The blizzard may have ended, and there’s a sliver of moon helping to light our way, but the trek goes much the same as last night. The constant wind has morphed into gusts that seem to come at us from a different direction each time, lifting frozen pellets of snow and tossing it into our faces. Our trail is no longer covered by the blinding snowstorm. Instead, the gusts are doing a fairly good job of confusing things. Janelle makes it possible for us to walk through often chest-high snow and drifts that crest above my head. But even with her help it’s more work than my body has ever tried to do. The first few minutes actually felt pretty good, stretching out those stiff muscles. Unfortunately, that doesn’t last long. We aren’t just walking through snow. We’re also climbing a mountain.

If anyone is following us, Janelle leads them on a merry chase. We dodge under patches of conifers, their branches looking like snowman arms, the snow stacked up on them so perfectly. Being buffeted by the wind themselves, we don’t have to be too careful not to dislodge any snow from their limbs. After grazing one and getting its load of snow dumped on my head, however, I avoid them at all costs.

Sometime in the second hour, when every breath is fire and my body has begun to sweat from the exertion, I decide I have to stop focusing on it. Instead, my brain very helpfully starts wondering why on earth I don’t have frostbite on the little bit of my face which is exposed to the air. How I’m still able to put one foot in front of the other. In fact, why aren’t all of us dying of exposure to the below-freezing temps? 

Okay, Emma is half fae and immortal, and it’s kept her from getting sick and when she was kidnapped by the evil fae it kept her alive far longer than any human could have lived. But that doesn’t mean she can’t die. And sure, Kate was cursed by one of those same evil fae, but it didn’t make her immortal even though Emma turned the curse into a gift – her ability to make fire we’re all anxious for her to get back. And in addition to healing me of my chronic illness, Emma’s father gifted me with immortality, but again, that doesn’t mean I can’t be killed, either. So what’s keeping us alive? 

Puzzling over this rewards me with at least an hour free of thoughts about my personal misery. While I don’t come up with a definitive answer, I settle on it having something to do with each of us having at least a touch of fae. No matter how small, it seems to be what’s keeping us alive. I’ll have to remember to ask Emma about it if we make it out of here. When. When we make it out of here.

Out in the open, the sliver of moon is more than we need to see everything as even that much seems to light up the snow. However, deep in a heavily wooded area, the snow-covered canopy keeps it rather dark. Janelle likes it when we stay in the trees because it keeps any drones from spotting us overhead. Since we’re all dressed in dark clothing, it forces us to walk pretty much on one anothers’ heels to stay together. Periodically we rotate positions behind Janelle, partly to keep us alert as we drag our exhausted bodies step after step, partly to give us someone different to tred on.

I rotate from the front to the rear for what seems like the thousandth time this night, stumbling over my own feet from fatigue. I’m beyond coherent thoughts. All I can do is keep moving. Everything hurts. My lips crack open at some point and I taste blood. It makes me think of the dream I had but I can’t suss out why. And I’m too out of it to even consider Janelle. 
I’m so tired I collapse like a ragdoll when I get hit from behind and land face first into the snow. The impact knocks the breath out of my lungs and a heavy weight on my back presses my face deeper into the freezing white stuff. My body starts to panic for breath, but I’m so certain that whoever was after us has found us and I believe it’s probably better to die this way. Before they can torture me. But whoever is on my back keeps hitting me and grappling for my neck, if my lungs don’t cooperate here soon, their job will be done for them. 

It’s in that hypoxic, half-conscious state that I remember the dream. Not all of it, but I get a clear image of Jo, beaten and battered, lying in a cave shrouded in thick fog, her fangs buried deep in my wrist.

About the time the tremendous weight is lifted from me, my respiratory system kicks back in and I open my mouth to suck in air. Unfortunately, I get snow with it and start coughing violently, still needing oxygen desperately. Even as I hack up snow I want to scream, because the dream floats away from me again. I struggle to remember but each exhale sends memories further away. Hands pull me up out of the snow and once vertical, my coughing eases and I heave deep breaths, my lungs on fire. Kate starts brushing snow off of my front and I wipe it from my face. As if I wasn’t already freezing, haven’t been for more than 24 hours now, my teeth start chattering. For some reason, I’m growing steadily colder.

Adrenaline makes me want to start running and I’m plagued by a stronger sense of dread I cannot explain. I search my friends’ faces. They’re clearly worried too, but no one is behaving as if our enemies had caught up to us. “What happened? Where’s Janelle?

Emma nods her head to the side and my eyes fall on Janelle. The darkness makes it hard to make out what I’m seeing. “Who is Janelle hugging? Wait. Is that fur? Is that a deer?”

“It’s a mountain lion, Libby. Apparently it was in those bushes we all walked past. I guess it waited to ambush the last person. Honey, it ripped your coat to shreds.”

“Well, better my coat than my back, right?” But as I turn back to Janelle I’m not sure just how much better it is. I could easily freeze to death out here. Quickly. 

Now that I know what I’m looking at, I can see why I thought it was a deer. The coloring is similar, but the huge feline’s head is flopped to the side and Janelle’s mouth is fastened to its neck. When it attacked, it was as heavy as a large person. How is Janelle able to hold it up? My stomach turns. Poor Cat. I get a pang thinking of my tuxedo Darcy back home. Will Charlene continue to take care of him if I don’t make it home?

Emma breaks my train of thought. “Well, now we don’t have to worry about where Janelle is going to get her next meal.”
Kate huffs. “Good for her. But where are we going to get ours? We’re all down to our last bar. What will we do in the morning?”

“Well, Kate, you should be able to make fire again, soon. I guess we could cook…” But my stomach turns at the thought of eating that poor animal just trying to survive out here, even if Janelle already killed it. I swallow back bile. I’m not that hungry. Yet. “Then again, never mind.”

Emma grimaces and turns her back on Janelle’s feeding. By unspoken agreement, we shuffle together and put our arms around one another. 

“One way or another we have to find shelter soon.” Emma looks me over. “You aren’t going to last long now that your coat’s insulating ability has been compromised.” As if I need convincing, she grasps a flap of fabric and pulls it around to show me. “And, I hate to admit it, but I just don’t think I can do this any more. I wish we’d just stayed in that cave until somebody found us.”

I wrinkle my nose. “It smelled like a grizzly bear.”

Kate laughs though it lacks humor, “And how sorry am I to now know exactly what that smells like? You know as well as I do, the bad guys are the only ones we’re sure are even looking for us. If anyone else even knows we’re missing. Mac and Jo and Chris and everyone might believe we didn’t survive the crash,” her voice breaks. “They might not come looking for us at all,” she sobs.

We’re all wallowing in fatigued despair when Janelle rejoins us. She looks like her old self – able to pass as a human once again. Her dark skin has a healthy glow and her brown eyes sparkle. She’s positively jovial. I guess I would be too if my tummy was full. Her wide toothy grin is made whiter in contrast to her ebony skin. Thank goodness she cleaned the blood from them. She gathers her cinnamon locs and lets them hang down her back. It’s the first time I’ve seen her really act herself since the plane crashed. 

“Cheer up, ladies. That cat was out hunting. Means she’s got a den nearby and now that I have her scent, I’ll find it. Y’all stay here. Hunker down in the snow and keep each other warm. Once I find the kitty’s home, I’ll circle back for you. Then we can all get out of this cold and get Libby warmed up in no time.”

Janelle makes quick work of digging out a space deep in the woods, within a grouping of the narrow trunks of some type of pine. They stand straight and tall, like poles fencing us in. Too narrow to fully block the wind, but it feels somehow comforting inside these sentinels. 

Filling up on blood gave Janelle energy to spare. She stands beside the completed pit, her hands on her hips, and stares at us expectantly. After a brief discussion done mostly with weak gestures, we clamber down and arrange our exhausted selves in the crater. Janelle packs snow around us until we’re buried in snow up to our armpits. She assures us the snow will insulate us and keep us warm. 

“Those sled dogs sleep under the snow to keep warm, so it’s bound to help you,” she declares as she cheerfully packs down the snow. “And with these trees to block the wind, you’ll be downright toasty.” If Janelle hadn’t disappeared in a blur at that point, I would have been glad to share a few thoughts regarding her comparing us with Malamutes.

Somewhat to my surprise, the snow insulates so well I actually do feel warmer. Along with that warmth, comes deeper lethargy. If the snow were not packed so snugly around me, holding me up, I’d be lying down. Judging from everyone else’s silence, I’m guessing they’re at the end of their ropes, too. I stare blindly into the night, made darker by the forest canopy, my head light with hunger and missing Jo with heart-rending intensity. I can’t shake the feeling that something went very wrong at the summit, but I can’t think what makes me feel that way. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever even see Jo again. Gah. Is this really how it ends?

Somewhere far off in the distance, a wolf howls, the lonely sound seeming to echo my grief. But before the wolf’s song finishes, more voices join in, changing it. Something about those other voices speaks of a fierce excitement rather than loneliness. The new song speaks to my hind brain where ancestral knowledge of hunter and hunted resides, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I shudder.

“We’re sitting ducks here,” Emma says, echoing the train of my thoughts.

“They’re so far away,” I assure her, “they’re after somebody else.”

Kate snorts. “Somebody? That’s an unfortunate word to use.”

“No. No, somebody is good. Maybe that means they’ll take out our pursuers.” 

Ever since she was held captive by the evil fae this past summer, I’ve heard more darkness than I ever imagined would come in my best friend’s voice. We’ve been tight since middle school. Hearing the merciless words delivered in such a cold voice is still a little shocking.

But it’s not like I don’t wholeheartedly agree with her. Stuck here under the trees where even the sliver of moonlight can’t reflect on the snow, I can just imagine enemies lurking behind every trunk.

“I wish it were the Duncan pack out there.” The wistfulness in Kate’s voice brings tears to my eyes and I swallow hard. We all know it isn’t them. Like she said earlier, Mac’s extended family probably don’t even know we made it out of the airplane crash alive, much less where in the Rocky Mountains we are. We don’t even have a clue where we are. If the ones after us haven’t found us yet, no one will. With that blizzard hampering any rescue and this persistent gusting wind covering our tracks, it would truly be a miracle if we are found at all. My unhelpful brain conjures horrified hikers coming across our picked over bones in the spring.

Time loses meaning as we wait for Janelle’s return. Deep in the woods it’s eerily quiet, even with gusts of wind howling through the trees. We discuss it at length but in the end hunger wins out and we each eat our last bar. It does nothing to assuage my hunger. Seemingly endless hours of dragging my sore body through deep snow has sapped every bit of energy my body had left. For a while, I doze off and on, awakened by glacial gusts blowing snow in around the back of my neck where the mountain lion’s teeth ripped the hood rather than my skin. Once the hoot of an owl in a nearby tree startles me awake. I can only assume Kate and Emma sleep, too. I hope they do. Goodness knows we all need the rest. 
And food. I have to make Janelle understand; besides my ripped up coat no longer doing its job, without food, we can’t keep expending energy we’re unable to replenish. Once we make it to the big cat’s den, we’ve got to stop. 

A bark, short and high, splits the night, jarring me alert.

“Yes, that was close.” Janelle says close to my ear. If I’d been able to move I would have jumped to the top of the trees. She wasn’t standing in front of me a second ago. My heart tries to do a salsa beneath my ribcage. “We should get going.” With that whispered pronouncement she starts shoveling snow from around us. Janelle’s hands move so fast I can’t track them. She continues speaking low and I strain to hear her. That wolf making her nervous ratchets up my own nerves. “Turns out the cave isn’t far, but the cat didn’t come here straight from her home. She did her rounds before settling in to hunt. Took me on a crazy goose chase. That’s why it took me a while to find it. Lemme get y’all dug out and we’ll make a run for it. It’s a nice snug little cave, outta the wind and cold. Narrow opening makes it easy to defend, too.” She reaches down and with her hands under our armpits, she easily lifts each of us up. When Emma stands, she clutches her bad arm. Along with my relief in being able to move again comes the icy wind penetrating the gaps in my hood and coat. I realize then, as I grow steadily colder, just how wise Janelle was to pack us in like that while we waited. Exposed like this, I never would have made it.

Janelle’s quiet urging pushes us just shy of full out running. Slogging through her footsteps, fighting to keep up with her, I wonder if it’s even worth it. Maybe we should just take our chances with the wolves. At this rate, we’ll expend the last of our meager resources just getting to the cave. With no sustenance in sight, it feels like so much spitting in the wind.
Bringing up the rear, I’m the last Janelle boosts up the sheer cliff face to the cave opening. It’s so low we have to belly crawl through it. I can’t imagine the nerves it took for Kate to be first to crawl into the total darkness, or the pain crawling put Emma’s dislocated shoulder through. The gloves make gripping the rock a challenge and in Janelle’s rush to enter behind me, she fairly shoves me ahead of her. When I sense an opening to my right, I roll out of her way. Even in the ski clothing, sharp rocks dig into my aching side and I struggle to sit up.

It’s so dark inside the cave that I realize how much lighter it had become outside. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. “Emma? Kate?”

“Here,” they each answer. Emma’s voice comes from the left and Kate’s in front of me.

“I’m going to manifest a flame,” Kate says. If her voice didn’t seem so shaky I’d celebrate.

The darkness is creeping me out and I crave light. Still, I have to ask. “Sure it’s a good idea?”

It takes me a minute to identify the rustling sound as her rubbing her gloved hand on her coat. “No. But it burns. If I don’t…” None of us need to know the rest of that sentence. 

Emma’s weak voice encourages Kate. “Do it. Light and warmth is good.” 

Emma’s fae magic transformed the curse called Burn that was put on Kate. Rather than kill her, it morphed into a sort of gift. With thorns. Emma knows better than any of us the curse can still scald Kate alive if she doesn’t regularly manifest a flame. 

Simultaneous with a blazing fire erupting a foot from my face and blinding me, my ears pop. Kate let’s out an anguished cry, repeating, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” To my right Janelle curses. 

I look down and blink rapidly to rid the flame’s twin from burning and multiplying in my vision. After that initial flare, Kate reduces it to a low single flame.

Janelle glares at Kate, but doesn’t say anything. I don’t need to see my friends’ haggard, wind burned faces to know we’re all at the end of our line.

“Manifest that for as short a time as possible. Then y’all need sleep. At the rate we’re moving, we won’t get to Jo’s place inside a week. How much food do you have left between you?”

“We each ate a bar out there,” I gesture to the opening with my head. “I’m out. Do either of you have any left?” Emma and Kate shake their heads. “I know you’re doing everything you can to keep us alive.” My voice cracks, but I trudge on. “Let’s face it. We’re hungry and out of food. I’m sure I’m not the only one with calves and thighs that are twitching and burning. On top of that we’re exhausted, none of which is helping any of us heal. My coat...” This is the end of the line, I don’t say, but everyone in the room hears.

Janelle looks down. When she looks up her eyes luminesce in Kate’s flame. “Don’t go burying yourself before you’re done. We’ll take things as they come..” After a moment she turns and faces the opening. “Now get some sleep. I’ll keep watch,” she says over her shoulder. 

I turn my attention to our home for the foreseeable future. The cave is more of a simple crevice in the rock cliff, wider than deeper. The ceiling is no more than a couple of inches higher than any of our heads when we’re sitting down. It’s just high enough not to feel claustrophobic. The dirt floor is strewn with tufts of fur and weird scattered stones I realize are actually frozen feces. I don’t even want to think about what we’re all sitting on. An acrid smell reminds me forcefully of Darcy’s litter box when I forget to clean it after two days. Rocky prominences like the one digging into my left hip cover the floor of the shallow cave. I would shift off of it, but there’s no where to go without ending up with another one digging in another part of me.

Kate’s flame flickers against the stone walls like candle light. Her eyebrows are drawn over her closed eyes. I’m guessing she’s so tired, it takes all of her focus to keep the fire under control. Emma, sitting on Kate’s other side, stares into the flame. They both look pale and wan under their reddened, wind-burned cheeks. The leaping flames tosses shadows across their faces, Dark smudges under their eyes mirror the sacs I feel sagging under mine. The hopeless look in Emma’s eyes chill me. I was half-heartedly massaging my legs but I don’t have the energy to keep it up. My eyelids are almost too heavy to hold open now. I just want to sleep, but something keeps me from giving in to the urge. A part of me is listening. Waiting. For what I can’t exactly say. From Janelle’s erect posture I can tell she is also. The wolf we heard before our scramble to this crevice? The enemies Janelle fears Kate’s first careless flare of fire signaled?

Janelle jerks and silently slips through the crevice. I listen for whatever alerted her, but don’t pick up a sound other than our now rapid breathing and my suddenly pounding heart. A shout of alarm breaks the silence. It wasn’t Janelle’s voice. Kate jumps with surprise and the flame goes out, flinging us into total darkness. We’ve been found. I scramble over to where I think Kate and Emma sit. We huddle against the back wall, drawing comfort from one another. I silently cheer Janelle on, hoping she’s strong enough to take them all on. We three are in no shape to fight. In a weird twist, I feel my shoulders drop and I exhale long and slow. My relief out-ways any potential danger. I know deep in my bones that one way or another, our flight has come to an end. 

​