“I’m going to start a fire,” Aiden said. “We might need to save the battery from our phones. With the fire, we can stay warm and we’ll be able to see.”
“Okay,” I said. I tried to take a breath. “How are you staying so calm?”
Aiden turned. I could just about make out his grim expression in the glow from the phone, which was pointing now at the fireplace. “I’m not calm, Cade,” he told me. “I’m just trying to keep going so we can survive.”
I nodded, appreciating the fact that one of us had enough presence of mind to be able to do that. Maybe it was part of being a football player – being in a team, being stuck in situations that might prove difficult and finding your way out of them together. Keeping a cool head so you could win a championship.
I thought of the way he had thrown his body over mine to protect me and I blushed, glad he wasn’t able to see my face properly in the gloom. He’d acted just like that, putting his own life in danger to save mine, without even thinking about it.
Brody would never have done that for me.
And the memory of the heat and the press of his body over mine…
Oh, god, this was so inappropriate.
“D-do you need help?” I asked, watching Aiden stack half-logs into the iron fireplace, stacking them up, then thinking twice about it and reducing the number. I couldn’t think of what I should say. I wanted to thank him for protecting me, but I was worried that in my current confused state, I would say something completely inappropriate. Like,thank you for using your big, hard, hot body to save meor something.
“No, I’ve got it,” Aiden said. “Just give me a minute. I’m only going to make a small one. If our chimney is totally blocked, we’ll smoke ourselves out. Just be ready to help me put it out if it comes to that.”
“Right,” I said. I sat there staring, watching him and unable to help, feeling like a kid. Like I always did around people that were bigger and stronger than me, like Caleb.
Caleb!
“Oh, god!” I cried out, jumping to my feet.
Aiden jerked in surprise, dropping the box of matches – thankfully, not spilling them all over the floor. “What is it?” he asked urgently. “Do you see something?”
“Caleb…” I breathed my brother’s name like something secret and sacred I shouldn’t say. Like saying it out loud confirmed the fact that he was out there, somewhere.
He was out there in the snow, buried just like we were. He was further forward in the path of the avalanche – it would have hit him first.
Had their cabin survived? Had he been inside? Had he tried to go out or open the door when it was coming?
Was he alive?
Or was I now my parents’ only son?
Aiden
“Okay,” I said, sitting back as the flames took hold, licking away at the wood I had placed in their way. “Okay, it’s burning. Hold on. I’ll close this up, and hopefully, the smoke won’t come our way.” I closed the doors on the burner, moving back far enough to be clear of the flames but still close enough that I would be able to reach out quickly. I switched off my phone’s flashlight but kept my finger hovering over the button in case we were going to need to rush for water to douse the flames.
“How long will it take to know?” Cade asked. He sounded hollow and dull like the worry and fear of the whole situation had taken everything out of him. Caleb had said something about him having a hard year – what did that mean, exactly? The kind of thing that was going to make it even harder for him to keep up positivity and survive this?
“It should be pretty quick,” I said. I was almost holding my breath. I needed this to work.
Without the fire, it was going to be a cold and dark wait for rescue. If anyone even knew we needed to be rescued. I didn’t want to say it to him, but if everyone else was dead, there wouldn’t be anyone to give rescuers an accurate account of where everyone was. If they dug out the first two cabins and found them collapsed, maybe they wouldn’t rush to come and rescue us.
But the smoke wasn’t pouring back on us and filling the room.
“I think we’re good,” I said, releasing that breath I had been holding. “That’s great news. We must have an airway to the surface – and the smoke will drift out and show people where we are.”
“They’ll know where to come and rescue us?” Cade asked. He looked miserable. I would probably feel the same way if I stopped and gave myself two seconds to think, but I didn’t want to do that yet.
“Yeah, of course, they will,” I said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. I held out my hands and warmed them over the fire. The cabin was small enough that I could see most of it in the illumination from just a couple of logs, with the glass windows beaming light everywhere – the two beds, with mine still on its side; the cozy little alcove with the table under one of the windows; the shelves full of blankets, old board game sets that were probably missing half the pieces, and random mountain-themed knickknacks; the door to the bathroom; the cooler over by the door with the food that Harvey had brought over – not a moment too soon – and the things we brought in with us.
I hoped Harvey got back to Keaton before the avalanche struck. We were in cabin six – so if he was working in order, we would have been the last.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Cade said, his voice small and lost.
