#Chapter 20: The Text Message

Timothy didn’t seem to mind carrying me down the mountain by himself. He was determined to keep me in his arms, and that alone put me on alert. I could feel his own heart beating beneath my fingers, its pace dangerously fast. On the way down, we discovered my phone lying at the trunk of a tree in surprisingly good condition. An hour later, we reached the hotel in a state of exhaustion. There was enough juice left for me to see the new text that appeared on my screen. There was no name with the number, so I opened it out of curiosity. I’ve found out where you are, Coco, it read. The phone slipped from my hand, and I fell back against the mattress. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me as the words flashed before my eyes. Coco. There was only one person who called me Coco. A despicable man, if I could even associate him with being human. I checked the text again, the words the same as before. My breaths became ragged and short. That feeling of suffocation retur