Free Endless (Shadowlands) by Kate Brian

thought I was resting, I clearly wasn’t.
    “Back there.” Joaquin pointed, and we followed Fisher inside, forming a long, snaking single line.
    Fisher had to duck considerably until we made it into the widest chamber, and even then the ceiling was so low he had to crouch. I flashed my beam toward the back of the cave and froze. The tools, food, and clothing that had been there yesterday were gone.
    “They came back for their stuff!” I blurted.
    “What?” Joaquin moved quickly to the spot and looked around. The place was empty. “Damn, T. You’ve got some balls, I’ll give you that.”
    “How can you take this so lightly?” I demanded. “They must have known we’d been here, and they still came back?”
    “It’s like they’re taunting us,” Bea agreed.
    “Spitting in our faces,” Pete said, his breath short.
    “You guys! I found something.”
    Cori crouched at the spot where my flashlight beam had come to rest, and tugged something out of a crack in the wall. It was a tiny piece of paper, rolled up into a tight tube. As she unrolled it, Fisher went to stand next to her, holding his light over the page. They gave it a quick glance, and Fisher paled. Cori’s eyes darted uncertainly to me, like she suddenly found me very intimidating.
    “What is it?” Lauren asked.
    Cori cleared her throat. “It’s for Rory,” she said meekly, holding the paper out in my direction but training her eyes on my shoes.
    My pulse pounded in my very fingertips as I took the fragile page from her. Instantly, I recognized Tristan’s handwriting. My eyes darted over the scrawled lines, falling on key words like trust , father , and love .
    “What’s it say?” Lauren asked, stepping up next to me to read over my shoulder.
    “‘Dear Rory. I didn’t do this.’” My voice was cracking already. I coughed and continued to read. “‘I didn’t do this. Those coins were planted in my room. I keep seeing the look on your face that day in my bedroom, and it’s killing me, knowing you don’t believe me.’”
    My voice caught and I realized this wasn’t going to work. I shoved the page at Lauren and covered my face with my hands. He was lying. He had to be. First he’d taken my father, then my sister, and now he was trying to win me back. But why? Why was he doing this to me?
    “‘I will do anything to regain your trust,’” Lauren read slowly, quietly. “ ‘I’m going to find a way into the Shadowlands. I’m going to get your father and Aaron and the others back if it kills me. ’ ”
    She paused and I pulled my quivering hands down, watching her as she finished.
    “‘I love you,’” she read. “‘Tristan.’”
    The page fluttered as Lauren handed it back to me. I pocketed it quickly, hugging myself as tightly as I could to stop the shaking, and glanced up at Joaquin. He looked as if he’d just seen a ghost.
    “He didn’t risk coming here to get his stuff,” Bea said, her voice barely a whisper. “He risked coming here so he could leave that for you.”
    “He’s telling the truth,” Lauren said firmly. “He’s trying to fix things.”
    “You don’t know that.” I didn’t mean to snap, but I did. A by-product of the tension that was begging for any kind of release. “You only want to believe it.”
    “Look at the note again,” Lauren said, gesturing at my pocket. “He didn’t mention your sister.”
    “So?”
    “So, if he was doing this, he’d know your sister had gone over, too. He’d have included her,” Lauren asserted.
    “Not if he was being smart,” Fisher pointed out. “Not if he realized a person who’d fled five days ago wouldn’t know about Darcy.”
    “I can’t take this anymore,” I cried, holding my hands to my head, feeling as if it was about to split in two. “I can’t.”
    “We have to find them,” Fisher said.
    Bea sighed. “But we’ve looked everywhere. We’ve searched every inch of the island. It’s not like he went back to the mainland,” she added