I stared at the piles of food in silence for a moment, wondering what we should do next.
“Did you hear that?” Cade asked suddenly, and I shot to attention, straining my ears.
But…
“No?” I said. “Hear what?”
“Shh!” Cade said hurriedly, lifting a hand in the air. I watched as his face turned towards the ceiling, his eyes searching back and forth as if looking for the source of some noise that I couldn’t hear. Then, finally, his shoulders slumped. “It’s gone.”
“What did it sound like?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Cade shrugged. “Like… some kind of creaking or a crunch? Probably more snow falling on top of us.”
I looked at the fire; it hadn’t been doused. There was still open space somewhere above our chimney.
“Or rescuers,” I suggested. “Maybe you heard them digging in the snow!”
Cade sighed. “Maybe. But even if that is what it was, how are we going to be able to make contact with them and tell them we’re down here? They might be looking for signs of life, and we’re not giving them any.”
I pointed to the fire. “We’re giving them smoke signals.”
“I guess,” Cade said, but he looked miserable again. I didn’t want him to look miserable anymore. It wasn’t right on his face. He looked so good when he smiled – I just wanted to try to get him to smile again.
“Let’s think of some other way,” I said. “The best thing would be if we had a radio or something, but our cell phones don’t work.”
“Or a satellite phone or something,” Cade said. He furrowed his brow then and passed a hand over his mouth – I could see he was thinking about something.
“What?” I prompted.
He shook his head, but then cast around and dashed over to his bed. “Wait… here! It’s the info pack that Keaton made for us. I wonder if it has anything about emergencies?”
“Let’s read it and see,” I suggested, feeling slightly bad that I hadn’t even paid attention to what Keaton was handing out. At least I had lucked out in being partnered up by the most responsible person here apart from Keaton himself.
Cade carried the packet closer to the fire and pulled out the loose sheets of paper, starting to flick through them. “Here, there’s a page about the things we should find in our cabins. Spare blankets and pillows… games and entertainment… bathroom supplies…. Wait. Avalanche beacon?”
“Seriously?” I asked, looking over from behind him. We were almost the perfect height match. I could look right over his head without having to strain or duck.
“Yeah – right here. Emergency beacon for notifying rescuers of your location. It says it’s stored in the facilities closet? Where is that?”
I glanced around the room as Cade tore through the rest of the papers looking for information. There was a kind of closet on the other side of the bathroom door, actually. I had ignored it before because it was so small – only a half-length of the wall – there was no way it held a door to the outside.
“Here,” I told him, striding over. I wrenched the door open and found it full of what looked like spare towels.
Then I pushed those up and out of the way and I saw it.
A small device just sitting there on the shelf, looking like some kind of old-fashioned scanner or gauge, made out of thick plastic.
“Holy crap,” Cade breathed, and I realized he was standing right by my side. I hadn’t noticed him come up. But looking down at him, it struck me again that he was a very attractive guy.
Which was a very strange thing for me to be thinking, in all honesty. It wasn’t as if I was blind – I noticed whether guys were hot or not. It was easy to tell. But with Cade, it was like every time I looked at him, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how cute he was – and I had no idea what that meant.
“You know,” I blurted out, without even thinking. “That Brody really is an idiot.”
“What?” Cade asked, turning wide, round eyes on me.
I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.
“Sorry,” I said. “I mean, for bringing it up again. I just can’t stop thinking about how stupid he must be. I don’t know why anyone would want to do that to you. You’re such a good guy, Red.”
