A man who extracts value from everything and leaves nothing but destruction behind.
I head downstairs to finish making that pasta. She needs to eat, even if she doesn’t feel like it. Fever or not, her body needs fuel.
The generator rumbles in the distant background, a constant reminder that nothing here is stable. That we’re one fuel tank away from losing heat, losing light, losing everything that separates this luxury chalet from the brutal mountain wilderness surrounding us.
But that’s tomorrow’s problem.
Tonight, I just need to keep this woman alive long enough to regret saving her.
This woman whose name I don’t even know.
3
Sorrel
The guest suite is so quiet I can hear my own breathing. Which is unfortunate, because it’s basically a sickly wheezing sound at this point.
I’m sprawled across a huge bed, staring at my dead equipment spread across the Egyptian cotton duvet. It’s the world’s saddest tech graveyard. My laptop. The external hard drive. The temperature gauge that was supposed to be waterproof and freeze-proof.
I plug the backup drive into my laptop one more time. Just to be sure.
Please work. Please please please.
The screen flickers and the loading icon spins. The cheerful little error message I got earlier appears again.
DRIVE CORRUPTED.DATA UNRECOVERABLE.
Three months of soil samples.Temperature readings. pH levels. Mycorrhizal network mapping. The foundation of my entire dissertation. Just gone.
I give myself exactly three minutes to cry. I learned this technique during sophomore year after my first failed experiment. Set a timer, let yourself fall apart, then when the timer expires, pull it together and move forward.
So I cry.
Unfortunately, this time the tears don’t stop when the timer goes off.
Because it’s not just the data. It’s Dr. Chang trusting me with independent winter fieldwork. It’s my parents working double shifts so I could go to college. It’s Jake’s voice in my head sayingYou’ll always choose the research over everything else, won’t you?
Ah Jake.
My ex left for Seattle without me two years ago. Said he got a great job offer, wanted me to come. I had two years left on my PhD and samples in the field that couldn’t wait.
He’d said I’d never have room in my life for anything but my research.
Said I’d die alone in a lab somewhere, clutching a soil sample.
Maybe he was right.
Enough of that.
Pull yourself together.
I wipe my face on the super soft pillowcase and sit up.
Bad idea.
The room tilts sideways like someone’s installed a fun house floor while I wasn’t paying attention. My skin feels too tight and too hot and my head is doing this thing where it feels simultaneously stuffed with cotton and also floating three feet above my body. Yeah, that good.
I immediately lay back down and touch my forehead with the back of my hand. Still burning.
