sticking up in every direction as if he’d been running his hand through it incessantly.

And he was way too close to the edge.

Fear was a living beast inside her, choking her. She scrambled up the incline. It was steeper than it looked from the ground. How the hell had he climbed up here with a bum knee?

“Sawyer! Don’t move!”

He turned toward her voice…

And the crazy man was grinning. He held up a phone. “I got a signal!”

part two

healing

They say that love is blind, but it's trauma that's blind. Love sees what is.

Neil Strauss

chapter

twenty-two

Sawyer saw her running toward him, her momentum enough to kick his brain into gear. She was all wide, panicked eyes and loose flying hair, and still, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He braced for the impact, but instead of throwing herself into his arms as he thought, she grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him away from the edge.

He stumbled backward, caught off guard by her force.

“Are you fucking insane?” she gasped out, clutching tightly to his shirt.

Shocked, he could only blink at her. “I… uh…”

“You could’ve slipped. You could’ve fallen. You’re already a giant bruise. You want to add broken bones to your list of injuries? God!” She grabbed his face and pulled him down for a kiss. It was hard and fast and tasted of relief and fear. And it was over too fast, leaving him breathless and mute.

“Don’t scare me like that again.” She hugged him fiercely then, as if afraid he’d disappear, and he felt tears soaking into his shirt.

He momentarily forgot about the phone and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. “Hey, I’m okay.”

She smacked his chest. “What are you doing up here?”

“I got a signal.”

She made a surprised sound and jerked back. He imagined she was staring at him in disbelief. “You… what?”

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