Page 35 of Splitting Secrets
“I need to stop,” Jonah wheezes, bending over to rest his hands on his knees and catch his breath.
Me and Ava pause beside him before Beatrix jogs back, then doubles over beside him and starts to dry heave.
“Do you think the cabin is close?” Ava asks, turning in a circle.
“I hope so,” Jonah pants. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”
As soon as he says the words, a wave of chills rolls through me. The adrenaline of nearly being caught and high from the run kept me from noticing before, but he’s right. It can’t be more than twenty degrees out and the sun hasn’t set yet. If we don’t find shelter soon, we’re going to freeze to death.
Beatrix stands up straight, swiping her sleeve across her face to wipe the bile and spit off her pale lips. “He better not be fucking with us or I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”
“Are we heading in the right direction?” I ask, looking around for any indication that a cabin may be near.
“I’m pretty sure. Let’s keep going this way for a bit and see if we find anything. We’ve got to be at least a half mile into the woods,” Beatrix suggests with a shrug. None of us have any reason to disagree.
We move a lot slower this time, careful not to overexert ourselves. Each passing minute that we don’t find the cabin is like another step closer to our deaths. The numbness in my fingers and toes has spread into my arms and legs, making it difficult to walk in a straight line without grasping trees for help. I can’t remember the last time we were brought a meal, but my stomach is gurgling and my throat is bone dry. That run out here took more out of me than I could handle.
We’re so desperate for water, we each pause a few times to scoop some snow up into our palms and shove it into our mouths.
The urge to stop and give up weighs heavily on my shoulders, but I refuse to be the one to hold us back. I refuse to be the reason they all die.
“What if this is like a social experiment? They gave us hope by letting us find the key. Now, they’re going to crush us with the disappointment of never finding the safety of the cabin,” Jonah randomly muses.
“God, I hope not,” I sigh.
We took a blind leap of faith, trusting Raze. I have to believe he wouldn’t allow us to get this far only to leave us hanging. How anticlimactic would that be? To be misled by a serial killer, only to die in the woods of starvation or freezing or bears.
I shake my head to push the thought away.
No. Something about the way he spoke to me in that interrogation room felt too genuine for this to be a set up.
Besides, if he wanted us to die, he could have left us in our cells.
“What’s that?” Beatrix calls out, jabbing her finger to our left.
Our heads simultaneously snap in the direction she’s pointing. I have to squint to see it, but it’s there: a large, sloping roof with green vines and thick branches camouflaging it. We take off in a run, refusing to waste another second out here. A giddy laugh bubbles out of me as the end of this miserable suffering dangles before us like a carrot on a stick.
Our plan was to hang back and make sure this isn’t a trap set by the Midnight Syndicate, but it seems that we’ve decided to throw that out the window sometime during our trek through the freezing cold. The prospect of warmth and shelter has overruled everything else.
The cabin has been built into a small clearing of trees, though it’s small enough that the canopies overhead probably provide cover for it to anyone searching overhead. I wonder if the Syndicate—or anyone besides Raze, for that matter—even knowsit exists. Knowing him, the chances are slim. Still, we stop at the tree line, hiding behind the thickest trunks to look around the area for anything out of place.
Crows caw overhead and something scurries high up the tree Ava is standing behind, but nothing else seems to move. It’s like the entire forest has gone still just to prove to us that we’re safe.
“Do you think he left it unlocked?” Beatrix whispers, nodding toward the wooden door of the small building.
I hadn’t considered that. What if it’s locked? Does he expect us to wait for him to show up, or do we break in?
“The only way to know is to try,” Jonah says, stepping out from behind his tree to walk toward the cabin.
Me, Ava, and Beatrix share a worried look, our eyes wide. We silently agree not to leave the safety of our trees as Jonah steps up to the door and tries to turn the knob. When it doesn’t move, he looks back at us and shrugs.
“What are the chances he left a key beneath a rock?” he calls out, then kicks his feet around in the dirt.
We search every inch around the cabin, turning over any rock or out of place object we can find, but come up short. My hands are numb, my feet are frozen and stiff, and I think my face is stuck in the scowl I’ve been donning for the past hour.
The asshole forgot to leave a key for us to get in.
“Let’s break through the window,” Beatrix suggests once we’re positive we’ve checked every possible nook and cranny three times over. She bends over to pick up a medium-sized rock, then practices a few swings as she marches up to the small window beside the door.
