She didn’t answer. She wasn’t moving.
Her hand—hanging inches from mine—trembled once. Then went completely still.
“No,” I whispered, the word ripping every nerve in my body. “Come on. Come on, Em, stay with me. Please.”
But she didn’t. Couldn’t. And every desperate breath I took after that moment felt like a betrayal.
Because the worst moment of my life wasn’t the crash. It was the feeling of her fingers slipping from mine. And knowing I couldn’t pull her back.
Darkness swallowed us both, but only one of us ever resurfaced.
***
Snow bites different than rain. Rain pounds, drowns, erases everything in its path. Snow suffocates. It crawls over you with quiet intent until every breath feels like surrender.
Tonight, that memory bleeds into the blizzard around me as I crouch near the avalanche ridge, gloves numb, coat stiff with ice, the wind carving sideways across my face like shards of frozen glass. The mountains here in Silver Ridge don’t offer gentle warnings. They speak in the low groan of snow-packed ledges and the distant rattle of shifting drifts—old voices that say pay attention or die.
I shouldn’t be out here. I know that better than anyone. But knowing has never stopped me before. Most nights, the memories keep me trapped inside the cabin until dawn. But some nights—nights like this—something inside me cracks just wide enough for the storm to seep in. And I end up here again, standing alone on a ridge where the wind howls through my bones. Hell, part of me came out hoping the mountain would finish what life started.
Finally,the storm whispers.Let go.
I adjust the small avalanche sensor clipped to a metal rod hammered into the snowpack. The display flickers through patterns of numbers—data only I would understand, because no one else in Silver Ridge knows I used to design things like this. No one knows I built it from scraps and old patents and a need to do something useful, even if it’s in the shadows. The device gives a tiny chirp. A tremor in the readings. Another. Then a sharper spike, unmistakable.
The ridge above me groans—a long, ancient warning.
I lift my head, but it’s already too late. Snow shears off in a massive sheet, a roar ripping through the hollowed canyon like a tidal wave made of white. The ground trembles beneath my boots. The storm air rushes forward, sucked into the force of theavalanche as it gathers speed, devouring distance with terrifying ease.
I run. My foot hits snow and slips, sending my balance lurching. The world tips violently. My ribs slam into something unyielding. The cold steals the breath from my chest before I even register that I’ve been thrown. Then comes the impact—heavy, crushing—as the avalanche hits with the full weight of the mountain behind it. Snow slams into me, pins me, buries me so fast that up and down become meaningless lies.
I try to move an arm. Nothing. A leg. Nothing. The weight holds me in place like a grave of ice. The cold seeps through every layer of clothing until it steals the frantic edge of survival itself. My pulse slows. My fingers go numb. My vision narrows as if the storm is collapsing inward.
Good,I think as the dark edges in.Maybe I get to go this time. Maybe I won’t have to wake up again to a world she isn’t in.
Snow presses harder, compressing my chest until each shallow inhale feels like a question I don’t want answered. It’s quiet inside an avalanche—strangely peaceful, a pocket of cold where the world finally stops demanding anything of me. My limbs tingle once, then drift into stillness. My heartbeat thuds faintly in my ears, slow and distant, fading like footsteps walking away.
The edges of the world soften into gray, then blur into something darker.
Rain on the windshield. Her laugh bright in the passenger seat. Her hand tightening over mine.“Jackson… we’re having a—”
The memory splinters.
Cold closes in with gentle finality, a tightening grip that feels almost merciful. My lungs burn briefly, then ease. My heart loosens its pacing, drifting into a rhythm that no longer anchors me here.
And then I stop fighting.
The darkness rises—not violent, not frightening, but soft and enveloping—and when it finally takes me, it feels almost like relief.
Chapter Two
Ava
My ambulance wipers drag across the windshield in useless arcs, smearing more white onto white. Storms in Silver Ridge aren’t gentle things—they descend with teeth. They swallow the road. They erase the horizon. They make even the bravest locals stay inside and curse whoever angered the weather gods this time.
I shouldn’t be out here. Dispatch shouldn’t have sent me. No one should be driving in a whiteout where the road vanishes every three seconds.
But when a frantic tourist radios the ranger station screaming that hesaw someone walking toward the south ridge right before the avalanche hit, you don’t ignore it.
You go.
