Page 81

Madison

It feels good to be outside. Away from the confines of the house. Away from Blackthroat. Except thinking of him makes my eyes burn again.

Am I really quitting? Leaving things this way?

Part of me doesn’t want to. And yet I knew when I began, this day would come. This job was never supposed to mean anything to me. He was never supposed to mean anything to me.

Damn him.

I stomp through the drifting snow until my feet get cold inside my boots, and my face is numb. I don’t know how long it’s been. Maybe thirty or forty minutes. Enough time for my thoughts to go in a complete circle forward and backward and then forward again.

Then I turn around to head back.

Except… fuck.

It’s a total white-out. Like, I can’t see ten feet in front of me.

Okay, no problem. I will follow my tracks in the snow. I keep my focus on my prints and pick up my speed.

Damn, it’s cold out. Like, really, really cold.

A fact I probably would’ve noticed sooner had I not been in such a foul temper.

I push back the thread of anxiety that starts up about the state of the weather and how stupid I was to go out in it. I’ll make it back to the lodge before my tracks get covered by snow.

Totally.

No problem.

Except…the prints are already getting fainter. I pick up my speed. As panic presses closer, I start to jog.

Have I mentioned I’m not all that coordinated? I trip on something in the snow–a tree root, maybe? –and pitch head first onto my belly.

That part would’ve been fine. Totally manageable. Except I keep sliding. With the snow drift and the white out conditions, I didn’t notice the edge of some kind of gully or ravine, and I’m tumbling, skidding, sliding down into it.

It’s not horrible–not like a cliff. It’s maybe fifteen feet. I pick myself up out of the snow drift and dust myself off. Nothing appears to be broken. I’ll probably be a bit bruised. But I have far bigger problems than bruises. Now I don’t know how to get out of it. The slope is slippery, and I don’t want to hike too far away from where I fell in because my footprints–literally the one thing that’s going to get me safely back to the lodge–are up there.

Ican’t lose them.

Dammit!

I try to climb, but for every step I take, I slide right back down.

Oh, fuckity, fuck, fuck.

Okay, stay calm. I will just have to hike out. I will follow it in the same direction the footprints were heading, and maybe if I get lucky, I will find them again when I get out.

Oh dear baby Jesus.

This is bad.

I pat my pockets for my phone, but of course I can remember exactly where I left it. On the dresser in the bedroom. I was so intent on making a flouncy exit, I hadn’t picked it up.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I don’t like to admit to being scared, but I am rapidly barrelling down that slope. I force my breath to slow and remember the muffin I’d stuck in my pocket when I left. Pulling it out, I stop to take a few bites. I need to get my blood sugar up, so I can think.

There must be something I can do to get myself out of this.