Piper rolls her eyes. “If someone comes after us, I’ll scream loud enough for you to hear my last words.”
I smirk as I tug on my gloves. “If we freeze to death, blame Adelaide.”
“Blame yourself,” Adelaide calls from the kitchen without looking up.
I glance back at my sister. “Check your blood sugar while we’re gone.” Then I tilt my head toward Adelaide. “And don’t let her near anything sharp or flammable.”
Adelaide looks up, grabs a metal spoon from the counter, and launches it at my head.
I duck easily.
“Pity I missed,” she says, smiling.
I shut the door before I actually lose my temper and spill blood. The fact that she insists on a truce while I am the only one honouring it is absurd, especially given that patience and I have never belonged in the same sentence.
Outside, the snow crunches beneath our boots as we head down the steps.
“Where would they keep the wood?” Piper asks.
I shrug. “No idea. I doubt Adelaide’s ever had to look for it herself.”
We check the garage with no luck, finding nothing but sleek, expensive cars.
Piper sighs, clearly disappointed. “I really want to light the fireplace. Let’s check around the back. Maybe there’s a shed.”
We circle the chalet, but it is dark, and visibility is poor. Trees loom close by, their branches heavy with snow.
Then a noise breaks the silence.
Piper freezes.
“What was that?” she whispers. “Did you hear it?”
“Yes,” I say quietly, then murmur, “Shh. They can smell your fear.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Whoever’s out here.”
“Oh, fuck.”
The sound comes again, closer this time.
“Why the hell did we have to walk toward the trees?” Piper hisses. “Couldn’t we have stayed closer to the chalet?”
We stay perfectly still for several seconds. I lift three gloved fingers and lower my voice. “On three.”
I count it out under my breath, one, two, then three, and we bolt together, running as hard as we can, our boots slipping on the snow as my heart races.
We reach the chalet, throw the door open.
“A bear,” I gasp, bent over as I try to steady my breathing.
“A wolf,” Piper corrects flatly at the same moment. “If you’d ever paid attention in class, you’d know bears hibernate during winter. So it was most certainly a wolf.” She gives an involuntary shudder.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Adelaide says from the kitchen, rolling her eyes. “Itispossible for some bears not to hibernate. Hibernation is a flexible process, influenced by food availability and individual behaviour. Some adapt, find alternative food sources, even human waste—”
She’s cut off by the door slamming open a second time.
