It felt strange. Good strange, but strange.
"Can I ask you something?" James said.
"Depends on the question."
"What's up there? On the mountain?" He met my eyes across the flames. "What are you looking for?"
I'd known this was coming. Had been dreading it since the moment he'd appeared on that ridge.
"I can't tell you everything," I said carefully. "Not yet. But... there's something that needs help. Something lost. And I'm the only one who can find it."
"How do you know that?"
"I just do." It wasn't enough of an answer. We both knew it. "I know how that sounds. Crazy. Arrogant. Like I've got some kind of savior complex."
"That's not what I was thinking."
"What were you thinking?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "I was thinking that you look at that mountain the same way I look at you. Like it's pulling you. Like you couldn't stay away even if you wanted to."
The hum flared. I looked down at my cup, unable to hold his gaze.
"Maybe," I admitted.
"Then I get it." He shifted, stretching his legs toward the fire. "I don't understand it. I don't know the details. But I get it."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
I didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know how to process the easy acceptance, the lack of judgment, the simple willingness to believe me without proof.
"You're strange," I said finally.
“So you’ve told me.” He smiled, soft and warm. “Get some sleep, Lumi.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
The fire crackled between us, filling the small space with heat and the faint scent of smoke. My body was past the point of argument—past pride, past vigilance. Just tired. Bone-deep tired.
I wanted to prove I didn’t need him here. Didn’t need anyone.
But the cabin was warm. The wind was kept at bay. And James was sitting a few feet away, solid and present, not watching over me—justthere.
I lay down on the cabin floor, my pack tucked beneath my head, boots still on. Closed my eyes.
Sleep came faster than I expected.
Chapter fourteen
The storm came out of nowhere.
One moment, the sky was gray but manageable. The next, the world dissolved into white chaos—wind screaming, snow driving horizontal, visibility dropping to nothing in the space of a heartbeat.
"James!" I grabbed his arm, pulling him close so he could hear me over the roar. "We have to stop! Now!"
He nodded, hood already coated in ice crystals, and we struggled toward a rocky outcrop I'd spotted before the whiteout hit. Every step was a battle against wind that wanted to knock us flat, against snow that filled our tracks the moment we made them.
