ONE
SADIE
The wind howls through the trees like a living thing, driving sharp needles of snow into my face as I stumble forward. My boots slip on the icy ground, and I catch myself on a low branch, the rough bark scraping my palm raw. I keep moving. I have to keep moving. The town lights disappeared behind me hours ago, swallowed by the thickening forest and the gathering storm. I meant to catch the last bus out of Timber Creek, to put as many miles as possible between me and the men who are hunting me. Instead I took a wrong turn in the dark, and now I’m climbing higher into the mountains with nothing but the clothes on my back and a dead phone in my pocket.
My breath comes in harsh, visible puffs that freeze on my eyelashes. The cold burns my lungs with every inhale, like knives slicing deeper each time. I hug my thin jacket tighter around me, but the wind cuts straight through the fabric as if it’s not even there. My fingers have gone completely numb inside my gloves. My toes throb inside my soaked boots. I can’t feel my face anymore.
Magnus’s face flashes in my mind again, sharp and cruel, the way it always does when the fear creeps in. He’s the reason I’m here. Magnus Vale. The man who owns half the underground gambling operations in the city I left behind. Not just any criminal. He runs high-stakes poker rooms, underground casinos, and loan-sharking rings that destroy families. I worked as a bookkeeper at a small accounting firm that handled some of his legitimate-looking businesses. I was good with numbers. Too good. One night I stayed late to finish a report and accidentally opened the wrong file. It was not the clean financials I was supposed to see. It was the real books. The ones that showed millions in cash flowing through shell companies, the ones that documented the beatings, the threats, the people who disappeared when they couldn’t pay back what they owed.
I should’ve closed the file and pretended I never saw it. Instead I copied everything onto a flash drive and took it home. I thought I could use it as leverage, maybe even go to the authorities and finally put him away. I was wrong. Magnus found out the next day. His men tore through my apartment, smashed everything I owned, and left a note on my pillow that said he would make an example of me. They want the drive back. They want me silenced. Permanently. Because I saw the real numbers. Because I know exactly how much blood money he has washed through those books.
Now the storm is closing in, and I’m so cold I can barely think. I glance over my shoulder for the hundredth time. The trees behind me stand silent and dark, their branches heavy with fresh snow, but I know they’re out there. Magnus’s men. They never stop. They never forget.
I push harder up the slope, my legs burning with the effort. The path disappeared long ago, replaced by uneven ground coveredin fresh snow that hides roots and rocks. Every step feels heavier than the last. My younger sister’s face flashes in my mind again. Lily. She’s only fourteen, still stuck in that awful foster house on the outskirts of the city. I promised her I would come back for her. I promised her we would find a way to be together again, far away from the system that treated us like we didn’t matter. If I don’t make it out of these mountains, she will never know what happened to me. She’ll grow up believing I abandoned her the way everyone else has. The thought sends a fresh wave of panic through me, so sharp it almost makes me stumble again.
Tears sting my eyes and freeze on my lashes. I can’t let that happen. I have to keep going. I have to find a road, a town, anything that’ll get me far away from here before Magnus’s men close the distance. I picture their faces, the cold way they looked at me when they tore through my apartment. They smashed everything I owned and left a note on my pillow that said Magnus would make an example of me. They want me silenced. Permanently. Because I saw too much. Because I took the only proof that could destroy him.
The snow falls thicker now, heavy flakes swirling in the wind and reducing visibility to just a few yards. The storm’s moving in fast. I can feel it in the way the air grows heavier, in the way the temperature drops like a stone. My teeth chatter uncontrollably. My body shakes with cold that goes bone-deep. I wrap my arms around myself and keep climbing, one foot in front of the other, refusing to stop even though my legs feel like they’re made of lead.
A root hidden under the snow catches my boot. I pitch forward with a cry, landing hard on my hands and knees. Pain shoots through my left ankle as it twists awkwardly beneath me. I gasp and roll onto my side, clutching the injured joint. It throbsviciously, already swelling inside my boot. I try to stand, but the moment I put weight on it, white-hot agony flares up my leg. I collapse back into the snow with a sob.
“No,” I whisper, tears streaming down my frozen cheeks. “Please, not now.”
I crawl forward a few feet, dragging my bad leg behind me like dead weight. The snow soaks through my jeans and gloves, turning my skin raw and numb. The cold seeps deeper into my bones, making every movement slower and clumsier. My vision blurs at the edges. I’m so tired. So incredibly tired. Every part of me screams for rest.
I spot a large pine tree ahead, its thick branches drooping low under the weight of the snow, creating a small sheltered space beneath them. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I drag myself toward it, using my elbows and good leg to pull my body through the snow. The effort leaves me gasping, my heart pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. When I finally reach the tree, I collapse against the trunk, breathing hard and shallow.
The wind still howls around me, but the branches block the worst of it. I curl into a tight ball, hugging my knees to my chest in a desperate attempt to conserve what little heat I have left. My ankle pulses with pain that radiates up my leg. My fingers and toes have gone completely numb. I can feel the cold creeping deeper into my body, slowing my thoughts, making my eyelids heavy and difficult to keep open.
I think of Lily again. Her bright laugh when I used to sneak her candy after school. The way she used to hug me tight every night before bed and whisper that I was her hero. I promised her I would come back for her. I promised her we’d find a safe placetogether, far away from the system that treated us like we didn’t matter. If I die here under this tree, she’ll never know what happened to me. She’ll grow up believing I abandoned her the way everyone else has. The thought sends a fresh wave of panic through me, so sharp it almost makes me try to stand again. But my body refuses. The cold has won this round.
Tears freeze on my face as I close my eyes. Just a short rest, I tell myself. Just a few minutes to catch my breath. Then I’ll get up and keep going. I have to keep going for Lily. I have to keep going because if Magnus wins, no one will ever be safe.
But the cold wraps tighter around me like a shroud. My mind grows foggy. The world narrows to the small space beneath the pine branches and the sound of the wind screaming through the trees. I whisper my sister’s name into the storm one last time, like a prayer carried away on the snow.
Then everything goes dark.
TWO
THORNE
The wind has picked up over the last hour, sharp and biting, carrying the heavy scent of coming snow. I keep moving anyway, boots sinking into the deepening drifts as I follow the faint trail left in the snow. The missing woman’s footprints are still visible in places, small and hurried, leading higher up the north ridge. She has been out here for at least three days now. Cold. Scared. Possibly hurt. My job is simple: find her.
I adjust the strap of my pack and check the radio clipped to my vest again. Static. Nothing but static. The last clear transmission from the team came almost two hours ago. Rafe telling me to head back before the storm hits. I replied that I was close. That I could see fresh signs. Then the signal dropped and never came back.
Now the sky has turned the color of dirty steel, and the first fat flakes are beginning to swirl around me. The temperature is dropping fast. I pull my hood tighter and keep climbing, eyes scanning the ground for any sign of her. A broken branch here. A scrap of fabric caught on a rock there. She’s heading toward the old mine shafts. Bad place to be caught in a storm.
My breath fogs in front of me. The cold bites through my gloves and into my fingers. I flex them to keep the blood moving. I’ve been out here since first light, tracking steadily, but the weather is turning faster than any of us expected. The team will be worried. Eli will already be cursing my name for not turning back when the radio died. But I can’t leave her out here alone. Not when I’m this close.
Another set of prints appears in a sheltered spot beneath a rocky overhang. Smaller boots. Fresh. She stopped here recently, maybe to rest. The snow around the prints is disturbed, like she sat down for a minute. I crouch and study the marks. She’s limping now. Favoring her right leg. Hypothermia will be setting in soon if it hasn’t already.
I stand and press on, following the trail as it winds higher. The wind howls louder between the trees, whipping snow into my face. Visibility’s dropping fast. The world has narrowed to a few yards in every direction. I click on my headlamp even though it’s still daylight. The beam cuts through the swirling white, picking out the next set of prints.
She went left here, toward the steeper slope. Not smart. That path leads straight toward the old abandoned shafts. Dangerous even in good weather. Deadly in this.
I push forward, boots slipping on the icy ground. My radio crackles once, a burst of static, then nothing. I try calling in anyway.
“Rafe, this is Thorne. I’m still on her trail. Heading toward the old mine entrance. Over.”
