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Emma let out the barest whimper, and April clutched the Elsa shirt harder, giving it a little shake.
He stopped and listened, scanning again.
That’s when Meghan leapt forward.
At first I thought she was going to attack him, like Brecia had the night before after he dug the graves. But then she was next to his ear.
“They couldn’t have made it this far. They’re way, way back. You went too far,” she screamed at him, matching the wildness I could see in his eyes.
He continued staring straight ahead. Emma was quiet. The woods around us were quiet. I willed the birds to start back up, willed a real bear to walk down the path toward all of us. Of course they did not. There was something far more dangerous here.
There was only silence and the sound of his heavy breathing.
I curled back up next to Emma, hoping somehow she felt the invisible buffer on her other side. She didn’t make another noise, but I could tell by the way her chest was trembling that she was silently crying.
Kimmie was so still, tucked under April’s shoulder, that I could barely see her shallow breaths. I put my mouth close to Emma’s ear, whispering assurances I didn’t believe.
“The bear won’t get you, baby,” I told her. The bear got me. “Your mama is here, and she’s gonna protect you.” Sometimes, nobody can stop the bad thing. “Just hang on for a little longer, okay? Don’t make a sound.” He’s coming this way.
The sound of footfalls on pine needles started again. I braced and tried to get closer to Emma, whispering the same words I half-believed over and over again, beneath the sound of Meghan—and now Brecia, who had joined her—still screaming at him to turn around. Insisting that this part of the woods was empty. Insisting he’d find them if he just turned around and went back the way he’d come.
Then I heard the most glorious noise. “MOTHER-FU—,” he screamed in frustration, the word barely intelligible and cutting out as it ripped through him and turned into a howl.
The sound of crashing footsteps moved away from us as he barreled back toward the road and the minivan.
April waited until she heard the distant sound of the engine turning over and the whisper of the tires on the dirt road until she released her grip on the girls and shakily stood up, turning her tear-filled eyes toward her two terrified babies.
“The . . . bear . . . is gone?” Kimmie whimpered.
“It sounded like he was saying words,” Emma managed in a tremulous voice, looking at April with the widest hazel eyes I’d ever seen.
April blinked back the tears and grabbed their hands. “What matters is that he went away. And that we’re almost safe. You’re both so brave. Brave girls,” she whispered again as the words caught in her throat. “Can you run with me one more time?”
The two blond heads bobbed.
I looked up at Brecia and Meghan, who were still standing where he’d been just moments earlier—a stone’s throw away from where we’d all been crouching beside the big log.
There was a new, steely determination in the air. Meghan wasn’t hugging herself anymore. In fact, she looked like she’d just caught fire. From the half-smile on Brecia’s face, she could feel it too.
The scales were tipping. They hadn’t landed yet. But they were tipping, with a little pressure from invisible hands.
47. MEGHAN
Cascade, Idaho
As we approached the turnoff to Highway 55, the sun was just dipping beneath the ridge to the west, sending the valley into a sort of murky, pre-sunset gloom.
April had been carrying Kimmie for the past few minutes. Emma was holding on to the back of April’s shirt, stumbling forward on sheer adrenaline. All three of them were ready to crash.
But we’d finally made it. April would flag someone down, who would take pity on the exhausted young mother with two little girls caked in dust and gasping for breath. The police would be called. The girls would be safe. It would be over.
We could all hear the sound of a vehicle approaching from somewhere down the asphalt, its tires zipping on the smooth surface along Highway 55.
As the sound got closer, April set Kimmie next to Emma. “I’ll be right back, okay? Just stay here.”
Both Emma and Kimmie looked like they might panic. I understood. Being left alone was not an appealing option right now.
April pointed at the shoulder of the road, up a steep rise. “I’ll be a few feet away. You can see me. But I need to hurry.” Before they could protest, she turned and scrambled up the side of the steep shoulder to peer over the edge.
