Held (Gone #2) Read Free

do that again? When the next song came on, she felt even worse. It was a song she had never heard, reminding her of everything she had missed over the last month.
    Macy opened her eyes and saw that they were on a country road. There was nothing except open, grassy fields and livestock as far as the eye could see. She continued to ignore Chester's rambles. He hadn't stopped talking since breakfast.
    After about twenty minutes, they drove through a small town. Macy's eyes lit up—she had been there before. She recognized the buildings and even the tiny, rundown park. Her heart beat so loudly she feared Chester would hear it.
    A minute later, they were back to being surrounded by fields and farmland again, but her mind wouldn't stop racing. She had passed through that town before. It wasn't her imagination. She recognized it. That meant she had been along this road before too. But when?
    Macy fought to keep her breathing steady. The last thing she wanted to do was to alert Chester to the fact that anything was amiss. She vaguely remembered being in the car with her family when she had gone through that small town before.
    Did that mean they were near her home? Chester probably didn't know she knew where they were. She didn't actually know where they were. Not even the town name signs along the way helped. She had never heard of any of them.
    They had to be back in Washington, but where? It could have been on the other side of the mountains or even in the southern part of the state. Or maybe they were in Oregon or Idaho. They had traveled other nearby states plenty of times for camping and sporting events.
    Her pulse and breathing finally returned to normal. They went through another half an hour of open fields, only seeing a random grouping of cows or horses every so often.
    Eventually, the scenery changed and they were in a forest. The green trees were a nice change of scenery. She was so immersed in their beauty that she forgot to keep paying attention to the road signs. She had always loved that part of the Northwest. Never once had she complained about driving for hours through the woods or mountains.
    When they left the trees, they went through another small town. This one had a decent-sized high school and Macy held her breath. There was an actual stop light in this town, and when the stopped, she stared at the school.
    She recognized it—and this time she knew why. They had driven there for one Alex's karate tournaments. He had competed in that gymnasium. Zoey had gone with her family, and while they waited for Alex's turn to compete, the three of them wandered around the school and had even chased each other through the parking lot. Alex had been threatening to dump his drink on them.
    Where was this town? She really couldn't remember. It had been over a year since they had been there, and she hadn't been paying any attention to where they were back then, either. She thought it was two or three hours from home. The one thing she did know was that it was definitely in Washington.
    Even though they were still far from home, they weren't that far. Assuming they didn't drive out of state, it was possible she could get away and find her way home. He wasn't taking her to the other end of the country or anything. She couldn't help smiling.
    "You like this song, Heather?"
    Macy looked over at him. She had almost forgotten he was there. "Yeah, this song is great."
    He nodded. "I like it too. It has a good beat." He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel along with the song. Then he moved his left hand down and turned on the blinker.
    Where were they going now? The scenery was nondescript; she didn't know how he could tell where he needed to turn. They went down a road to the left that Macy didn't see until they slowed down. It had a gate off to the side, making it look like they were entering private property. There were scrape marks on the pavement indicating that the gate had been opened and closed a lot. Was that what he