CHAPTER ONE
SADIE
The snow is beautiful for exactly three more minutes.
Then my phone dies, and beautiful becomes terrifying.
I stop hiking, staring at the black screen like it personally betrayed me. Which it did. The GPS app was supposed to guide me back to the trailhead, back to my rental car, back to the cozy Airbnb in Whisper Vale where I have hot cocoa and a space heater and zero chance of dying alone on a mountain.
"Come on, come on, come on." I jab the power button. Nothing. The cold must have drained the battery. Dang it. I would’ve known that was possible if I'd bothered to research winter hiking in Nevada instead of just driving up here on a whim because my ex posted engagement photos and I needed content that screamed "I'm thriving without you, Derek."
Anti-Valentine's adventure content. That was the plan. Show my five hundred thousand followers that being single on February fourteenth doesn't mean sitting home crying into ice cream. It means conquering mountains! Embracing solitude! Finding yourself in nature!
Except I can't find myself. I can't find anything. The trail markers I was following have disappeared under fresh powder,and the snow is falling harder now, thick flakes that stick to my eyelashes and blur the world into white.
Okay. Don't panic. I'm a professional outdoor content creator. I've hiked dozens of trails. Granted, most of them were in Southern California where the biggest danger was dehydration and influencer photographers hogging the good angles, but still. I have skills.
I pull out my emergency kit, the one I bought specifically for this trip because I'm responsible and prepared and definitely not the kind of person who gets lost in blizzards. Compass. Check. Emergency blanket. Check. Protein bars. Check. Lighter. Check.
What I don't have: any idea which direction leads to safety.
The compass tells me north is north, which is super helpful when I don't know if I need to go north or south or east or west. I came from... somewhere. The trail curved a lot. There was a creek at some point, maybe?
Snow crunches under my boots as I turn in a slow circle, searching for anything familiar. Trees. More trees. Snow. A rock that looks exactly like every other rock. The wind picks up, cutting through my jacket like it's made of tissue paper instead of three hundred dollars worth of technical fabric.
My fingers are going numb. That's probably bad.
"Hello?" My voice disappears into the white void. "Is anyone out there?"
Nothing. Just wind and snow and the growing certainty that I made a terrible mistake.
I start walking. East feels right. Or at least, eastish. The compass needle trembles as I stumble through knee-deep powder, my breath coming in sharp gasps that fog the air and freeze on my scarf. The light is fading. I didn't realize how late it got while I was filming, too focused on getting the perfect shot of the valley below, the mountains stretching into the distance, the "single and thriving" caption I was composing in my head.
Stupid. So stupid.
The snow swallows my footsteps almost as fast as I make them. If I'm walking in circles, I won't even know. I could be heading deeper into the wilderness right now, further from roads and people and any hope of rescue.
My boot catches on something buried beneath the snow, and I go down hard. The cold slaps my face, snow shoving up my sleeves, and for a second I just lie there, breathing, trying not to cry because the tears will freeze on my cheeks.
Get up. Get up, Sadie.
I push myself to my knees, then my feet. My left ankle protests, a sharp twinge that makes me hiss through my teeth. Not broken, I don't think. Maybe twisted. I can walk on it, barely, if I keep most of my weight on my right leg.
Perfect. Just perfect.
The wind howls like it's laughing at me.
I limp forward, one painful step at a time, the emergency blanket wrapped around my shoulders now because my jacket isn't cutting it anymore. The silver material crinkles with every movement, probably scaring off any wildlife that might help me, like a friendly bear who knows the way to town. Do they have bears here? I should have researched that too.
The light dies completely sometime in the next hour. Or maybe ten minutes. I've lost all sense of time, my world narrowed to the next step, the next breath, the burning in my lungs and the ice forming on my eyelashes. My thoughts are getting fuzzy, which is probably the hypothermia setting in, and I know I should be more worried about that but mostly I'm just tired.
So tired.
A shape materializes in the snow ahead. Dark against the white. Big. Human sized, maybe, or bear sized, or tree sized. I can't tell anymore. My eyes aren't working right.
"Help." The word comes out cracked, barely audible. I try again, louder. "Help me. Please."
The shape doesn't move.
