Page 129 of Finding Noah

Her name went unsaid, even as the man in black fed me the rest of the burger and the remaining water, and I continued to sniffle and cry between bites.

Then he laid a hand against my chest. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I sensed them. I knew he was saying something, I imagined what it might be, and I nodded in response.

Focus on this, I thought he was saying. Focus on what’s in here.

And even if I were to die, I could do so happily, knowing I’d been loved.

I sniffled back the rest of my tears as the masked man held up another bottle, this one containing pills.

“What is that?” I asked.

He brought the label closer, and though it was dark, I could make out the prescription label reading OxyContin. The irony wasn’t lost on me. These were the pills Dad had swiped from his mother to sell for money to pay the bills. These were also the pills that had killed his old best friend, Billy, and resulted in Dad’s prison sentence.

“Are you … are you drugging me up?” I asked.

He shook his head, then touched the sore spots on my stomach and ribs.

“For the pain,” I muttered, interpreting. “Okay. Yeah. Th-thank you.”

He placed one onto the tip of my tongue and cracked another bottle of water open. I sipped and swallowed, the warmth of gratitude flooding my chest as my head dropped against the mattress.

The man in black collected the things he’d brought. He gave me another sip of water and capped the bottle, tucking it into his trouser pocket. Then he stood, towering over me, his plague doctor face hovering over mine from above, glowing within the haze of the moon.

“Are you Death?” I found myself asking, only to immediately realize how stupid it must sound.

Yet he didn’t confirm or deny with a nod or a shake of his head.

He simply turned and left me with the hope that he might return with more food and drink. More tenderness and pain-relieving remedies. And maybe, just maybe …

He’d set me free, whatever that might mean.

I just wanted to be free.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOON

Although Noah Mason had claimed to Benjamin Nolan that there were only one person who cared about his life, five people arrived in a cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts, to meet with Stormy and Charlie Corbin.

Soldier, Ray, and Miles Mason.

Sergeant Patrick Kinney and, of course, his daughter Meghan.

Together, they converged at the local police station, demanding answers to the questions that weren't being answered about the disappearance of their son, friend, brother, and fiancé.

Where was he? Where was his car, his phone, any of his belongings that seemed to have simply vanished without a single trace?

And that was what they did for an entire twenty-four hours, just three days after Noah had disappeared. And on the fourth night, Meghan decided on her own that she'd had enough of relying on the police.

Soldier, who'd often taken matters into his own hands, was riding that same wavelength with her.

Sitting at the kitchen table in Stormy and Charlie's cottage in the middle of the cemetery, Meg wrapped her hands around a hot cup of tea, her bones frozen despite the heat. She couldn't will herself to drink its contents. She couldn't remember the last time she'd consumed anything at all, not willingly anyway. Not without the pressure of someone else’s insistence. But as aware as she was of the ache in her heart, there was a little life inside of her that relied on that sustenance, and if she couldn't force something substantial inside her stomach soon, that little soul would leave her too.

An owl made its presence known from nearby the cottage. Meg turned to gaze out the window into the nightly gloom, her eyes settling on the moon hanging in the starlit sky.

“Noah.”

She allowed his name to escape her lips, as if he himself were the man sitting atop that great, giant orb. And for all she knew, maybe he was. Gone from this world to look down on her, just out of orbit and so far from her reach.