The snow had started gently, dusting the slope in silver, soft and harmless beneath the pale morning light. But the sky was changing. The sun dulled, swallowed by a growing mass of gray that gathered low and thick, clouds heavy enough to crush the horizon. The wind sharpened, slicing through laughter, biting through layers, and yet no one noticed the shift. Not Gwen, flushed with joy as she tightened her gloves. Not Zayn, still bickering with Jason about trail markers. Not Noah, whose grin lingered too long in my direction, as if I were some challenge he was destined to conquer.
But I felt it, the quiet before something cruel. The air pressed tighter around my ribs, each breath thinner, sharper.
I followed the others, tried to match their pace, smiled when Aster called that I was doing well, but my mind was elsewhere. Still trapped in that room, still tasting his breath, still hearing his voice crawl across my skin.
“Let’s head to the ridgeline!” someone shouted from ahead—Noah, maybe—but the words were torn away, shredded by the wind before they reached me. The air changed again, heavier now, humming with something that wasn’t just cold.
The sky darkened. The world dimmed.
Then the mountain roared.
The gust came out of nowhere, a monstrous thing born of ice and fury, ripping down the slope with a scream that split the air open. The wind struck hard, violent enough to tear sound from my throat. Snow erupted upward, a wall of white swallowing everything, trees, trails, voices, until there was no horizon, no up or down, only chaos.
The storm devoured the world whole.
I couldn’t see the others. Couldn’t hear them. The laughter was gone, replaced by a hollow, feral wail of wind clawing at my clothes, dragging me sideways through blinding white. The ground vanished beneath me, disoriented and shifting, andpanic shot through my chest with a speed that stole the air from my lungs.
The storm didn’t just surround me, it consumed me. The mountain was gone. The world had turned to nothing.
The air struck with a force that felt alive, heavy and merciless, wrapping around me until breathing became a battle. It clawed at my face, flung needles of ice against my skin, and forced the breath from my lungs until each inhale came shallow and sharp. Snow lashed upward in violent bursts, filling my mouth, my collar, my sleeves. My skis jerked beneath me, sliding over terrain that no longer felt solid. I plunged my poles into the ground for balance, but the snow gave way instantly, soft and treacherous, swallowing them whole.
“Aster!” I shouted, but the storm tore the sound from my throat, devoured it before it even reached the air.
“Gwen!”
Nothing. Not even an echo.
The wind screamed louder than my voice ever could. My heart hammered in my chest, wild and frantic, not from exertion but from the creeping, feral edge of fear that began to coil beneath my ribs. I spun, searching for movement, color, any sign of life, but there was nothing left. No outlines. No tracks. Just a world of white devouring itself.
The snow wasn’t gentle anymore. It slashed across my skin, freezing every patch of exposed flesh, burning as it numbed. It stung my eyes until they watered, until tears froze at the corners and blurred what little I could still see. I reached out, blindly, my gloved fingers meeting nothing but air so cold it felt like stone. Panic rose, quick and choking, filling the space my breath couldn’t.
I fumbled for my phone, yanked it out with trembling hands, and lifted it toward the sky. The screen blinked awake, blue light flickering weakly against the storm.No service. No bars. No one.The tiny symbol at the corner might as well have been a death sentence.
A sound tore from me, half sob, half growl, and I forced it down, bit it back.Don’t panic. Don’t shout. Don’t waste energy.The words ran through my mind like static.
I wrapped my arms tight around myself, pressing gloved hands to my ribs as if I could hold the fear inside. My legs were shaking. My boots sank deeper with every step I took, the snow dragging at me, heavy and hungry. The skis caught at my ankles, dead weight now, and I tore them off, throwing them aside with a frustrated cry that vanished into the blizzard.
The wind howled back. The light was dying. The sky above me dimmed to a bruised gray, darker with every heartbeat. I turned in slow, dizzy circles, my breath fogging in quick bursts, trying to find a direction, a shape, a goddamn miracle. But every way looked the same. Every step only led me deeper into the blur.
My heart was pounding too hard, echoing in the hollowness of my chest, every beat louder than the last. My body trembled with exhaustion and cold, my mind fraying around the edges of panic.
And then the truth landed, cutting through me with a force that left no room for denial. There was no one coming.
No voices.
No light.
No sound but the scream of the wind.
The mountain had swallowed me whole.
I was alone—trulyalone—caught in a storm that didn’t care if I lived or froze where I stood. The white around me wasn’t snow anymore. It was a shroud.
And somewhere beneath the roar, beneath the terror, one thought surfaced—
Hayden.
Chapter Eighteen
