I’m going todie.
Hot tears mixed with the cold surrounding her.
Inever got to tell him.I don’t want todie without telling him.Please.
Trust me,Cassie, the Lord’s voice whispered over the turmoil.
Snow pressed at her lips, trying to force its way in. She clamped her jaw, hoping the pressure would stop.
Be still.
That was the last thing she wanted to do. She wanted to fight,but as she embraced it, her flustered mind began to clear from the encroaching panic.
Backpack.
She pulled the string to inflate it, praying it would pop her to the surface, or at the very least, create a bigger air pocket around her. But nada. No balloon. No popping pocket of air.Nothing.
She tugged harder.
Nothing again.
Panic swelled, her body shaking from the deepest fear she’d ever experienced as cold seeped through her, the pressure unrelenting to the point of snapping her like a twig.
I’m going to die.
Buried in white.
Never found.
Four
JOEL CLUTCHEDthe thick tree trunk for sweet mercy, his head pressed against the rough, scaling bark. A cascade of white roared down the mountain—its force lifting his legs up behind him like they didn’t weight a thing. Locking his arms tighter around the tree, he held on hard—fearing they’d break under the amassing pressure.
Please help me to hang on.
His life literally depended on his slipping grasp. His legs flung like a rag doll behind him.
Give me the strength I don’tpossess. I need Your strength.
“God is our refuge andstrength,an ever-present help in trouble.”
The words from Psalms broke through his panicked brain but didn’t douse his frenzied concern for Cassie. She’d been right in the avalanche’s path—nowhere near the tree line. While he hadn’t physically seen her go under, he dreaded the worst. Being trapped in the undertow, pushed and dragged in its furious path, scraping the bottom of the earth. So much like a fierce ocean wave stealing your breath.Breath. He hoped if Cassie was dragged under that she’d gotten one strong breath before the snow closed in around her.
Please,Lord,let her be alive. Please don’t tear her away from me again.
The roaring freight train of snow whooshed over him at lightning speed—the noise and pressure deafening.
Would it ever end?
What seemed an eternity later, it finally settled. The thick wave of rushing snow stilled, the mountain eerily silent. No sound of birds or voices or wind. Just desperate silence.
Cassie.
He moved, or attempted to move, but the packed snow—so high it nearly covered his head—held him fast to the tree. He wriggled, trying to yank his arms free, but no movement. He needed to be shoveled out.
Unable to shift his head more than an inch, he glanced out of his peripheral vision, taking in the devastation—rocks, debris, and mountains of snow.
The wind smacked his cheeks. Cyclones of snow swirled along the surface—the sky a furious charcoal.
