His first response was to ignore it, ignore this person, but then his eyes met hers and he immediately stepped on the brake. The car came to a sudden stop and Billy got out, no he jumped out.

  "You need help?"

  "Billy? Oh, my God, yes, please. My car broke down. Can you give me a lift?"

  "Sure," Billy said. He opened the door to the passenger seat and helped her get in, then jumped in the driver's seat. He turned and looked at Emily. "We have to do one last thing before we leave."

  Mary had calmed down. Her screaming was reduced to helplessly crying, her body curled up in a fetal position.

  Emily spoke, her eyebrows lifted.

  "But, Dad, I thought we were getting out of here, faster than fast?"

  "I know. And we are. But Danielle needs our help, baby. We have to help a poor damsel in distress. It's the right thing to do."

  Chapter 77

  Pete was quiet for an uncomfortably long time. The soup was still boiling on the stove, but we had lost our appetites.

  "Say something, Pete, please?" I said.

  He opened his mouth for the third time since I had told him Julia was his daughter, but still not a word emerged. Finally, a few seconds later, he managed to get something out.

  "Y-y-you never told me. Why? Why, for the love of it, why would you not tell me?"

  I exhaled. I guess I had always known this day would come, that I would have to face him at some point, but I had kept on postponing it, maybe secretly hoping it would go away on its own.

  "You abandoned me, Pete. You disappeared. When Rob asked me to marry him, I didn't say yes right away. I went to your house, but your parents told me you were gone. I asked for your address or telephone number, but they didn't want to give it to me. They told me you didn't want to see me anymore."

  Pete looked at me. "I was in the hospital."

  "How was I supposed to know? I thought you didn't want me or any child I carried. How could I think differently with what your parents told me? Even if I didn't believe them, how should I have found you? I had no idea where you were. I’m not proud of it, but yes, that's what happened. I did what I needed to. I thought it was my only option for a decent life, for a good life for my child, for Julia."

  Pete rubbed his forehead. His eyes were flickering. I could only imagine how many questions were piling up inside of him.

  "And Rob?"

  "Never let her feel like she wasn't his. He was a terrible father and gave up a few years later, but at least he treated her the same as the others. At least he was a terrible father to all of them."

  Pete scoffed. He gulped down his vodka. I poured him another one and one more for myself.

  "And Julia?" he asked.

  "I never told her. She was happy. There never was the right time or the need. I was afraid of destroying her world. I kind of decided down the road that she didn't need a father."

  "Well, did you ever stop to think that maybe someone else had the need to know that they had a daughter?"

  Ouch.

  I sipped my vodka. It wasn't really working. I still felt terrible. So many times, I had looked him up online and found his information on UCF's webpage. So many times I had written an email or imagined calling him, but for what? He didn't want me back then, why would he want our child? I had, somewhere along the way, decided he didn't need to know. That he was better left not knowing and maybe, just maybe, I wanted—deep down inside—to get revenge for how he treated me back then, revenge for him just leaving and abandoning me. If he didn't want me, then he didn't deserve to know.

  But I was wrong. Boy, had I been wrong, and now it was all coming back to haunt me.

  Pete hit his fist on the table once again. He had tears in his eyes as he spoke to me. "Damn it, Patty. How could you go more than thirty years and not tell me I had a daughter? That Julia, that gorgeous girl, in there was…mine?"

  While he spoke, the door opened to the kitchen and Julia peeked inside. My eyes met hers and I knew she had heard.

  "Julia?" I said and got up.

  Pete turned around. Julia stood, frozen, and stared at us, a note in her hand.

  "Julia," I repeated. "I…I…"

  "I just wanted to tell you that Danielle left," she said, her voice completely emotionless. Julia lifted the piece of paper in her hand. "Apparently, she went to get Allen."

  Julia let the note drop to the tiles, then turned around and left.

  "Julia!" I yelled and hurried after her. "Julia. Stop."

  But she didn't stop. She walked into her room and closed the door. When I tried to follow her, it was locked. I knocked and shook the handle. It brought back some tiresome memories of fights I had with her when she was a teenager.

  "Julia. Come back out. Let's talk. Please."

  But she didn't answer. I kept trying, but nothing. Grace and Steve came out of their room.

  "What's going on?"

  I felt like crying and Grace could tell immediately. "Mom, are you all right?"

  I exhaled. "No. I am not. I screwed up. I screwed everything up."

  Chapter 78

  It was like Lisa's light refused to remove itself from the people in the trees. She stood as if she was frozen. Both she and Allen remained motionless for a very long time, simply staring at it, at them. It wasn't until Allen heard a noise coming from behind that he came out of his trance.

  "What was that?" he asked and looked behind him, the rifle ready. There was no way he was dying out here today. No way was he ending hung up in the trees like the rest of them.

  Lisa stayed close to him. "I'm scared, Allen."

  A rustle from the other side made them both turn.

  "We gotta move," he said. "We're not safe here. Whatever killed these people, I have a feeling it's not finished yet."

  Lisa gasped and moved even closer to Allen. Allen started to walk, Lisa keeping very tight behind him, gasping and whimpering at every sound.

  "Where are we going?" she asked, a hint of hope in her otherwise fearful voice. "Should we go back?"

  Allen would have liked to say he knew the way; he would like to tell her he had everything under control. There was something about Lisa that made him want to protect her. He wanted to be a man in this moment, but he couldn't. He couldn't tell her he would be able to get her to safety because he didn't know how to. Fear was running through his veins like a giant virus destroying everything in its way. And right now it had gotten to his courage, his ability to always figure out what to do and do it, do what is necessary at the right time. The fact was, Allen was scared to death, well even beyond that, but he didn't want to admit it to her. Not to Lisa.

  So, he simply didn't answer. Instead, he sped up, making her have to hurry up in those small ballerina shoes of hers in order to keep up with him.

  Lisa kept talking endlessly. "Where are we going? Is this the way out? Huh, Allen? Allen?"

  Allen grumbled something that made no sense and hoped she would chalk it up to her just not hearing him. A few seconds later, she was crying.

  "You don’t know, do you? You don't know the way out."

  He stopped and turned and looked at her. He didn't mean to, but he accidentally yelled at her.

  "Do you?"

  She shook her head with a small whimper. "N-n-no."

  Her eyes were anxious. He feared it was because she was afraid of him, but as they grew wider and wider, he realized it wasn't him. It was something else (and that something else was right behind him, wasn't it?).

  Allen turned to look. A giant rose bush emerged in front of him, thorns as big as his hands, some as big as his head. The flowers were moving in and out among each other like slithering snakes moving to the music made by a snake charmer. One rose moved quickly towards him and the thorn cut through his skin on his arm and left a deep wound.

  Allen screamed. Lisa grabbed him by the collar and pulled him backward. The flowers were moving along, shooting themselves at them, their thorns pointed at them. Lisa whimpered and they started to run. She pulled Allen hard to get him to move faster. New bushes grew up around them, shot right out of the ground. Soon, the rose bushes seemed to be everywhere and they were so tall they could come from anywhere, the side, from the back, or even sometimes there was one in front of them, poking itself at them, trying to hit them with its thorns. The rose bushes closed in on them fast, and soon they were completely surrounded. There was no longer anywhere to run.

  Lisa stopped, her nose a hair's width from a thorn. She gasped. Allen pulled her close to him, pointed the rifle at the rose, and fired. The shot echoed through the forest, but it was like peeing your pants when it’s cold. It felt good for a second, but then only made things worse.

  The roses enclosed Allen and Lisa completely so they could no longer move.

  "And to think I used to love roses," Lisa said, clinging tightly to Allen. "I don't think I will ever ask a man to buy me roses again."

  Chapter 79

  The soup was still boiling on the stove. I had finished my vodka. Pete hadn't spoken a word. He was still sitting across the table from me, drumming his fingers on the kitchen table. The noise was driving me crazy. So were his glowering eyes.

  I opened my mouth to speak. "Pete…I…" then stopped. There wasn't more I could say. Instead, I got up and walked to the counter to grab the bottle of vodka, thinking I might as well get really drunk.

  But as I grabbed it in my hand, something caught my eye. It was Julia's phone that I had placed on the counter when I started cooking.

  There was light in the display.

  At first, I thought she had probably just received a text or some Facebook notification, but for some reason, I still went to look. I picked up the phone. My heart started to pound. Pete saw it.

  "What's going on?"

  I could hardly speak. "It's…the…it's Find My Kid’s Footprints, you know, the…thing."

  "No. I don't know."

  I looked up, my heart still throbbing in my chest. "It's this app. Julia uses it to keep track of Sam. It uses GPS or something and tells you where your kid is, if he has a phone that is turned on, that is. And it says here that Sam's just pinged in and…and…here…see it even gives his location."

  Pete got up very fast, then hurried to me. I showed him. He looked up at me, then back at the display.

  "Could he really still be alive?" I asked. "After all this time?"

  "Let's think for a minute," he said. "This thing, this app, it tracks his location or rather his phone's location, am I right?"

  "Yes."

  "So it could just be the phone that is somewhere on the ground inside the swamps where he dropped it?"

  "Or he could still be alive," I argued.

  "Or it could just be the phone," he said.

  "Or he could still be alive."

  "Okay, this is getting us nowhere. Is it reasonable to think that the phone would still have enough battery left after all this time? Maybe. Could he have dropped it and now it's just somehow come within reception, maybe because an animal took it…maybe. But, does it mean…?"

  "He's still alive," I said.

  "We don't know that, Patty."

  "He's still alive. I know he is. I knew it all along. I’m gonna try and call him." I found Sam in Julia's phone and called. Then looked at Pete triumphantly. "It's ringing. It's ringing."

  "Mom?"

  My heart literally stopped. Up until now, I had hoped, but never thought he would actually pick it up.

  "Sam? SAM?!"

  "Grandma?"

  The tears came, as the knot in my throat exploded. I looked at Pete, whose face lit up, then clasped my mouth.

  "Oh, my God, Sam, where are you?"

  The connection was bad and I couldn't hear him well enough. All I got were words like flytrap, then something about his dad that I didn't understand, then darkness and way out. He used the word scared more than once.

  "Could you repeat that, Sam? Sam? SAAAAM?"

  There was nothing from the other end.

  "Saaam?"

  I looked at the display, then tried to call again, but only got the answering machine.

  "What did he say?" Pete asked. "What did he say?"

  "I don't know! I didn't get a word. I’m trying again." I called once more but still only got the voicemail. I growled and looked at the phone, my breath ragged.

  "Now what do we do?" I asked.

  "The app," Pete said. "The app shows his location, right?"

  "Yeah, but only when his phone is turned on, and I think it either died or he lost connection."

  "But it showed where he was a few minutes ago. So we'll know his last location, right before you called him?"

  "Of course, Pete, you're a genius." I opened the app and looked at the map.

  "What does it say?" he asked.

  "Looks like he's still inside the swamps. See where the red dot is. That's where he is or was a few minutes ago. Look it pinged in twice in the past two hours, so we can see the direction he is walking."

  "Oh, my, he’s walking the wrong way," Pete said, "…and look at how close to the exit he was two hours ago. Oh, my God, it's devastating. He was right there, by that exit and then he turned? Why?"

  "But…oh, my God," I growled. "If he continues, he'll just get deeper into the swamps. We need to help him. There is no way my grandson is spending another night out there."

  Chapter 80

  Harry looked at Sam. His heart was in his throat. He couldn't believe Sam's phone had actually rung. Harry had been watching him while he spoke to someone on the phone, it sounded like his grandmother, but now the light in the phone had died and Sam was yelling at it.

  "What happened?" Harry asked, his voice shivering partly in excitement, partly in disappointment.

  "Stupid phone went dead. It's completely dead."

  Harry couldn't see his face in the darkness, but he could hear in his voice that he was crying. It was hard for Harry to hold back his own tears. He couldn't believe they had actually made contact with the outside world and then lost it again. It was difficult to muster any form of optimism when the disappointment was so deep. The worst part of hope is when it is taken away from you again. That was why Harry rarely got his hopes up. But for one unforgivable second, he had, right when Sam's phone rang in the darkness, right when Sam was about to turn it off to save the battery. And when Sam said hello to his grandmother, Harry had let himself believe that there just might be a way out of this, that they just might be saved. But now it was all gone. The light, the happiness in Sam's voice, the joy inside Harry, and the hope.

  All gone.

  "At least you got to tell them where we were, right?" Harry asked, giving this staying positive thing one last try.

  "I don't think she heard it, though. The connection was really bad," Sam said. "The last thing I heard was her asking me to repeat it."

  "That's not a good sign, " Harry said, defeated.

  "Probably not," Sam said with a deflated sigh.

  Harry could hear him sit down on the ground. Harry did the same. He could see the outline of Sam's body in the dark, but not his face. Harry reached out his arm and slung it over Sam's shoulder, then pulled him close so he could cry.

  "It's okay," he tried again, gathering every positive cell in his brain and putting them to use. He couldn't bear to see Sam lose hope too. Young kids should be hopeful, no matter the circumstances. There was plenty of time to get bitter and hopeless later on when they realized they wouldn't always get what they wanted in life. "We'll find a way out tomorrow. We just have to continue in the same direction we're going, since I turned us around earlier. I have a good feeling about it."

  Sam sniffled for his answer. Harry leaned his head on top of Sam’s. It felt good to at least have someone to share this disaster with. Harry couldn't imagine being alone out here. He clenched his fist, thinking about Greg and the sacrifice he had made for Sam. If anything, Harry was going to honor his promise to him. He was going to get that boy out of here, alive.

  While Sam dozed off, leaning on Harry's shoulder, Harry stayed awake, listening to the many sounds of the swamp. He wondered about the phone call and how they suddenly had reception out there. It had to mean they were getting closer to civilization, didn't it?

  Harry decided it did and felt a little hope arise inside of him again. They had made a turn earlier, just before sunset, and that had to be the decision that had changed things around for them. Yes, that had to be it. They were getting closer to the exit.

  "Tomorrow, I’m getting you out of here," he said to Sam, who grumbled something back in his sleep. Harry was tired of expecting the worst. Deep down inside, he believed they could get out of there. So what if he risked getting disappointed? Yes, he had hope and—dang it—it was the weapon that was going to get the both of them out…alive.

  Chapter 81

  "Julia! Julia! Open the door."

  I knocked till my knuckles hurt, but she still refused to open the door. "I’ve heard from Sam, Julia. He's alive. Come out."

  She still didn't open the door and it had me very concerned. I looked at Pete. "Could you…"

  "Break the door in? You think I’m some kind of action man or something?" he asked.

  I made a grimace and looked at his body. "Not really, but you did some mean machete swinging earlier. I thought you might…I’m afraid something is wrong. No matter how angry she is, she would have reacted to what I said about Sam."

  "Maybe she's asleep?" he asked.

  "You don't think my knocking and screaming would have woken her up by now?"

  Grace and Steve came out of their room. "What's going on?" Grace asked.

  "I talked to Sam," I said.

  Grace answered with a gasp.

  "He's alive," I continued, "but Julia won't open the door."