Chapter 1
Noah wasn't dead. He wasn't even close. Noah was alive. He'd survived. He'd survived, but he wasn't able to find Mara. He wasn't able to save her. And now he was alone.
Noah was determined to find Mara. He had to. What if the worst had happened? What if they had found her and taken her? What if she was being tortured to glean information she didn't have? He had to find her. He should be there with her. Wherever there was. They sure as hell didn't leave in clue as to where they disappeared to.
But Noah couldn't even begin to imagine where they were, and no way was his father's money a path to Mara at this point. It was obvious a this part of Horizons was completely off the radar. Even if he could buy his way to the knowledge of where Mara was and what they were doing to her, there was no way that he could buy her safety.
Noah would do anything to find Mara. Anything. With the mystery of their pasts-her past-so intertwined and confusing, he couldn't go on without her, even if he wasn't in love with her. In love with Mara Dyer? Well, that was certainly madness waiting to happen, but Noah couldn't bring himself to care. He was in love with Mara Amrita Dyer. That was too true to detest.
When report of what had happened at Horizons was released, he knew exactly what the Dyers would be told. They'd be told it was an unnamed attack, or perhaps they'd be told that their daughter had gone even further off the deep end than they expected. The building collapsed due to some scheme Mara had worked as her last gesture. Either way, Mara was dead now to everyone. Everyone but Noah. Noah couldn't stand the thought, so he didn't think it. Instead, he headed for home. Well, the place he called home. Mara was more of a home than any one he'd ever known.
Home. What is this place when your heart is empty? In fact, he wasn't even staying at his home. He was staying with Dyers as they mourned their supposedly dead daughter. Supposedly dead sister. Supposedly dead, Noah thought. That's entirely different than really dead.
By now, the thought of being Mara-less forever had begun to sink in. But Noah couldn't afford to think like that. Noah needed to get to work. He wasn't one to dilly-dally, but at the least he needed to be here for Mara's brothers-Daniel and Joseph. He had to be there for her family, when she obviously couldn't be. Not because she was dead, but because she was captured, taken. Just like Jamie and Stella had been. Correction: Noah hadn't felt it necessary to check on Jamie's whereabouts, but he hadn't seen him when awoke healed, just like he hadn't seen Stella. They couldn't be dead. They weren't supposed to die. Jude wasn't dead. Noah wasn't dead. And they were all the same odd and unique kind. They were all connected.
Besides Mara had promised she'd be okay. She'd said herself that she would be okay, but she wasn't and he was. How was that by any stretch of the imagination okay? How had he survived if she hadn't, if they were telling the truth? How had Mara been loved to ruins by Noah? That wasn't the prophecy! But Noah was fine. His heart was beating. His lungs were working. Noah was perfect. Spot on. Not a bump or a bruise or fracture to be seen. Of course, no one had questioned it. No one had known he was to be there. That made it all the more heartbreaking as secrecy always does. It added a layer to the stress, but everything about Noah was secret.
Noah knew better than to believe that Mara was dead. He knew better. And he could feel it-feel her, the only thing keeping his pulse going.
Three days after arriving home, Noah left the Dyers. He left home. Noah was investigating. Noah would find Mara if it was the last thing he did. He would solve their past. He would fix her. He would fix everything.
Noah was the kind of boy who came to smoke and the save the day, and he was all out of cigarettes.