Free The Distance Between Lost and Found by Kathryn Holmes

bacon.”
    â€œBacon,” echoes Jonah reverently. Hallelujah is glad she wasn’t the only one fantasizing about food.
    â€œBut do you think . . .” Rachel hesitates. “The search party—they’ll be out in the rain, right?”
    â€œOf course,” Jonah says immediately. “They’re probably on their way now.”
    Hallelujah watches the rain spatter on the ground. She watches, and she wonders. “Do you think this storm is washing away our trail?” she asks Jonah. “Not the trail, but ours—the evidence that we were there. Footprints. The fire.”
    â€œThey’re on their way,” Jonah says. His voice is firm. “I’ve heard about things like this. There’s a pattern to how they search. And they use dogs. Those guys can smell us through the rain.”
    Hallelujah nods, trying to silence her doubts. She leans back into their tiny shelter, pulling her knees toward her chin until the only rain landing on her is ricocheting from the ground or dripping from the ceiling overhead.
    She isn’t dry, but she isn’t getting any wetter, either.
    The rain on the leaves and the ground is white noise, a continuous soft shushing. It’s a comforting sound, a soothing sound, and with a soft wall to lean on and a warm body beside her and a few bites of food in her stomach, Hallelujah watches the drops fall until she drops off to sleep.

5
    S HE DREAMS OF RAIN, AND SHE WAKES, SHIVERING AND CHATTERING , sitting in two inches of muddy water. Rachel is asleep with her head on Hallelujah’s shoulder. Jonah has his chin on his knees, watching them.
    â€œHow long . . . ?” Hallelujah asks. Her voice is hoarse. Her mouth feels parched. She reaches for her water bottle.
    â€œAbout an hour,” Jonah says.
    â€œDid it stop at all?” She motions toward the rain. It looks the same out there as when she dozed off.
    â€œNope. I don’t know where it’s all coming from.”
    â€œThe sky,” Hallelujah says, smiling a little.
    â€œHar, har.” It wasn’t that funny, but Jonah grins anyway.
    â€œYou were keeping watch?”
    â€œYup. For wild animals. Or rescue. Or whatever.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œNo problem.”
    Hallelujah takes a swig of water, belatedly realizing that the bottle, almost empty before, is now full. She looks at it, and then at Jonah.
    â€œRain,” he says. “I filled up our bottles while y’all were sleeping.”
    â€œOh.” She never would’ve thought of that. “Thanks,” she says again.
    â€œDrink up. We’ll refill.”
    â€œOkay.” She drinks, feeling the coolness slide down her throat.
    They fall silent. Thunder crashes over the mountains. Hallelujah thinks about how the problem with not talking a lot, with being out of practice, is that when you’re with another quiet person, you both tend to just sit there. Then again, this silence with Jonah is something new—not the flowing conversation they used to share, but not the pointed not-talking of the past six months, either.
    She doesn’t know how to feel about it. She wonders if she should shake Rachel awake. Rachel doesn’t seem to have a problem filling silence.
    As if she heard Hallelujah thinking, Rachel snorts and sits upright so fast she bumps the lip of ceiling that’s sheltering them. A few chunks of earth fall on their heads.
    â€œWhoa there,” Jonah says, putting his hand on Rachel’s shoulder.
    Rachel looks around wildly, then her eyes seem to focus. “Oh,” she says. “I dreamed I was back at home.”
    â€œLucky,” Hallelujah says. “I dreamed about rain. And then I woke up and it was still raining.”
    â€œSo should we look for somewhere else to wait it out? Somewhere . . . drier?” Rachel asks.
    â€œI think, in this rain, this might be as dry as we’re gonna get,” Jonah says. Then his