“You don’t hear them,” he said, profoundly disappointed.
“No! I don’t hear any bells.”
He shook his head, almost certain he was not hallucinating. “They’re not bells. They’re chimes.”
“Don’t go toward the light!” she said as her headlamp bobbed, and he laughed hysterically. All he could do was go toward the light.
There was a gust of wind and another cascade of notes.
He pointed to his right. “They came from the wind.”
“Don’t pay attention to the voices on the wind.”
They took a few more steps, and the tinkling notes ended with a crash. Her head jerked toward the sound.
“Wait,” she said.
“They stopped,” he said, feeling desolate.
“Is that where we are?” she asked.
He felt hope again when he heard more chimes, but much softer this time. His brain finally put the picture together. They were wind chimes. One had just crashed, but there was a small one still hanging. People didn’t hang windchimes from random trees, right? There had to be a cabin. They had to find it before the last one crashed.
She was apparently coming to the same conclusion and pointed her skis toward the sound, right into the teeth of the wind.
He followed her, finding a fresh surge of warmth somewhere within him, even though his feet were clumsy and not obeying him, and he crashed to his knees with almost every step. If he hadn’t been a shifter, he’d have been dead in the snow a long time ago. Only his wolf’s strength allowed him to pull the snowshoes out of the drifts.
Why hadn’t he eaten all the steaks left in the freezer before he started his little jaunt? Why hadn’t he brought some clothes along with him?
There was something else he could do. He didn’t have to suffer like this. It didn’t have to be so hard.
“This way!” She turned away from the sound, and he shook his head, desperate.
She nodded. “Sound is weird in the mountains. It’s funneling down this valley with the wind. The cabin’s this way. I know where we are.”
How could she know? There were no distinguishing marks, no trail. They were in the middle of a blizzard. He had to trust her. He had to trust her with his life.
No, salvation lay within him. This could all be over in a second.
He couldn’t remember why.
He was pretty sure he was full-on hallucinating now, because the snow was multicolored around him, and he could hear a wolf growling an inch from his ear.
He put one foot in front of the other, fell, levered back out, and did it again and again and again until they reached a flat piece of ground where there were no trees and the going was easier, because the wind had stolen away all the snow, and he was marching on solid ground. She took off her skis and held them in both hands as she ran. Why was she running?
He ran after her, feet clumsy and slow. He was walking as much on his ankles as on the soles of his feet because he couldn’t really even control them anymore.
He fell to his hands and knees, and that was better.
And then, like a shipwreck out of the dark, a building rose within the circle of her headlamp, and they both screamed.
She jogged to the porch, staggered up snow-covered steps, and tried the door. Locked.
He made it moments after her and rammed into it.
It busted beneath his weight, and they both sprawled on the floor of a cabin. He could see a cheery bed made up in the corner, like someone just stepped out for a second.
He couldn’t get off the ground as she climbed to her feet and slammed the door.
