Page 99 of Chasing Paradise

The area outside was unfamiliar. I couldn’t even hear the waterfall anymore. But, after a quick walk around, I decided there was no one around and went back to call Violet through.

She crawled out, looked around, got to her feet, and then threw herself into my arms.

Caught up in the moment, I wrapped my arms around her and swung her in a quick circle before pressing my lips to hers.

“But now, where are we?” she asked, glancing around again. “And what time of day is it even? Do you… oh! Look at your hands.”

“They’re fine,” I insisted.

“They’re all ripped up.”

“The rocks did some falling on them.”

“But we need to treat them.”

“I think we should get moving,” I said, shaking my head. “Like you said, we have no idea what time of day it is. We need to cover as much ground as possible.”

I could tell she wanted to object, but we both knew time was of the essence.

So we started walking.

Vi pulled out the bag of açai and we each munched on the fruit as we walked.

My best guess we started walking sometime around eleven in the morning.

And the sun was just about to set when we heard it somewhere off in the distance.

A car horn.

“Am I hearing things? Is this wishful… hearing?” Vi asked. Her eyes were round, her cheeks flushed with excitement.

“I don’t think we could both have wishful hearing,” I said.

Suddenly, we weren’t walking at a steady pace anymore. We were running, tearing through the woods that had been thinning for a while, but I hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up too high.

“Oh my God. Oh myGod,” Vi cried as we broke out of the tree line to find an open, rolling field. With a single lane road.

A road.

Thank God.

“We did it,” Violet said, her smile so wide her eyes crinkled.

“We did,” I said, throwing an arm around her. “But we’re not done yet.”

“I could walk all night now that I know we’re heading in the right direction.”

“Good. Because we might have to,” I said, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “But until night falls, I think we should try to walk inside the trees as much as possible.”

She grumbled at that, but we both knew why it was necessary, so we moved back to the edge of the rainforest as we walked, our pace faster, motivated by the idea of showers, food, a comfortable bed, a lack of people actively trying to gun us down.

“Shouldn’t we be getting to a town soon?” Vi asked as we walked out of the trees as the sun set and gave us some privacy.

“Eventually, I’m sure.”

“You’re sure we’re heading the right way?”

“West,” I confirmed. “If we go west enough, we will hit the shore. We’ll get there. If you want, we can stop to sleep—”

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