Page 123 of Finding Noah

“Sorry,” he said needlessly, his voice choked. “This just … feels surreal. I keep expectin’ him to text or somethin’, and it’s just not happenin’. And if I feel that way, I can't imagine how you're both feelin' right now.” He raised his eyes to Soldier and Ray and pulled his lips between his teeth.

Ray started to cry again as she reached across the table, grasping Patrick's hand. Meg stared at their joined hands, and Soldier stared at her. Watching for when the girl would finally break.

She had called him hours earlier to tell him she didn't know where Noah was in a tone so trained, so schooled, that he knew there was nothing genuinely calm about it. He knew that, deep down, she was holding on to her last thread of sanity, that final shred of composure, and at any second, she'd crack.

He wished she would. He wished she'd let it go. But if she did, he knew he would, too, as if this girl's strength was what held his together, and he didn't want to crumple.

All he wanted was to find his son.

And he wouldn't be able to do that if he broke.

“Daddy,” Meg said, her voice a whisper as she swung her gaze toward her father's face, “what if … what if he’s …”

“Don't go there,” Patrick said, pulling away from Ray to wrap his arm around his daughter's shoulders. “Whatever you're thinkin', don't give it life. We're gonna find him.”

Ray grabbed a napkin from the holder in the center of the table and clenched it in her hands as she managed to say, “But what if we don't? Wh-what if she’s right? What if he's—”

“Rain,” Soldier said through a clenched jaw. God, the tethers holding his soul to his sanity were close to snapping. So close. “Like he said, don't give that shit life.”

Ray turned with wide-eyed bewilderment, leveling him with her tears and a look so forlorn and betrayed that he couldn't stand it.

“And you're not thinking it?” she threw at him.

Soldier swallowed, sliding his arm around his wife's shoulders. “Of course I am,” he admitted, dropping his voice to nothing but a whisper. “But I won't say it. I won't put it out there. Because …” No. His throat tightened, and he cleared it repeatedly, willing the hurt to hold off. He’d dealt with pain before. He’d shouldered so much. He could handle a little more. “Because we're gonna find him. He's gonna be okay. I mean”—he laughed and lifted his gaze to look through the living room, toward the large bay window at the front of the house—”he's probably gonna pull in at any second, walk through the door, and be like, What the fuck are you guys …”

Soldier's voice drifted off, and as it did, he listened to the faint sound of Meghan Kinney sniffling, finally breaking under the truth that it wasn't going to be that simple.

They all knew it.

They all felt it.

“Fuck,” Soldier muttered, dragging his palm over his mouth and beard, unable to stop a barrage of memories from flashing before his eyes.

The young kid who’d given him a chance when nobody else would. Knocking over bunches of bananas onto the grocery store floor. Helping him to put up his brand-new TV.

He’d taken that kid fishing. Taught him to fight. Smashed the window and lowered him into a drenched world and told him to run, ensuring that, even if he didn’t see another day, that kid would live.

And as he dropped his elbows to the table and cradled his forehead in his palms, his shoulders quaking with big, soul-racking sobs, he prayed and wished and hoped that kid was fighting now and held on long enough for Soldier to save him.

Again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A VISITOR

“Wakey, wakey, Noah.”

I was ripped from a dreamless sleep to a palm slapping against my sore cheek, and I cracked my right eye open to look into the face of Benjamin Nolan.

My left eye was too swollen shut to be of any use to me now.

“There you are,” he said with a smile, his voice sickly sweet. “I wanna talk to you today.”

Today.

“What day is it?” I managed to ask.

My voice didn't sound at all like mine. Gravelly, splintered, and raw.