Read Independence for Free Online

honey bun. Her eyes peeled the hills apart.
    The hours passed as we drove. The terrain was beginning to get ridiculous , even on the road. The cabins that Ralph had been heading up to were all the way through the valley and up the mo untainside. The SUV handled it just fine, but I had to pay attention extra hard on the thin roads, which didn't let me look around much. Even I was beginning to get discouraged.
    But when we came up on Ralph's car, Maggie was just done.
    I screeched the car to a halt and Maggie was out of the car before I even stopped barely. I growled, "Maggie."
    I knew she was worried, but the girl was crazy if she thought I was going to let her hurt herself.
    She ran and I jumped out to follow her. She threw open the passenger door and her face crumpled when she found no one there. I reached her and put my arms around her from behind to keep her from running any further. "We knew they had abandoned the car. We need to go further in."
    "I just thought maybe…they had tried to come back."
    " We won't stop looking," I promised. "Come on."
    She obliged easily and let me put her back in the passenger seat of the SUV. The tyrant in me was front and center. I took deep breaths as I jogged back to my side and climbed in. I drove around Ralph's car and bounded through the open gate that led to the new road. Maggie was quiet and that was all right. I turned on the radio again and gripped her hand as we kept looking.
    She squeezed my fingers in silent thanks. She leaned forward on her elbows and let her eyes sweep the terrain and trees. I heard my phone beep and pulled it out of my front pocket. It was letting me know cell range was now gone.
    Great.
    We needed to be careful or we'd end up stuck out here ourselves. At least I had told our fathers where we were. And I hadn't even checked their return text messages from that. I was sure they were n't pleasant, especially Jim's, b ut I was the Champion of my clan now. It wasn't like I needed anyone's permission to take the Visionary on a quest that she'd gotten a vision for.
    I winced thinking about Jim. The man already struggled to like me. I was sure this hadn't helped the situation any. But Maggie was what mattered most. Not being down with the in-laws wasn't unhe ard of by any means .
    I glanced over at her. She was so focused she wasn't even picking up anything I was thinking. She had no idea what I had planned for the house that was to be her wedding present. I was going against everything the Virtuoso had done before me. I was sure my family would be upset and appalled, but the one thing Maggie had taught me was that I had to do what was right for me, right for us.
    I knew exactly what I was going to do, it was just the manner of executing the plan without heads rolling that was tricky.
    By the evening I had to refill the tank. It was all we had left and I hated to say it, but I had to tell her that if we hadn't found them by the morning, we had to head home. She nodded in understanding, but was frustrated. She'd gotten the vision for Beck, so why couldn't we find her?
    We got out and walked for a while. She called for Beck and I called for Ralph. We searched along the bush and hedge line for any kind of place that people could hide in…or in this case, fall asleep from exhaustion and hunger.
    When nightfall came , I took Maggie back to the car as she cried softly. She felt like a failure and I had no idea what to tell her. Her ability was to get visions as the Visionary, so why would she get a vision for Beck only to never find her?
    This time we lay in the back as I folded the seats down. I laid my hoodie down and climbed onto it, beckoning her to me. She nuzzled her face into my neck, for comfort but also as a way to hide. I sighed, but sa id nothing as I stroked her hair. I was starving. The beef jerky was gone and we wanted to save the drinks and crackers for when we found Beck and Ralph, but it was looking more like if we found them.
    But I saw it when she saw