Chapter Fifty-Six
Ethan
The fear that Ethan had felt ten minutes before was slowly—rapidly—turning into panic. Because Maggie hadn’t just run away
from him. She’d disappeared. She wasn’t just mad. She was missing.
He knew it like he knew his own name, his own hands, his own ghosts. He knew she’d never forgive him and, worse, he’d never
forgive himself if he couldn’t find her. It had taken months of surgeries and rehab to regain the use of his right arm, but
this... He would never recover from this.
So Ethan ran faster, toward the stairs at the back of the house, praying she’d gone to the tower to try to make a call. But
as he passed a window, something made him slow and look outside, praying she wasn’t out there. There was nothing but ice and
snow and freezing wind. Nothing but—
Headlights shooting straight up into the sky like they were trying to summon a hero.
The flashlight shook in his hands. His breath fogged on the glass. But Ethan couldn’t move. Because he wasn’t on a staircase
in England anymore. He was on a mountain just outside of Aspen.
The snow was blowing too hard and piling on the road. He should turn around, go back. But his mom wasn’t coming back, so why
should he?
So Ethan regripped the wheel and kept his gaze on the heavy snowflakes that were slicing through his high beams. They looked
like stars and he’d just turned on his hyperdrive—like he was about to make the leap to light speed. His life was getting
ready to change. He just didn’t know how.
Not when the road curved. Not when he saw the beams of the headlights sticking straight up into the sky. Not even when he
climbed down the icy cliff.
When he heard the sound, he thought his life was over, but it wasn’t. It was just splitting in two. A clean break. A fresh
start. And he’d been so much happier, there on the other side.
Or so he’d thought. Because, on the other side, there was Maggie.
Maggie.
Ethan blinked and cursed himself because he didn’t have time to stand there, thinking about crashes and blizzards and a pair
of headlights that were only in his mind. Except—
It wasn’t a pair of headlights—just one shaky beam shining up from the greenhouse, and it was very, very real.