CHAPTER 106

KATHERINE. It took minutes, but Noah eventually showed up and when he did, I held my breath. For several moments, he did nothing – just stood in one spot – and I tried to calm my heart which threatened to beat out of my chest before he began to move. “I know you’re here, Katherine,” he said in a sing-song voice and I swallowed while pressing up against the trunk of the tree even more, wishing I could sink into it. He walked forward, then backward, forward again, then backward. When he moved forward again, he didn’t come back for several minutes and, thinking he was finally gone, I allowed myself to breathe properly again. That was a mistake. “There you are,” came his voice from behind me and I immediately glanced over my shoulder. It was just dirt and roots there, but he was definitely somewhere around the tree and he knew I was here. Before I could react, his face appeared in the gap which served as both the entrance and exit of this crawl space, and I tensed up. I wasn’t ‘that’ wor