Chapter 1 – Nicola
The windshield disappears beneath white.
I lean forward, squinting against the blur, hands locked on the wheel so tight my knuckles ache. The road isn't visible anymore, just the vague impression of pavement somewhere beneath the snow, a suggestion I'm following more by hope than logic. The headlights bounce back at me, useless, swallowed by the storm.
My breath fogs the glass. I wipe it away with shaking fingers and immediately regret taking my hand off the wheel. The car slides, fishtails, catches. My stomach lurches.
I don't know how far I've driven since I left the highway. Twenty minutes? An hour? Time feels liquid, slipping through my grip along with everything else.
The GPS died miles ago, the screen frozen on a blue dot hovering over nothing. No service. No signal. Just me and the storm and the wedding dress hanging in the backseat, still zipped inside its garment bag like evidence I can't quite bring myself to destroy.
The wind slams into the side of the car hard enough to rattle the frame. I gasp, overcorrect, feel the tires lose purchase. For one weightless, endless second, I'm suspended between control and chaos.
Then the world tilts.
The car slides sideways off the road, plowing through snow that comes up past the windows in a rush of white. Metal crunches. My seatbelt locks across my chest, bruising. The steering wheel jerks out of my hands, and then everything stops.
I sit frozen, hands hovering uselessly in the air where the wheel used to be, trying to process what just happened. Snow pressesagainst the driver's side window, an avalanche suspended mid-fall. The car is tilted at an angle that makes my stomach turn.
I fumble for my phone. No service, still. The battery icon blinks at fifteen percent, mocking.
I try the ignition anyway, twisting the key with numb fingers. The engine groans, turns over once, twice—then dies with a wet cough that sounds final.
Cold seeps through the door frame, curling around my ankles.
The car is half-buried, off-road, invisible to anyone who might pass—not that anyone will pass in this weather. The temperature is dropping. My coat is thin, meant for a winter wedding in a heated venue, not a mountain blizzard. If I stay, I'll freeze.
If I leave, I might freeze faster.
But staying is certain death, and leaving is only probable, so I shove the door open and force myself out into the storm.
The wind hits me like a fist. I stagger, snow immediately soaking through my jeans, my ankle boots. It's knee-deep where I'm standing, deeper in the drifts piling against the trees. My breath is ripped away before I can catch it. Cold knifes through my coat, my sweater, straight to bone.
I take one step. Then another. The car disappears behind me almost immediately, swallowed by white.
I push forward, leaning into the wind, one arm raised to shield my face from the snow that pelts my skin like tiny shards of ice.
My foot catches on something buried. I go down hard, palms slamming into the snow, cold punching through my gloves. Pain flares across my right hand where the skin scrapes against frozen ground beneath the drift.
I bite back a sound that might be a sob or a scream and haul myself upright again.
Snow gets inside my boots, melts against my socks, soaks through. My hair is plastered to my face, ice forming in the strands. Every breath hurts.
Then, through the storm—light.
Faint. Warm. Gold against the endless white.
I stop, blinking hard, convinced I'm hallucinating. But it's there. A window, glowing through the trees maybe fifty yards ahead. The dark outline of a cabin materializing like something summoned from desperation itself.
Relief hits so hard I almost collapse. Instead, I lurch forward, moving faster now, careless. My boot catches again and I go down on one knee, biting my tongue hard enough to taste copper. I don't care. I claw my way upright and keep going, closing the distance between me and that light like it's the only thing tethering me to the world.
The porch appears suddenly, dark wood buried under snow. I drag myself up the steps, grab the railing for balance, and pound on the door with a fist that barely feels like mine anymore.
The sound is pathetic, nearly swallowed by the wind. I hit harder, desperation cracking through the numbness.
Please. Please be home. Please—
The door swings open.
