The road curves upward, climbing into the mountains. Snow lines the edges, dirty and melting in places. The sky is a heavy gray, promising more.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I don’t have to look to know it’s him. I shove it deeper into my bag and focus on the road.
The higher I go, the quieter it gets. Trees close in. The town disappears behind me. My car rattles in protest with every incline.
“Come on,” I murmur, patting the dashboard. “Just a little farther.”
The engine makes a sound I’ve never heard before. A low, ugly grind that vibrates through the steering wheel. My stomach drops.
“No. No, no, no.”
The car lurches. The check engine light flashes. Then everything goes silent.
I coast to the shoulder, my heart hammering. Snow crunches under the tires as I roll to a stop. For a second I just sit there, staring at the empty road ahead.
“Please,” I whisper, turning the key again.
The engine clicks. Once. Twice. Nothing.
Panic floods my veins. I try again. And again. The same useless clicking fills the cab.
I slam my hands against the wheel. “Come on!”
The mountain answers with silence.
I lean back in my seat, my breath fogging the air. Outside, the wind picks up, carrying the faint hiss of falling snow. It drifts past the windshield in soft white streaks.
I’m stranded.
The realization settles over me slowly, heavily. I’m alone on a mountain road with a dead car and a bag of everything I own in the backseat. My phone is still buzzing somewhere in my backpack, a lifeline I’m too afraid to touch.
If Alex comes after me, there’s nowhere to run.
My hands curl into fists in my lap. Fear presses in from all sides, thick and suffocating.
But beneath it, stubborn and unyielding, is the same certainty that pushed me out of that house and into my car.
I am not going back.
Even if I have to walk the rest of the way. Even if I have to sit here and wait out the storm gathering in the sky.
I stare out at the empty road and wrap my arms around myself, the cold seeping in through the glass.
“I’m not going back,” I say again, louder this time, like the mountain itself needs to hear me.
Chapter Four
CALDER
The truck bedis loaded down with enough supplies to keep me off the mountain for a week if the storm hits the way they’re predicting. Groceries in crates. Firewood stacked tight and strapped down. A fresh tank of propane rattling softly in the back. I don’t like being caught unprepared, and the sky rolling in over the peaks looks heavy enough to prove me right.
Dark clouds are pushing low and slow, swallowing the pale winter sun. The air has that charged feeling that comes before a real storm, the kind that buries roads and snaps branches. Most folks in town will hunker down and wait it out.
I’m halfway up the mountain when I see the car.
It’s pulled onto the shoulder at a crooked angle, hazard lights dark. A small sedan dusted with snow. I recognize it before I consciously register why.
Wren’s car.
