The Weekend Away: A totally gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist by Miranda Smith

Author:Miranda Smith [Smith, Miranda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781837905171
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2023-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

The four of us take off running toward the sliding glass door just as another scream rings out.

“No! Oh my gosh!” Nessa shouts.

“What happened?” Matilda is the first one to reach her.

Nessa is standing by the door, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Where’s Jackson?” I ask, my eyes scanning the rest of the empty deck.

Nessa raises her hand and points at the railing. “He was right there when he fell.”

“Fell?” Colby charges toward the railing.

I follow him, afraid to look down. There’s easily a six-foot drop between the second-floor balcony and the ground beneath. I search the area, seeing nothing but overgrown vegetation and fallen green leaves. A wave of vertigo almost sends me to my knees.

This is exactly what happened to Samantha.

This is how she died.

“Jackson?” Colby cups his hands around his mouth to try and increase his volume.

The only sounds we hear are the clicking of branches and twittering of birds.

“Right here,” Harper says. She’s standing a few steps away from us, pointing down.

We rush over to her and look below. There’s still lush greenery everywhere, but beneath that, I see a protruding leg, still and pale.

“Jackson!” I shout. My heart has jumped into my throat.

Our raised voices are carried into the woods, through the wilderness. Then we hear a low mumbling sound.

“Oh, my goodness, Jackson? Are you okay?”

He doesn’t answer, but the sounds are unmistakably human, full of pain.

“I’m going to run around to the front, see if I can climb down to where he is,” Colby says.

Without thinking, I follow, catching the tail end of a conversation before I disappear inside.

“What happened?” Harper asks.

“He was leaning against the railing,” Nessa answers, “then he fell—”

I can’t worry about what happened before he fell, only what’s happening now. We have to get to Jackson, make sure he’s okay. Colby and I rush through the front door and cut left; to reach Jackson, we must traverse the unmanicured side of the house, the side still overtaken by wilderness. There’s a steep embankment rounding the house. It doesn’t look safe to cross, and yet it’s the only way to reach him.

“Balance yourself on the trees,” Colby says. Whether he’s talking to himself or to me, I’m not sure. “We don’t need another fall.”

The trees beside the house are scrawny and tall. I lean against one before shifting my balance to another as I make my way along the uneven terrain. I try not to think about what could be around me, camouflaged in the earth—spiders and snakes and insects. We’ve almost made it to flat land because I can see a small air conditioning unit resting beside the cabin’s foundations.

“Jackson, can you hear us?” Colby shouts.

We’re moving toward the general direction of the back porch, but it’s still difficult to navigate. Everything looks the same, green and busy. When we look ahead, we see trunk-like beams holding the cabin in place.

I hear faint moaning. “Keep going,” I say.

When we find Jackson, he’s inverted, having landed on the upper half of his body, his left leg caught in the high branches of a bramble bush.

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