"Don't." The word comes out sharp, and I turn to glare at him. "Don't ask me that. You don't get to know. You don't get to hear about what I went through because you left me there."
His hands tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles going white. "Fair enough."
More silence. The snow keeps falling, heavier now. I watch it build up on the windshield between swipes of the wipers, building up faster than they can clear it away. The road ahead is becoming harder to see, the edges blurring into the forest on either side.
"It's getting worse," I observe, trying to keep my voice neutral.
"I know." Kazimir is still staring straight ahead.
"Is that going to be a problem?"
"I don't know," he admits. "The forecast didn't call for this. At least not when I looked at the weather as I was flying in. But it can change?—"
As if in response to his words, the wind picks up. It hits the SUV from the side, making it shudder and sway. The snow is no longer falling—it's being driven horizontally across the road, reducing visibility to almost nothing. The headlights barely penetrate the white wall in front of us.
"Fuck," Kazimir mutters under his breath.
He slows down, leaning forward to peer through the windshield. The wipers are working overtime now, but they're fighting a losing battle. Snow is piling up on the glass faster than they can clear it. The road is disappearing beneath the accumulation, the edges becoming harder and harder to distinguish from the forest floor.
"How much further?" I ask, trying to keep the fear out of my voice and failing.
“I’m not sure.” He sounds uncertain, and that uncertainty scares me more than anything else. Kazimir is always certain, always in control. "It's hard to tell in this. And I have to get a call out. With weather like this?—"
The wind hits us again, harder this time. The SUV slides slightly to the right before Kazimir corrects it, steering into the skid. My hands grip the edges of the seat, my knuckles going white beneath the grime and blood.
This is wrong. This is all wrong. We were supposed to get away. We were supposed to reach the extraction point and get out. We weren't supposed to be trapped in a blizzard thatcame out of nowhere, that shouldn't even exist according to the forecast, according to Kazimir.
It feels like a joke. Like the universe is laughing at me.
I must have died in that warehouse. Sergei must have killed me. It’s the only explanation for the hell I’m living through.
"Can you see if you’re able to radio for help?" I ask, hearing the desperation creeping into my voice.
Kazimir steals a look at the expression on my face, then pulls out a satellite phone with one hand, keeping the other on the wheel. He checks it, and I see his jaw clench. "No signal. The storm is interfering."
"So what do we do?" My voice cracks, and my fingers dig into the sides of the seat.
"We keep going. Maybe if we find a clearing, without so much forest—." But even as he says it, I can see the doubt in his face, the way his eyes keep darting to the rearview mirror and then back to the road. Or what's left of the road.
The storm is intensifying with every minute that passes. What started as gentle snowfall has become a full-blown blizzard. The wind is howling now, sounding alive and hungry, shaking the SUV like a toy. Snow is piling up on the road faster than seems possible, drifts forming across our path.
We crawl forward at a pace that feels agonizingly slow. Every few feet, Kazimir has to stop and wait for a gust of wind to pass, for visibility to improve just enough to see where we're going. But it never really improves. The white wall just shifts and swirls, occasionally thinning enough to show us a few inches of road before closing in again.
I can feel the SUV struggling now. The tires are spinning, searching for traction. We're moving through drifts that are getting deeper, and I can feel the grinding as the car tries to make it without sliding.
“I think I see a space up ahead,” Kazimir says through gritted teeth. “Enough of a clearing, I might be able to get a signal. I can get out and try.”
But between us and it is a stretch of road that's rapidly becoming impassable. The snow is so deep now I can't even see where the road ends and the forest begins. It's all just white, endless white, punctuated by the dark shapes of trees that loom out of the storm like sentinels.
Kazimir presses harder on the accelerator. The SUV lurches forward, tires spinning for a moment before finding purchase. We make it maybe a few feet before the vehicle starts to slide again, fishtailing as the rear end loses traction.
"Come on," Kazimir growls, fighting with the steering wheel and cursing under his breath in Russian. "Come on, you bastard."
We slide sideways, and for a horrible moment, I think we're going to tip over. But Kazimir manages to straighten us out, and we keep moving forward. The clearing is closer now. I can see it more clearly through the swirling snow—a break in the trees, where maybe Kazimir can radio out. It’s such a thin thread of hope, but I cling to it as we inch forward. A foot. Another.
And then everything goes wrong.
The SUV hits a drift that's deeper than the others, and the front end dips down sharply. I feel the sickening sensation of the tires losing contact with solid ground. Kazimir yanks the wheel hard to the left, trying to correct, but it's too late. The SUV tilts at a steep angle, and I hear the grinding crunch of metal against something solid. A rock, maybe, or a fallen tree hidden beneath the snow.
