Page 16 of My Heart to Find

“Guess we’d better run,” I say.

Damien holds his hand out for me. I take it. Warmth—and it’s not just from his jacket—floods through me at an alarming speed. He squeezes my hand. “Let’s go.”

And then we’re running.

There’s something special about running through the woods—through the middle of nowhere, it seems—with Damien. Our footsteps create our heartbeats, and he squeezes my hand firmly, with confidence.

We race through the trees.

“There it is!” I point with my free hand. The bridge.

Damien’s panting, but we speed up more at the sight of it. Buzzing sensations fill me as we reach the bridge, and I’m looking around. Donnie and David, are they here?

“No one in sight,” Damien says.

Our feet clang on the bridge, and we slow down just enough to look over it, at the river. The water swirls fifteen feet below. It’s so clear I can see every stone on the riverbed.

Then we’re running again. Adrenaline pounds through me, and I don’t think my heart’s ever beaten so fast, even on one of my cross-country runs.

We run and we run, and I watch the others as they come into sight on the original side of the river. Jana’s mouth drops open.

“We did it!” I cry, and Damien’s smiling.

I try to catch my breath. Damien’s jacket smells of him, and I breathe in deeply. It sounds silly to say it makes me feel safe—but it does.

“Well done.” Mrs. Mitchell steps out from behind a tree—actually behind a tree—and I jump. “We have our winners.”

She hands us two bars of Galaxy chocolate.

Damien is laughing as he leans in close to me. “Told you,” he whispers to me, that mischievous look on his face, the one that just makes my heart pound harder.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jana

“ICAN’T BELIEVE HEgets away with treating us like that,” I mutter darkly. I can still hear Mr. Richards bellowing out there. Poor Lizzy.

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