Chapter 11
Claire
Ican feel the cold, down in my bones. A deep-rooted icy ache that solidifies my blood and freezes the marrow deep inside me. My lungs bite with it, little glass shards, cutting me from the inside out. Above me the sky is unclear, I can’t tell where the clouds begin and the snow and wind end. Yet, it feels as if it hangs just an inch above my face. I lie unmoving, dazed and confused. My temples pound strangely as I watch the swirling shapes of ice and snow spiral past me. It’s oddly beautiful. But deathly silent.
“W-w-w-w-where am I?” I force out the question through my chattering teeth. I’m not quite sure who I’m asking, though I vaguely remember I’m not here—wherever that is—alone.
I struggle to pull myself up. My head swims violently with the movement and there’s too much heaviness pressing me down. I have to claw my fingers free from the weight, until my hands burn and tingle with pins and needles. Panic tornadoes through me. I kick out my legs, flailing them back and forth. A prickling sensation crawls over my ears and nose and cheeks.
“W-w-w-w-what h-h-h-happened?” Ice and snow fill my mouth.
What happened to my car? Wasn’t I just sitting inside it? Why can’t I get up?
There’s a muted sound. A faint ding-ding-dinging, like I left my car door open. Did I get into an accident?
I thrash my body frantically. I have to get up. The throbbing in my head increases and picks up speed as the horror of it all comes flooding back.
My mother is dead. She hanged herself because of Silas Montgomery.
The house on top of a remote mountain they stayed in together.
The text messages.
Offshore accounts where they hid money.
Someone is blackmailing me with horrible, indecent photos that will get me fired.
What else? There was something else.
Oh my God.
It hits me like a brick to the chest. Seeing the only boy I have ever loved as a grown man for the first time in ten years.
Vaughn Montgomery.
Vaughn Montgomery shouting at me about an avalanche.
Oh Lord, did I just live through a mountain crashing on me?
“V-V-V-Vaughn-n-n-n,” I try to call his name, but I barely get it past my frost-covered lips. How can it be this cold? And why does it feel like it’s getting colder by the second?
I need to get out of the snow. I have to stand up and get my bearings. Vaughn has to be here somewhere. I keep scraping and digging at the snow that has blanketed me like an icy tomb. My body shivers and shudders so wildly, it’s hard to stay focused, and I’m losing all feeling in my limbs. But I don’t stop.
The open car door ding-ding-dings, mocking me.
Tremors rock through me as I finally break free.
“V-V-V-Vaughn!” I stammer, glancing around desperately. My teeth rattle so hard in my mouth I’m afraid they might break right out.
I clamber and struggle to stand. The snowbank is waist-high, and to my utter surprise and horror, it’s much colder in the whipping wind. Spinning around slowly, I search for Vaughn. Around me it seems like the snow has frozen over, as if a thick sheet of ice covers everything. Every pine needle, every branch, and tree trunk; sheathed in ice.
My stomach drops.
I dive back into the accumulation and wade through it. Immediately, I’m exhausted, and I’ve only moved about a foot or two, but that’s just enough. Right over the next mound of snow I find him, almost fully emerged in the snow.
I’m surprised by the relief I feel when I touch the steady beat of his pulse. He’s still alive.
I start digging.
