mila (listentoteeth) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-05-11 13:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, aaron, aaron x mila, mila |
Who: Aaron and Mila
When: Sunday evening, October 22nd
Where: The woods behind Seaview Village & Cooperdale Tunnel
Status: Complete
It seemed like a very bad, very surreal dream, walking with Aaron now over fallen branches and the occasional tree trunk that had long ago snapped from its base to the ground. Leaves that had already fallen at the beginning of the month crunched beneath her boots. Mila supposed she could be thankful that it wasn’t raining. It was too much to picture Amelia hunkered down somewhere outside, scared and wet. There were voices nearby, other groups from the search party that had been quickly formed after it became clear that Aaron’s niece had gone missing. Mila hadn’t hesitated in joining them. Physically she was feeling better and she knew she wouldn’t have been able to just sit around at home while Aaron and his family were out here, surrounded by people they didn’t consider to be friends or family, calling out for Amelia every few minutes. Mila was terrified that they would find her… at least out here. She knew what searching the woods meant. They were looking for a body, no matter what anyone said. She had been in this position before, but Mila was trying not to think too much about Adrian. She refused to believe that Aaron and his family would suffer the same conclusion Mila and her parents had. There was just no healing from that.
She stayed close to Aaron while trying to give him some space at the same time. Mila didn’t have the right words to say to ease his worry. Anything she could have said would have sounded flat and obligatory. Hopefully he knew she was there for him, no matter what happened.
Mila took a small drink of water from the bottle in her hand before walking a bit closer to Aaron to offer the bottle to Aaron in case he wanted some. “Doing okay?” she murmured, shifting her gaze away from the trees in front of them to look at him.
Aaron wasn’t sure how he was doing. He felt gutted and scared, terrified for Amelia and kind of removed from it all at the same time. It was a confusing, distressing jumble of emotions. As soon as he’d heard that his niece had gone missing, he and Mila had gone over to Olivia’s house to help search. It didn’t matter if he and Gavin were barely on speaking terms -- Amelia was family, and Aaron knew all of them would exhaust themselves trying to find her. Caden, Jasper, and Roxy were out somewhere nearby too, also combing the woods. In the back of his mind, Aaron knew they weren’t likely to find her out here alive and well, but he kept shouting her name anyway and praying for an answer.
He looked over at Mila as she came in closer and offered the bottle, reaching out to take it with a numb-feeling hand. Aaron took a drink before he answered. He shook his head. “Not ... really,” he murmured, then focused more on her. “Are you? Are you tired, need to go back?” Mila was still recovering from the miscarriage, after all, and searching like this was hard on the body. Aaron couldn’t even wrap his head around the idea that their family might have lost two children in the space of a week.
"I'm not tired," Mila assured him. Maybe she was, a little, but she wasn't about to turn around and head back. It felt like they needed every pair of feet on the ground that they could get. "I just feel terrible," she added after a moment, looking away from Aaron toward their path again. "Not being able to do anything but this, and I don't even know if this is all that helpful." Maybe it was, but... how often did search parties find anything of substance? If someone took Amelia, they weren't out here in the woods. And if someone killed her... Mila swallowed hard and forced the thought out of her mind. She was feeling unusually cynical and morbid at the moment, and that was helpful either. "Have you talked to Gavin?" she murmured, well aware that if Aaron had, there probably hadn't been many words exchanged.
Aaron didn’t know if it would be helpful either. But he couldn’t sit around and do nothing. Sitting on his hands and waiting sounded like absolute hell, and Aaron knew he couldn’t have done it. Even if there weren’t groups searching the woods, he would’ve been out driving around, calling for her. He adored Amelia, she was smart and funny and the best, and a bit part of why he’d wanted his own kids too. He’d been so young when Jasper was born that Aaron almost saw him as another brother, but Amelia had truly been his niece. It made him feel queasy to think about what someone could be doing to her right then. “I saw him, but ... no,” Aaron said. They’d arrived and gotten swept right into searching, he hadn’t had time to talk to Gavin. Probably just as well, Aaron didn’t have anything good to say to him anyway. “I just ... hope we find her.” Aaron reached for Mila’s hand and took it to squeeze.
"Me too," she murmured, taking Aaron's hand. She brought it up to her face to nuzzle it against her cheek for a moment. Mila then pressed a kiss to his knuckles before she let him go so they could space out a bit again. Unfortunately this wasn't a casual hike for the both of them. She wanted to talk to him a bit more, but Mila didn't know what to say. Their own personal issues felt insignificant in that moment and Mila didn't want to bring him down even further by bringing up painful subjects. She called for Amelia again, hearing someone else echo the same further away. It felt like they were getting close to the Cooperdale Tunnel, and she had a sick wondering if that had been checked yet. "I wonder if we should check the tunnel with the train tracks, " Mila said after a moment. "I don't remember them saying they've checked there yet."
Aaron turned his attention back to the ground and the area around them, looking for anything that seemed out of place, shapes or color wise. He felt like all the leaves and twigs were conspiring against them, giving him a kind of blindness, like when you looked at the snow too long. Aaron stopped and toed at the ground with his boot at one point, but all he’d spotted was an old Coke can. That was definitely not Amelia. Aaron’s stomach turned over uncomfortably when Mila mentioned the tunnel, his brows drawing together. “She knows not to play down there,” he muttered, but it was pretty clear by not that Amelia hadn’t gone somewhere of her own free will. “But we should check.”
Mila knew Amelia was smart enough not to go near the tunnel, but... they were out searching the woods for her. She probably knew better not to be out here on her own too, but here they were. The tunnel had a pretty bloody history, and she didn't want to think about Amelia joining the long list of victims people had found there, but it was some place they needed to look. So she nodded and changed course, having lived in Seaview long enough to know they were getting close to the train tracks that would lead them easily to the tunnel. When they finally reached the tracks, Mila stepped onto them. The grass was still overgrown, weeds popping out from between the slats. She occasionally heard the roar of a train engine late at night when she was in bed, but she generally passed it off as another train, another town over. A really loud one. Maybe it was irrational of her, but she didn't care. What else could it be? "My friends and I used to come out here to smoke when I was in high school," Mila said, just to make conversation. The silence was torture. "I wonder if kids still do that."
Aaron walked numbly along with her, calling out Amelia’s name a couple of times before they reached the tracks. His heart had been beating too hard ever since he got the news, and there was a tension in his gut that Aaron wasn’t sure would ever go away. Not until they found her, that was. He paused to squint up and down the length of the tracks once he and Mila reached them, the started trudging toward the tunnel with her. “Probably,” he murmured absently. The silence wasn’t comfortable for him either, but his mind was so blank and full of static, and there was a weight on his chest that he couldn’t shake. He kept expecting to find part of her clothes or a sneaker or something. Aaron looked up as they reached the tunnel entrance and fear clamped hard around his heart. He grabbed Mila’s arm to stop her, eyes on the words over the dark gaping mouth of the tunnel. Who’s next? in red, like blood. “What the fuck,” Aaron breathed. Then, with rising urgency, “What the fuck does that mean? Mila, what the fuck does that mean?”
Mila both wanted to find signs that Amelia had been there, and yet, she didn't. She knew what it meant if they did, and yet... like with Adrian, if there was no body, there was still hope, right? Hope somehow mixed into the torture and fear of never knowing what happened. She didn't speak again, not wanting to force conversation when they were both so distracted. Her feet were starting to ache from the walk, but Mila pushed on, grateful that she had long since quit smoking. For the most part. Mila stopped abruptly when Aaron grabbed her arm and she looked up from where she was watching her steps to see the red writing on the concrete above the tunnel. Her stomach went ice cold but she swallowed hard, recognizing the panic rising in Aaron's voice. His fingers were becoming painfully tight around her arm. "Hey, it's probably nothing," Mila said, bringing her free hand up to curl around Aaron's wrist in an attempt to calm him and maybe loosen his grip a little. "It's October, Aaron. It was probably some kids who came out here to vandalize the tunnel to freak out anyone who might walk by. I'm sure it's just some stupid prank."
Mila had a good point and she was probably right, but Aaron barely heard her. He’d started breathing harder, terror rising up in the back of his throat like bile. He suddenly felt certain that Amelia’s body was in there, right in the shadows, just waiting to be found. Thinking of her like that, alone and broken and tiny and damp, instantly made him want to cry. He realized he was gripping his girlfriend too tightly and Aaron let her go. “Stay here,” he told her, only glancing at her face before he started to move toward the tunnel. Aaron pulled the small flashlight he’d grabbed from his truck out of one pocket and clicked it on. If Amelia was in there, he didn’t want Mila to have to see. “Amelia!” he called as he got closer to the shadows. The beam of his flashlight looked woefully small and pitiful against them.
She tried to protest staying put, but Aaron was already moving forward, yelling for his niece in the dark tunnel. She was still for about six seconds before she began to walk after him. If Amelia was in there, Mila didn't want him to find her by himself. She came up near Aaron, looking around the edges of the tracks and then the tunnel, just in case there might be anything lying around that belonged to Amelia. The sick feeling in her stomach seemed to have intensified and she reached out to grab Aaron's arm quickly before he could get too far inside. "I don't want you to go in there," she breathed. "I don't like it."
Aaron was so focused forward that he didn’t really hear her following him until she was right there. He stopped when she took his arm, looking around with a pained expression. He pulled a bit against Mila’s grip, but his heart wasn’t in it. She looked so scared, it broke his heart some more. “Mila, I have to look,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “What if she’s--” He cut himself off and looked back toward the dark tunnel. Aaron didn’t like it either, but that just made the fear that Amelia was in there even sharper. He yelled her name again, listening to the word bounce around weirdly against the concrete.
God, what if she was in there? This damned tunnel had a history, and the spray painted - that was spray paint, right? - message on the concrete suddenly felt so horribly ominous. Mila didn't want Aaron to go in there, not only because it scared her, but because if Amelia was in there, she didn't want Aaron to find her. She was his niece and Aaron had already suffered enough over the past couple of days, hadn't he? "Aaron," Mila said, loosening her grip on his arm now. "Let me go in and look then, okay? Or, we'll at least go in together, okay?" She had no idea how far the tunnel went, or how far they would actually look, but she wasn't going to let him go inside by himself.
More panic rose up in Aaron at the suggestion that Mila go in alone. No, that was definitely not happening, and it probably showed in his expression. No way could he stand out there with his hands in his pockets while his girlfriend -- still in a delicate condition, no less -- went into all that darkness alone, looking for his missing niece. What if there was a killer in there, waiting to snatch someone else? It made Aaron wish he’d brought a gun. “Okay,” he relented finally in a mutter. “We’ll go together.” He took Mila’s hand firmly, because they were definitely staying close, and then started into the mouth of the tunnel again.
Mila clutched Aaron's hand tightly and then felt silly for being freaked out. It was a combination of searching for Amelia and the tunnel's history that was making her heart beat so fast. But finding Amelia was more important than whatever bad memories lingered around and inside this stupid tunnel. The tunnel was dimly lit a few feet in, and she couldn't see any light at the end of it, which she'd always found to be strange. But then again, Mila had never known how far the tunnel actually went. Maybe a mile or more? She had no clue. There was graffiti on the walls, some candy wrappers and cigarette butts littering the ground. She half expected to see a body of some kind with every step they took, but the only things coming into view seemed to be more trash. Mila called out for Amelia again, listening to her voice echo through the tunnel.
It was a freaky place to be, and the back of Aaron’s neck tingled with awareness. And a light, nervous sweat. He swept the flashlight from side to side as they walked deeper into the tunnel, seeing nothing but trash too. The echo from Mila’s call rang sharply in his hears and he winced a little in the dark, then strained to hear any reply. There was nothing. Aaron kept walking, working on not gripping Mila’s hand too tightly. He glanced back over his shoulder at the receding light behind them. It looked much farther away than it should’ve been, and the skin over Aaron’s spine crawled again. “Amelia!” he tried again, facing forward once more. This time, there was an extra layer to the echo as it bounced back to them, some sound mixed in that wasn’t Aaron’s voice at all. It was faint and far away, and it stopped when the echo did, so he wasn’t sure he’d really heard it, but ... had that been a baby’s cry? No, it had to just be his ears. Aaron’s breath felt too loud all of the sudden and he held it for a moment to listen harder.
Mila knew it needed to be checked, but she was regretting suggesting that they look in the tunnel. They should have just told the police, even though Mila had a feeling the tunnel was probably on their list of places to look. Her palm was sweaty against Aaron's and she had to literally bite into her tongue to keep from asking him if they could stop now. As his voice echoed through the tunnel, Mila's brows drew together in confusion as the sound seemed to combine with something else. She didn't even realize she was holding her breath until the sound, and Aaron's voice, faded. Mila glanced at Aaron, wondering if she was just hearing things. It had sounded like a baby, but that wasn't possible, and the sound had stopped as soon as the echoes had. Still, Mila couldn't help but call out for Amelia again, louder now, just to see if she heard the sound again. And she did. It sounded like a baby crying, but Mila couldn't tell if it was just her imagination or not and she looked at Aaron, wide eyed. "Do you hear that?"
A jolt of tension ran through Aaron’s body and his hand tightened around Mila’s again. He was staring forward into the darkness, the beam of his flashlight seeming even dimmer than it should have been, like the batteries were slowly dying. He knew they weren’t, it was just ... this place. The air felt oppressive now, too thick, but still chilly. He heard the cry come back to them under the echo of Mila’s voice, and that was definitely the wail of an upset baby. “Yeah,” he breathed in answer, giving his girlfriend a brief glance. They’d stopped walking, but Aaron felt the compulsion to keep going, to follow the tracks deeper into darkness and to find the source of that sound. “Hello!” he yelled, drawing it out a bit for a longer echo. The cries came again, and Aaron was struck with the crazy idea that that was their baby, and they had to find it. He took a couple more halting steps before he stopped himself again. “That can’t be right,” he murmured.
Everything about the situation was wrong and Mila could feel it deep in her bones. She had no idea why they were hearing what they were hearing, especially after what they had both experienced. Mila would have been questioning her own sanity if Aaron hadn't been with her, or hadn't been hearing it too, but he had. But the cries sounded so real, and they sounded familiar, despite how crazy she knew that was. It was like irrational thinking was warring with logic inside of her, and the desire to keep going to find the source of the crying was so much greater than turning around to leave. What if someone had left a baby out here? That didn't explain why it was only crying when she or Aaron called out to it, but... she couldn't figure out any other explanation. Without thinking, Mila tugged her hand from Aaron's to hurry forward, not caring that she didn't have a flashlight herself. She just needed to keep following the tracks and the sound of the baby, who began to cry again as soon as Mila called out for it. It definitely felt real to her now and she quickened her steps, despite not being able to see exactly where she was going.
It was unmistakable now, and the cry seemed like it was gradually getting louder and longer the more they called out. Aaron stood there for an extra second, barely feeling Mila pull away from him, dumbfounded as he listened to the baby’s cry fade out again with Mila’s voice. A little shudder broke his brief trance and he hurried after his girlfriend. She couldn’t go alone, and he felt pulled forward to find the source of the sound too, the flashlight beam bouncing crazily for a moment as he jogged to catch up. Part of his brain was flashing red, something was wrong, this wasn’t right, but he kept moving forward anyway, calling out with Mila and listening for that cry to get any closer. There wasn’t any trash now on the tunnel ground around them, just dirt and tracks and that feeling that nothing living had been here in a long time.
Aaron had lost all sense of how far they’d gone, not even thinking to look back anymore. The baby sounded just as distant as ever as the last echo faded out from Mila’s latest call, but instead of subsequent silence, another voice piped up. It was a child’s voice, very young, too young to be Amelia, and it came on its own, drifting forward to them from some distant point in the shadows. “Mommy?” it called.
Aaron instantly felt like somebody had dumped ice water down his back and he stopped short, grabbing Mila’s arm to stop her too. “Mila, Mila,” he breathed urgently in quick succession. “No.”
She was becoming frustrated, because no matter how far they walked, the cries never got any closer. Her body ached, both from the walk, and the emotional toll the cries were starting to take on her. Mila was grateful for the darkness of the tunnel, aware that Aaron's dim flashlight wouldn't expose her red rimmed eyes as she fought back tears that kept threatening to fall. She knew she was emotional, and hormonal and with Amelia missing now, everything felt raw and exposed. But now it felt like they were supposed to be here, maybe there was something they were supposed to find. She just didn't know what it was. They felt so completely removed from the rest of the town now, walking in the dimness of Aaron's flashlight, no light at either end of the tunnel. As she listened to her voice fade, along with those cries, Mila felt her shoulders slump from exhaustion.
But then everything tensed as soon as that childlike voice spoke up from the shadows and Mila felt Aaron's hand on her arm to stop her. She stared hard into the darkness ahead of them, realizing she knew that voice. It wasn't Amelia, but she knew it. It was a feeling deep in her gut, a recognition, even if she couldn't explain it. Mommy? That was her, wasn't it? This was why they were there and they couldn't stop now. "No," Mila breathed, turning to push Aaron's hand off of her arm so she could keep going. There was a desperation to it now as she pushed at him. "Let go!"
Aaron wasn’t going to be pushed, fear overriding whatever pull this place had on him. That was wrong, they’d been walking and yelling for so long, there was no way a tiny kid had just now started answering them from somewhere deeper in the tunnel. It was wrong and this whole place was wrong and he suddenly and sharply felt like they were in danger. “No,” he insisted, the word coming out as an unsteady bark. Aaron’s heart was trying to beat out of his chest and he felt sick. Holding on bruisingly tight to Mila’s arm, Aaron jammed the butt of the flashlight between his teeth and yanked her in closer to wrap his other arm around her waist to get a better grip on her. He knew he was being too rough, but he was scared, and they had to get out of there.
"Aaron!" Mila was screaming now, twisting against his arms in an attempt to break loose. Her baby needed her. She knew it was her baby. There was no other explanation for why they came here. Mila had forgotten about Amelia, had forgotten the sick feeling she'd had when they started hearing the cries. It made perfect sense to her in the moment and now Aaron was trying to take her away. Mila dug her fingers into his arm to try and loosen his grip as a strangled sob escaped her. "Let me go!" She repeated it over and over, the words broken with emotion. Her cries echoed off the walls of the tunnel, the sound of it only seeming to increase the intensity she was feeling. She would hurt him if she had to. She would. "Please let me go," she begged, sobbing now. "Please."
Aaron held tight to her, intense emotion bubbling up in his chest. Hearing Mila sound like that and feeling her struggle so hard against his grip shattered his heart into tiny pieces, and part of him wanted to let her go. Wanted to run with her toward that tiny plaintive voice, find the source of it and grab hold and never let go. But that horrible feeling of impending danger wouldn’t allow it. Aaron knew that feeling, and if they kept going forward, something terrible would happen. I can’t, I’m so sorry, I can’t he kept trying to say, but couldn’t around his own sobs and the flashlight in his mouth. Instead he started pulling Mila back the way they came. If he had to throw her over his shoulder he would, but right then he was compelled to get her moving away from whatever was trying to lure them further in.
She was determined to fight, to break free and just run into the dark. Mila knew deep in her gut who was waiting for her, and why wouldn't Aaron want the same thing? When he began to pull her away, Mila tried to scream again but she was crying too hard for it to be very effective. She had no idea what kind of noises she was even making anymore, but it felt like she had everything she wanted right within her grasp and he was taking it away from her. The tears and physical struggle she was putting up was starting to wear down the adrenaline that had kicked in as soon as she heard the tiny voice in the distance. Mila had a feeling she was going to hear that word every day for the rest of her life. The farther away that they got, the deeper the exhaustion began to settle and Mila finally stopped struggling in Aaron's arms. His grip was tight, but her feet began to cooperate with him, moving toward the end of the tunnel where they had entered. She continued to cry, feeling a confusing mixture of relief, resentment and lingering grief. "Why wouldn't you let me go," Mila asked, her head falling wearily against his shoulder.
It was hard and it hurt so bad to pull her away, half-dragging, pulling her feet up off the ground when her resistance started to win out. Aaron didn’t know what he would’ve done if he hadn’t been strong enough to do this, and he didn’t want to think about it too much. He just kept his feet moving forward, as fast as he could. He couldn’t hear the baby crying anymore, even with Mila still crying out like she was being torn in half. Tears were running down Aaron’s face, but pushing through even in the face of fear was a skill he’d picked up early. It was a matter of survival in the Lucas house. He let her walk more as she stopped struggling and finally took the flashlight out of his mouth. Aaron kept an arm around Mila, more as support than restraint now. He could see the pale square of light ahead of them that meant they were finally in view of the mouth of the tunnel again. The relief made his legs feel shaky. “I’m sorry,” he said raggedly. Aaron sniffed hard and wiped his mouth with his free forearm. “It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be, I ... it wasn’t real. I’m so sorry.” He felt like he was blubbering and he made himself stop.
Despite how sure she had been that she was meant to find whoever had belonged to that voice, the realization that Aaron was right was starting to push through haze of desperation and grief. It hadn’t been real? No, it hadn’t been. That couldn’t have been their baby because their baby was gone. They had never even met her, or him. How had that voice sounded so familiar? Mila might have thought she had been hallucinating but Aaron had heard it too. What had been waiting for them in the dark? A shiver went through her and Mila kept her head resting against Aaron as they drew closer to the mouth of the tunnel. Her tears had finally stopped and Mila reached up to wipe at her cheek and nose. “It sounded real,” she murmured finally. Then she abruptly stopped walking, looking up at Aaron as she gripped his jacket. “I’m sorry,” Mila breathed, her puffy eyes widening. Her behavior inside the tunnel had been so unlike her. And she remembered wanting to hurt him when he had grabbed her, when he had just been trying to protect her. Shame flooded Mila. “God, Aaron, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what... I wasn’t thinking.”
It had sounded real, and if Aaron’s instinct that it was connected to Danger hadn’t been so strong, he would’ve been running toward it right along with her. He ached to hold their child too, and cover its little face in kisses ... but that wasn’t going to happen, and it especially wasn’t going to happen deep in the Cooperdale Tunnel. He stopped when Mila took firmer hold of him, his anxiety rising sharply again. They needed to keep moving. Aaron shook his head at her apologies and cupped her face with one hand. “It’s okay, don’t,” he murmured to her. His arms ached and his eyes were still watering and he badly just wanted to lie down for a long time. Aaron dipped his face in to kiss her briefly, then hooked his arm around her shoulders again. “Come on, we need to get out here.” It wasn’t too much farther, but the back of Aaron’s neck didn’t stop prickling until they were out from under all that concrete again. He led them several yards away from the entrance, then turned into Mila and hugged her tight to his chest as a couple of unexpected sobs pushed out of him. He’d cried on her so much in the past week or so, but now it felt like all the wounds were fresh and bleeding again.
Mila was too tired to argue with him, and he didn't seem upset with her, so she let Aaron walk her the rest of the way out of the tunnel. Once they were clear of it, Mila almost immediately slipped her arms around Aaron's waist when he pulled her to him. It felt like a Mack truck had slammed into her body, and she felt shaken by what they had experienced, and the emotions that seemed to have taken her over. Mila clung to him as the sobs wracked his chest and she couldn't help but wonder why they continued to stay in a town that was so obviously evil. Mila had been born and raised in Point Pleasant and she could probably count on one hand how many times she had ever considered actually leaving. "I'm sorry," she murmured again, although Mila couldn't exactly grasp what she was apologizing for. Her behavior? The way she had screamed at him? Amelia? Or maybe she was apologizing for losing their baby, Mila didn't know. She brought one hand up to cup the nape of his neck and she pressed her cheek to his, wishing she could just snap her fingers and fix everything.
“Me too,” Aaron managed to push out, his arms tightening around Mila. He wasn’t sure what he was sorry for either, honestly. Insisting on looking in the tunnel? Dragging her away from that little voice that he’d wanted so badly to find too? Getting her pregnant and putting them through all this heartache in the first place? It was just everything. Everything currently sucked, and Aaron was sorry that it did. Now that they were outside again, thoughts of Amelia came back, and Aaron pulled himself together. He wiped at his face over Mila’s shoulder, and decided that Amelia had not gone into that tunnel. He wasn’t capable of handling thinking about the alternative. He pulled back so he could look at Mila’s red, puffy eyes, and kissed her forehead. “I love you,” he murmured. “Let’s head back. She’s not here.”
"I love you too," she told him, closing her eyes briefly before she glanced back toward the tunnel. She was grateful that she didn't feel the urge to return to it at the moment. Would she feel tempted later? She had no idea, but she didn't want to think about it too much. She felt sick to her stomach, tired and helpless. Nothing felt right anymore, and that felt so incredibly unfair. But they needed to keep searching for Amelia, although Mila was feeling horribly cynical about their chances of succeeding in finding her. Still, they needed to cling to any thread of hope that they had, so she took Aaron's hand and nodded, ready to head back toward the search party.