“Should’ve left me,” he whispers.
My heart stutters. For a moment, all the heat drains from my body.
The medic gives me a worried look, but I force my voice steady. “We’re going to pretend you didn’t say that. Because you’re alive, and that’s what we’re focusing on.”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look at me again as they wheel him away toward the exam bay.
He is a storm. A wall. A man who shouldn’t have survived and, by the look in his eyes, wasn’t expecting to.
I stand in the doorway long after they disappear behind the curtain, snow melting into my collar and dripping down my spine. My hands shake with leftover adrenaline.
He’ll live. Thank God for that.
But even through the exhaustion, the relief, the cold that’s seeped into my bones, one truth settles heavily in my chest.
Whoever he is—this stranger with frostbitten lips, storm-blue eyes, and a death wish—he’s going to be trouble.
And I still don’t even know his name.
Chapter Three
Jax
Waking up feels like a mistake.
Not a gentle one. Not a slow, drifting return to consciousness. It’s abrupt—a jolt that drags me out of the darkness I’d finally slipped into. My eyelids flutter open to a world of rough-hewn beams overhead, warm lighting, the low hum of space heaters, and the unmistakable sterile scent of an underfunded clinic.
Alive. I’m alive.
A slow, burning fury curls up my spine before I can stop it. It’s not fear. It’s not relief. It’s anger, hot enough to scrape the inside of my ribs raw. Being alive feels like losing a second time—like the mountain offered me an escape and someone ripped it away at the last moment.
A voice to my left cuts through the haze.
“Well… good morning,” the medic says, his tone far too gentle. His name tag reads CAMPBELL. Mid-thirties. Steady posture. The kind of man who probably keeps a bowl of cough drops on his desk for “patient comfort.”
I already hate him.
“You gave us a scare,” he continues. “Hypothermia, bruised ribs, mild concussion. Honestly, you’re lucky.”
I let my eyes fall closed again. “Doesn’t feel like luck.”
Campbell sighs, the kind of sigh that says he deals with stubborn men for a living. “Look, we’ll keep you a couple hours for observation, but—”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“Yet I gave it anyway,” he says lightly, checking my vitals.
I consider telling him exactly where he can put his professional concern, but the door swings open before I get the chance.
Cold air rushes in.
And with it—a woman.
She steps inside with a confidence that hits like a slap of color against this muted room. Snow still clings to the curls escaping her beanie. Her cheeks are flushed from the wind. She’s bundled in layers, but even through them she radiates heat—bright, alive, irritatingly warm in a way that feels foreign in my world.
