Not to be found

Chapter 44 - The next chapter

-1 week later-
*Lacey's POV*

Apparently the progress that I've made is amazing, it's amazing that I can stand up and walk considering I had neck surgery. I just call it getting on with life. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't hurt all over, I've undergone intense physiotherapy and frequent vital checkups until I was able to walk alone.

Noah was reluctant to them letting me move, he wanted me to rest. He didn't leave my side, it was only when I noticed him passed out in a chair that I persuaded him to go and get some proper sleep himself. I wanted to make sure he was okay, just as much as he wanted to make sure that I'd be okay.

Right now I'm waiting for him as I sit on my hospital bed staring out of the window, I just wonder where I'm going to be moved next. Where me and Noah are going to be moved next, we need to move on from this. I need to move on from my family, or so called family. I can no longer trust anybody in my former life.

I pick at the fabric of my ripped loose light blue boyfriend jeans making the hole bigger than it originally was, I pull my hands up my red jumper sleeves and look down at how dirty my white converse are.

"Hey," Noah says from the doorway, "you ready?"

I smile and nod as I hop off the bed and he opens his arms waiting for me to step into them, "are you okay?" He asks as I step into his embrace and bury my head in his chest.

"Of course," I say wrapping my arms around him a little tighter, "everything is going to work out in the end."

He moves his hand up to the back of my neck and gently glides his fingers over the patch of skin that has now healed to a scar, a patch of skin that once sealed the unknown tracker in my body.

"We need to go to the office," he says pulling back a few unruly strands of hair from my face, "they're expecting us."

"Who?" I question, confused.

He holds his hand out for me to take, "my parents."

I smile knowing that they are one of the very few that truly do care about my wellbeing, they just want to know that I'm okay. I'm going to show them that I am, and that I'm ready to move on to the next chapter in my life.

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*Noah's POV*

I never left Lacey's side over the past week, I refused to. I watched her the day after surgery where she drifted in and out of consciousness, the way her eyes would flutter open as I would hold her hands and plead with her to stay with me. But somehow she was always pulled under, and her heavy eyelids would cave under the pressure.

The second day was easier; she was awake and we'd talk for hours about how we were going to get out of here and start a fresh, turn the next page of our lives and find that we'd be writing a new chapter not just for ourselves but for each other.

I was shocked on the fourth day when I woke up to find her awake and standing on her own two feet with no support needed. I dashed to her side and wrapped my arms around her like she was fine china, and that even the slightest knock could break her into a thousand pieces.

It was the fifth day where she was walking and out of bed, she found me passed out in that uncomfortable chair. I couldn't leave her, I tried to but I know that I wouldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep without her presence. But she persuaded me in the way that she only knows how to, to leave her be and get some proper sleep in an actual bed.