Prototype by M. D. Waters Page A

tell myself, I glance across the lake and watch Noah looking for another way out of this area. The lake is surrounded by cliff walls and trees on all sides and, according to what Noah told me earlier, man-made. The lake’s dark shadow reaches almost to the edges, revealing how deep the bottom is. Not that I need a shadow to tell me. I am well aware of the lake’s depths.
    I turn and look at my own wall of mountainside. Tree roots curve out of the side of the dirt like the tentacles of some sea creature. Some gnarled and pointed ends have sprung free of the dirt. It is then I notice how the trees stagger upward at an angle. Upon closer inspection, I find a shaded trail behind them.
    “Found it!”
    Instead of waiting, I enter the trail, which is nowhere near as steep as the other. Leaves and needles coat the loose dirt floor. I walk at a brisk pace, anxious to see what I will find. But the path only ends in more forest.
    Noah finally reaches me, breathing hard. “Thanks for waiting.”
    Ignoring his sarcastic remark, I say, “Should we walk through the forest? Maybe there is another residence.”
    He scans the area. Wind blows through the trees and shapes his blond waves, alternating between flattening and lifting the strands. The rising sun casts the shadow of swaying tree branches on his skin. “Look for a well-worn path. If we don’t find one, we’ll have to come back with some equipment. The last thing we need is to disappear for several days because we got lost.”
    I look down, seeking footprints on the soft forest floor. There is nothing that obvious to my layman’s eye. We take opposite directions again until I hear him call back to me almost thirty seconds later.
    The path he discovered is wide and made of loosely packed dirt. “No footprints,” I say.
    “Could mean it hasn’t been used in a while.”
    “Only one way to find out.”
    We take the trail in silence. At the first patch of grass Noah comes to, he takes a long, wide blade and positions it between his thumbs. Soon he is blowing through them and making a rough, high-pitched whistle sound.
    I chuckle. “You are like a child.”
    He cups his palms around the sound to change the tone. Then he is smiling too much to continue. He passes the blade over. “Here. Give it a try.”
    I shake my head. “No, thank you.”
    His grin tilts. “Because you can’t do it.” When I raise an eyebrow at his challenge, he scratches his chin and adds, “I even have a scruff disadvantage and can
still
do it.”
    I stop walking and take the blade from him, determined to prove that I can. “As if beard growth matters.”
    He chuckles.
    We face each other on the trail and he shows me how to make the blade taut between my thumbs. He stands close enough to share his body heat and the sweaty scent of his skin.
    “You have to blow hard,” he tells me once I have the grass placed.
    He watches me intensely as I place my thumbs against my taut lips. My cheeks fill with air and sting slightly from the exertion. It takes me several tries to finally make one excruciating sound.
    His smile widens. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
    My belly flutters. His smile leaves me with little air to breathe. How does he do that? I stand frozen between closing the space between us and widening it.
    His smile falters and his eyes lower to my lips before darting away. He clears his throat.
    I hand the blade back, my cheeks warm from more than just the act of blowing. “Now that I have played your silly game, can we find the end of this trail?”
    “Lighten up, Wade. We’ll get there.”
    I follow him and in seconds he has exchanged his grass for a long stick to swing around. I cannot take the silence with the occasional swatting sound, so I say, “You said last night you have a feeling about Declan you cannot shake? You did not say what it was.”
    Noah sighs and squints down the trail at nothing in particular. “A year or so ago, I might have never considered it, but