The world tilts.
There’s a drop behind the shed. Not a canyon. Not a cliff. Just the kind of steep, tree-studded slope that leads down to the creek; a slope I know is there, in theory, the kind we used to toboggan down when Mac felt fatherly enough to bring a handful of his kids here in winter.
Right now, with the ice, it might as well be Everest.
I skid past the edge, gravity grabbing me by the collar. The toolbox flies from my hand, scattering wrenches like metallic confetti. Snow explodes around me, and my shoulder clips a buried rock hard enough to make white lightning shoot through my arm.
“Fuck!” The word is ripped out of my mouth as I tumble, rolling, sliding, grasping at nothing. The world’s a blur of white and gray and brief, vicious tree trunks. Something scrapes my calf. My hip slams into something else that feels like a boulder. Everything narrows to pain and cold and panic. I finally come to a sliding stop against a snowbank halfway down the slope, more by luck than by any skill. My lungs burn, vision pulsing at the edges.
For a minute, I just lie there, staring up at the sky, trying to catalog damage. Legs: still attached. Arms: achy but working. Head: rattled, but not broken. Back: pissed off, but functional. Nothing feels like it’s on fire in that special, alarming way that means serious injury. I’m probably bruised to hell. My ankle is possibly sprained. But I’m not dead.
I try to sit up. Lightning lances up my right ankle, sharp and nauseating. Yeah, that’s a sprain.
“Ah, shit.” I grit my teeth, breathing through the wave. “OK. OK. We’re fine. This isfine. Just a… surprise sled ride.”
I look up the hill.
It’s steeper from down here. Of course it is. The cabin roof and the top of the shed peek over the lip like they’re watching me.
I try standing, weight on the left foot only. It takes some wrangling, but I manage it. The ankle screams protest when I shift, but holds. I could maybe hobble up. Slowly. Carefully.Ifthe snow doesn’t decide to play slide-and-die again.
Which it will. It’s icy as fuck.
“Nate!”
Ally is at the top of the slope, a blue blob against the snow, framed by the corner of the cabin. Her voice climbs the distance, threaded with panic.
“Nate! Are you OK?”
“I’m fine!” I shout back, then immediately wince as the motion jars my ribs. “Just took the express route downhill!”
“This isn’t cockingfunny!” Her voice cracks on the last word. “Can you walk?”
“Define walk!”
She says something I don’t quite catch, but I imagine it was viciously creative and could probably strip bark off trees. Then I see her disappear from the edge.
“Ally, don’t come down here!” I yell. “The snow’s slick as hell. You’ll just get stuck down here with -”
She reappears a moment later, not on the slope but on the cabin deck, moving with focused purpose. It takes me a heartbeat to realize what she’s holding: her bow. A quiver of arrows. And a coil of rope.
“What are you doing?” I shout.
“Saving your stupid ass!” she calls back.
There’s a clean, economical sharpness in her movements I recognize from footage of her training sessions. The version of her that steps into the wind with a bow in hand is different, more distilled. All the scattered energy and sarcasm poured into one clear line, the purest kind of focus.
She loops one end of the rope around the porch post, knotting it tight, then feeds the length through her hands, gauging distance.
“You’re insane,” I mutter, half to myself.
She plants her feet, draws an arrow from the quiver on her shoulder, and ties the free end of the rope near the fletching in a quick, sure knot.
“Ally!” I call again. “If that arrow slips -”
“It won’t,” she snaps. “How’s your ankle?”
“Not broken,” I say. “Just pissed off.”
