“I’m… I’m fine,” I manage, forcing air into my lungs.
She studies me a beat longer but nods, returning to her desk.
I press a hand over my pounding heart.
He knows the name. He knows there was a survivor. He knows Silver Ridge is where to look.
And there’s no cell service strong enough in this storm to warn Jax.
Outside, the wind howls—a hungry, hunting sound.
The mountain is closing in.
And the world is coming for the man I swore I would protect.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jax
Snow has a sound.
People mistake it for silence, but that’s the lie nature tells anyone who’s not listening. Snow murmurs beneath the surface—whispering in tiny fractures and shifting weight—warning those who learned too late that it intends to bury everything it touches.
The storm was supposed to take its time: a slow creep of clouds, a gentle build toward violence. Instead, it’s here now. Teeth bared. Already hungry.
I close my eyes for half a second, letting my forehead rest against the window frame, telling myself that this is just another storm. Just another winter tantrum from a mountain that has tried to kill me more than once.
Except the unease in my chest isn’t about the weather.
Through the swirling white, headlights flicker—a vehicle grinding its way up the narrow road that clings to the mountain’s spine. Wrong size. Wrong speed. Wrong confidence. This road is a threat, even on clear days. Only locals trust it, and even they respect it the way others respect graveyards.
I step closer, breath fogging the glass.
The beam of headlights cuts across a face — just long enough to recognize the shape of a jaw I never wanted to see again.
Not a local. Not a skier. Not a lost tourist.
A scavenger.
I know that look. I know that posture. I know the way his eyes search for lives to pick apart.
Paparazzi.
I can still hear his voice in hospital hallways asking me how it felt to “lose everything.” Like the pain was a quote he could slap under a photo for clicks.
His smile when I couldn’t answer… his smile when Emily’s mother collapsed beside me…
I thought the avalanche buried him with the rest of that world.
But he is here.
The car edges toward a bend in the road—the curve where the mountain decides gravity is optional. Where the snowpack above waits for a vibration, a whisper, a breath, and then collapses.
Instinctively, my hand presses harder to the window.
If he’s already this high… he isn’t lost. He isn’t stuck.
He came looking.
