Page 36 of Cold and Bitter Snow

“I promised, didn’t I? Now I’m going to need you to jump as well. But first you need to take off your skis.”

The boy reached down and unclipped his skis. They fell harmlessly to the ground.

“Good. That was good, Ryan,” Conor said encouragingly. “Now you’re going to jump. On three. Like we did with your sister.”

The boy’s helmet shook. “No. I’ll hurt you.”

Conor’s reply was strangled. “You let me worry about that. I promise I’ll catch you.”

“Is my brother going to be okay?” the girl asked, her little gloved hand pressing hard on Siena’s hand.

“He’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

“Your boyfriend will catch him?”

“He will,” Siena confirmed, not bothering to correct the girl. She hoped Conor knew what he was doing.

“… Two. Three.”

The boy let go.

He’s too heavy.

Siena saw him fall as if in slow motion, then suddenly he was in Conor’s arms. Like before, Conor seemed to relax his body just before the boy landed. He rolled onto the ground, cradling the boy.

The boy jumped up whooping.

“Wow! That was amazing!”

Conor was slower to get to his feet this time. Finally he straightened up, holding on to his left shoulder with his hand. His jaw was clenched tight.

“Well done, buddy. You were very brave,” Conor said.

The girl ran towards her brother. Seeing the siblings hug each other brought tears to Siena’s eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly so only Conor could hear.

“We need to get away from here,” he said, herding them all away from the lift.

A loud groaning sound called her attention back to the chairlift. Unable to withstand the structural damage caused by the explosion, the pylon’s structure twisted, crumpling onto itself. The metal haul cable running between the collapsed pylon and the next fell to the ground, and with it all the chairs between those two pylons, including the one the kids had been in moments before. The chairs, thankfully empty, landed in a loud metallic cacophony.

People stuck in the chairlift beyond the next pylon bounced in their chairs. The screaming intensified.

Conor’s expression was anguished. He still clutched his shoulder as if to ease the pain. “I can’t catch an adult,” he said. “We need the ski patrol team here, before the fire spreads and the next pylon collapses.”

Siena nodded. They needed to think of something else.

Suddenly people started arriving. Some gawkers, but also men and women wearing the distinctive ski patrol uniform, several of them driving snowmobiles with stretchers behind them.

Thank goodness.

A large bearded man skied up to them—one of the senior ski patrollers she’d met when she’d first arrived in Le Miroir. Siena fished in her mind for the man’s name.

“Saw what you did, man,” the man told Conor. “Good thinking.” His deep voice sounded reluctantly admiring.

“Glad to see you, Jacques,” Conor said. “The first explosion happened there.”

An EMT joined them and began speaking quietly to the children. A few seconds later the EMT raised his head and nodded at Siena, giving her a thumbs up.