Page 26 of Faking Forever
No such luck.
The heat shimmered on the surface of the road, and the silence was broken by nothing but the occasional lonely call of a fish eagle, and the loud, persistent buzz of thousands of cicadas off in the distance. Well, she hoped they were off in the distance.
Kenny definitely wasn’t up to dealing with a horde ofcicadas descending upon her like some biblical plague right now.
She got back into the car and sat there for a while, staring at the desolate road. She checked her phone. Still no signal.
“So this is where I die,” she intoned glumly. She wasn’t usually so prone to melodrama, but if ever an occasion called for it, surely this was it.
She considered her choices. She could go the route of wait and see, which wasn’t great. It was nearly half past six and the light would only last another three hours tops. She definitely didn’t fancy sitting here in the dark. There was bound to be wild animals out here.
She wasn’t too far from the town of Riversend, but her drive into this hellscape had been half an hour long, so her walk would back be twice that, or longer in this heat. No guarantee she’d make the town before nightfall.
Or maybe she could go in the direction the GPS had originally sent her down, in the hopes of finding Tina and Harris’s house. But since she wasn’t sure it was right, that would be a fool’s errand.
Orshe could walk until she got signal again. It hadn’t been too far back that she’d had a signal, so the walk would be, what, five minutes? Ten? It couldn’t possibly be more than that.
It was the only viable option, really.
She switched the car back on to close the windows, and then grabbed her phone and water bottle, and reluctantly exited the vehicle.
The cicadas sounded even louder now. But that was probably because the silence around the buzzing insects had intensified. Even the eagle had moved on.
She stared down at her feet, noting her big toe was starting to swell and bruise, and for a brief moment she entertained the notion that it might be broken.
She shoved the thought to the back of her head and consideredthe wisdom of changing into sturdier shoes. She had a pair of sneakers carelessly tossed in the back of the car. It would likely hurt the toe like hell, but it would be better than possibly slipping and falling in these flimsy flip-flops. Also with scorpions and other venomous creatures skittering about, it was better to be safe.
Decision made, she quickly donned her sneakers, wincing when the pain in her toe escalated from bearable to excruciating in an instant.
Why the hell was she even out here in the first place? Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling her to just move on with her life.
She shook her head impatiently. That didn’t matter right now. Regret and doubt would not change her current reality. She was in a somewhat precarious predicament. One that could go badly very quickly if she wasn’t careful.
She limped determinedly back in the direction she’d first come, valiantly ignoring the escalating pain in her foot, and checking her phone for signal every couple of minutes. She kept her eyes trained on the dusty road ahead, extremely cognizant of the fact that there were definitely venomous snakes lurking close by.
She was soon enveloped by a swarm of biting midges, and no matter how much she swatted and swung at them, they dogged her every step.
She looked back after five minutes and was alarmed to note that her car was actually farther away than she’d thought. She stopped and checked her phone again.
“Oh, thankGod!”
One bar. Just one. But hopefully it was enough. She didn’t think, just called the only person who could possibly help her right now.
Only the phone rang and rang and rang. Before going silent. Not to voice mail. Which meant that he’d declined the call.
She stared at the screen for a long moment, desperation warring with pride.
Another glance reconfirmed her dire circumstances. She tapped out a quick text.
Please answer your phone, Smith. I’m in trouble. I need help.
Two blue checkmarks. Same as all the other messages she’d sent him in the month since he’d left. With not one response to any of them.
Still, he’d seen her message and had just hung up on her, which meant that he had the phone in his hand. Hopefully, he didn’t hate her so much that he’d ignore a plea for help.
Her pride and her heart were both already too badly bruised to want to find out, but she was all out of options and he was closer to her right now than AAA.
She swatted at those bitey midge bastards again, and swiped a forearm across her grimy forehead before saying a silent prayer and redialing.
