Page 2 of Trace's Passion
But some clouds blocked out their light and Trace did his best to find his way.
When he could walk no longer, he dropped to his knees and curled up in a ball, trying his best to ignore the pain in his back.
He sobbed as he lay his head down on the ground and finally let sleep overtake him.
When he woke the next morning, he knew he had stumbled far from the cabin.
He tried valiantly to find his way back there, but nothing worked.
And he knew that he was hopelessly lost.
He started seeing things and knew that not only had he lost too much blood, but he was dehydrated.
He finally just sat down. And tried to cry, tried to breathe, still trying to process what happened but not wanting to even think of the horror that had befallen his family. Nothing came.
He wandered around, trying to find the road. Or anything really. But all he found were more trees. More rocks and he stumbled a lot.
He was tired. But if he slept, it was for small stretches at a time. The noises from the wild animals scared him into walking throughout the night.
He was so tired. So, dehydrated and so out of it, he couldn’t remember why he was walking around outside anymore.
He didn’t know how long he was out there, but by the time someone found him, he had no idea what happened to his family.
No idea how he had gotten lost in the middle of the woods. He didn’t even know his last name, only his first.
But it didn’t matter. Not to the couple that found him, who took him home and treated his wounds.
Not well, but they had stopped the bleeding. He never understood why they didn’t take him to the hospital, but after a few weeks he understood.
The family that took him in seemed like they were the perfect couple.
Except they were far from perfect and every day that passed proved to him just how very imperfect they were.
They weren’t good people. Not in the least. The only good thing they had ever done was that they found him at just the right time. Each day that passed he had only gotten worse, sicker and more incoherent.
They had seen him wandering through the woods when they had gone to check on their many plants that they grew in the wilderness.
Plants that they cultivated carefully and sold to make hundreds of dollars for each tiny bud off the plant.
They looked like the average couple next door, but they were far from that. They were evil, sinister and they needed a child. One who would go along with their story and image of a loving couple and their son.
They found him, treated his wounds enough that he would make it through, and used him for their gains with the police and with the people in town where it seemed to everyone that they were a loving family.
That they were a loving mother and father. Not ones who found a practically dead boy in the woods and took him as their own. The ones who didn’t care that he could possibly have a family, that something horrible had to have happened to him. It wasn’t important.
What was important to them was their fake image. The ones who made cookies and gave them to their neighbors.
They needed it to seem as if there was nothing in their life that was amiss.
They didn’t want anyone digging into their life. They didn’t need anyone to know that they were the ones who grew weed in the woods and sold it on the streets. The ones who the police wanted to find because of the drugs that had taken over the city.
The police had gone around to each house, doing their best to find out where the drugs were coming from, but they had found nothing amiss.
Only a perfect couple with their only son and their perfect life.
They had threatened Trace with his life if he had tried to talk and he had kept silent.
The couple who not only grew the drugs they sold, they also used it in their own house every day.
