CHAPTER 1
PIPER
My windshield wipers are losing the battle.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, leaning forward as if those extra inches will somehow help me see through the wall of white currently trying to murder me.
My little SUV shudders as another gust slams into it, and I'm pretty sure we just drifted across what used to be the center line.
Not that I can actuallyseethe center line anymore.
“I can do this,” I mutter, squinting at the road that may or may not still exist. "Everything is totally under control."
Ha! What are you smokin’, Piper? And can I get some?
The plan had been simple: drive from Denver to Deepwood Mountain, Montana, spend Christmas with my best friend Sadie, her new husband, and her brother Kade at the cabin they rented…eat cookies, drink spiked cider, and pretend I'm an adult who has her life together.
Easy. Straightforward. Zero percent chance of dying in a blizzard in the middle of nowhere Montana.
Except somewhere on my way through Hope's Peak, Mother Nature decided to throw a tantrum, and now I'm white-knuckling it through what I'm pretty sure is the beginning of the apocalypse.
My GPS app chooses that exact moment to freeze, the screen locking up with a ‘HAZARDOUS WEATHER WARNING.’
Well, duh.
I jab at my phone desperately, but even when I try to close out and bring it back, it's a lost cause. My battery’s at five percent and dropping, that little red bar mocking me for forgetting to charge it last night.
The wind hits again, harder this time, and the car actuallyslidessideways before the tires catch.
My heart jackrabbits into my throat.
Okay, this is officially bad.
I can't see more than five feet ahead. The road—if I'm even still on it—has disappeared under like three feet of fresh snow. The temperature gauge reads fourteen degrees and falling. And I haven't seen another car in over an hour.
I could die out here.
The thought hits me with crystal clarity, punching through the denial I've been wrapped in for the last few miles. This isn't just inconvenient winter weather, it’s a full-scale blizzard, and I'm alone and rapidly running out of options.
My hands are shaking now, and not just from the cold seeping through my coat.
I need to find shelter.
Pulling over and hoping for the best isn’t going to cut it. People freeze to death in their cars during storms like this. I've seen the news reports, watched the somber warnings about?—
Wait.
Is that...?
I hit the brakes—gently, because I don’t want to spin out and complete this disaster—and lean so close to the windshield my nose almost touches it.
Through the swirling white, barely visible, there's a shape.
Dark. Solid.
Astructure.
It could be a boulder. Could be my imagination, my oxygen-deprived brain creating mirages.
