Cold air hits my face and steals my breath. The temperature dropped while I was inside. Has to be in the teens now, maybe lower with the windchill. I don’t care. The cold feels good. Feels like punishment, and I deserve it for being stupid enough to think this plan would work.
Snow falls in thick sheets, the flakes so heavy they sting when they hit my cheeks. I can barely see the tree line twenty feet away. The smart thing would be turning around. Going back inside. Finding an empty room to sit in until I calm down enough to think clearly.
But I’m done being smart.
I start walking. My boots sink into snow that’s reaching my ankles.
The wind cuts through my jeans, and I realize I didn’t grab anything heavier than this thin coat. My fingers are already going numb. I shove them in my pockets and keep moving.
Robert’s voice echoes in my head.You need to get close to them, Samantha. It’s the only way to make them pay.
But how close am I, really? Logan barely acknowledges me. I haven’t learned anything useful about their business or gained any real access to the family.
I’ve failed. The whole plan is falling apart, and I have nothing to show for it except frostbite and humiliation.
My boot catches on something under the snow. A root, maybe, or a rock. I stumble forward, trying to catch my balance, but my other foot hits a patch of ice I couldn’t see.
The world tilts.
My feet go out from under me, and suddenly I’m airborne. I throw my hands out instinctively, grasping for something, anything to stop the fall. My fingers close on air. On snow. On nothing.
Then I’m rolling. Tumbling down a slope I didn’t even know existed. Tree branches whip across my face, and I taste blood. Something sharp digs into my side. The sky and ground trade places over and over until I can’t tell which way is up.
Shit.
I try to scream, but the air gets knocked out of my lungs. Try to stop myself, but there’s nothing to grab onto. Just snow and ice and the sickening sensation of free fall.
My shoulder slams into something solid. A rock, maybe. Pain explodes down my arm, and I’m spinning again, faster now, completely out of control.
This is how I die. Alone in a blizzard because I was too angry to pay attention to where I was walking.
My back hits the ground hard enough to stop my momentum. For a second, I just lie there, gasping, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Everything hurts. My face. My ribs. My knee is on fire.
I force my eyes open, expecting to see the sky. Instead, there’s stone. Curved and close. A ceiling.
I’m not outside anymore.
I push myself up slowly, biting back a groan when my scraped palms press against cold rock. My head pounds and warm liquid drips down my chin, and when I touch it, my fingers come away red.
Blood. Great.
I look around, trying to make sense of where I am. Stone walls on both sides. Dim emergency lighting mounted every twenty feet or so. The air smells like earth and metal.
A tunnel. I fell into some kind of underground passage.
Rich people and their secret hallways. Of course the Hale estate would have something like this. Probably so the staff can move around without being seen by the precious family members.
I need to find a way out before I freeze to death down here.
The tunnel stretches in both directions, barely lit by emergency lights mounted along the walls. I pick the direction that feels warmer and start walking. Each step sends pain shooting through my knee, but I grit my teeth and keep moving.
The tunnel goes on forever. Twisting. Branching. I take turns at random, hoping one of them leads to stairs or a door or something that will get me back to the main house.
Then the air changes. Gets warmer. The emergency lights give way to actual lighting, and the passage opens into a hallway that looks nothing like the rest of the estate. It’s more intimate and masculine, with dark wood paneling and thick carpet that swallows sound. Doors line both sides, all closed except one at the very end.
Warm light spills from that room. I hear the crackle of a fire.
I limp toward it, desperate for warmth and help and someone who can tell me how to get out of here.
