Teaching Noah to ride was something that had made me so proud, but now I worried if my teaching him had been the wrong thing to do. Our children were out there somewhere, they were alone, in the dark, and afraid. It was hard to not think that they weren’t hurt or worse.
I didn’t know how to comfort Miranda when I was petrified for the safety of the kids myself. If something happened to them I would never forgive myself.
Miranda pulled out her phone and started dialing what I assumed was Ty. I must have been right because I heard his voice pick up. “Have you found them?” She asked through sobs.
“What do you mean? Well, you have to keep looking. I know…yes, but I can’t sit around here and do nothing. Ty, please, I need to do something.”
She hung up the phone and buried her hands into her face.
I grabbed her hands. “Miranda, what is it?”
She shook her head and avoided looking directly at me. “They found Noah’s hat.”
“What do you mean? Where?”
“In the woods, somewhere in a thicket. They said they saw Atticus runnin’ and found the hat a few minutes later. They ran into Conner and John and they are all lookin’ for them. So far they haven’t heard a single peep from either of them. Where could they be Van? Where could they be where they can’t hear us callin’ for them? I can’t just sit here waitin’ for word. I have to go look for my daughter.” She got up and started walking toward the front door.
As I watched her bending down to put on her shoes, she turned back toward me. “Miranda, wait! I’m going with you.”
There was no hesitation in my voice. My son was out there somewhere and I felt responsible. There was no way in Hell that I was going to let her go out into the dark, while it was storming, alone. I ran back into the house and grabbed us a couple of flashlights and two jackets. They weren’t waterproof but they would at least keep us warm for the time being.
As we headed out into the woods, reality really hit both of us. It was pitch black outside. We were heading into the dark woods, while heavy gusts of wind were blowing and the rain was pouring. Loud cracks of thunder caused us both to jump as we joined hands and continued trudging through the forest.
Miranda and I both took turns calling the children’s names. We would walk a few feet and shine out the lights all around the area, before continuing forward. I’d taken many walks in these woods and Miranda had grown up on this property, but it didn’t really help at night time. Getting lost in the woods was easy to do, especially without the light of the moon to guide us.
In the distance we could hear one of the gator’s motors and voices calling the kids names. They were too far away from us to get their attention.
As the vehicle got further away from us, I got excited when I heard the sound of crackling leaves heading toward us. As it got closer, it sounded like more than one person coming our way. Miranda and I stopped, while shining the light in the direction of the sound.
A group of deer came leaping over a thicket, almost trampling on top of us. We both screamed and fell back onto the wet ground.
I turned back toward Miranda and noticed she was holding her leg. She had fallen on a patch of briars and had tiny thorns stuck all in the back of one of her legs. She was trying not to cry out in pain, but I knew that part of the skin was sensitive and she must have been in agony with the amount of them stuck in her.
I got her to flip around and with only a flashlight, I started removing the thorns one by one. She was crying out as I pulled each one of them out of her. When I got everyone that I could see out of her leg, I helped her stand up. She steadied herself and we began moving forward again.
Miranda was still in pain from her fall, but we held onto one another as we kept going further into the woods. Every few seconds we continued to take turns calling out the kids names, with no response.
“My God, where could they be Van? The guys have been searching for over an hour now. Do you have any idea how many acres of land we have to search?” Miranda hunched over and started crying worse. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t lose my daughter. I just can’t lose her Van. She has to be okay.”
I rubbed her back and tried to think of what to say. “We will find them. Noah is a smart kid. He has been going out hunting and fishing with Colt. He knows about the outdoors more than other kids his age. You know he wouldn’t let anything happen to Bella. You have to know that Miranda.”
She nodded her head and wrapped her arms around me. “I just want to find them, Van. We. Have. To. Find. Them.”
I looked her dead in the eye. “We will. I won’t give up until they are home safe. I promise you that.”