Chapter 21 #2
For a single, disorienting moment, he thought he was seeing himself, and he started to dismiss the crackle of surprise. And then the differences registered: darker hair, no beard, different coat.
In the glass, Stephen’s eyes met Jem’s.
They both started to move.
Jem turned. Stephen charged.
Stephen was faster, and he had the advantage—that single second of confusion had cost Jem, and he was off balance, figuratively and literally, as Stephen closed the distance between them.
Jem was only halfway through the turn when Stephen crashed into him.
Stephen drove his shoulder into Jem, and the impact threw Jem backward.
One of the rolling bags caught him at the knee, and Jem’s momentum carried him off his feet into a somersault.
He landed hard on his back, and his breath whooshed out of him.
His vision snowed. Went black. Snowed in again.
Get up, Jem told himself.
He rolled onto all fours.
Tean shouting.
Cold air snapping at him.
He still couldn’t get his lungs to work, but he got to one knee, grabbed the bed, pushed off. The hallway was made out of Laffy Taffy—stretching out, then squishing back in on itself. He had to keep one hand on the wall. Something relaxed in his chest. He sucked in air.
At the door, Tean was grappling with Stephen. Snow whipped in around them, melting instantly on carpet into drops of water that glistened in the lamplight.
“Hey!” Jem tried. But it came out weak.
With a grunt that sounded frustrated more than anything else, Stephen snapped Tean’s grip on his arm. Tean tried to grab him again, but Stephen was already moving. He grabbed Tean’s collar, yanked the doc sideways, and swept Tean’s feet out from under him. Tean crashed to the floor.
Stephen darted out into the storm.
Jem started to drop down next to Tean, but Tean was already sitting up, straightening his glasses, shouting, “Go! Go! Go!”
The cold helped.
Air in his lungs helped.
Everything sharpened, like Jem was waking up again.
He ran.
As soon as he left the shelter of the chalet, the wind cut at him, slicing bare skin—his nose, his cheeks, his ears. Snow spun through the air, thick and fast. It didn’t feel like fluffy snowflakes. It was gritty, like sand, and it stung worse than the wind.
Stephen was a shadow, already rounding the corner of the chalet and disappearing into the darkness beyond.
Jem went after him.
He left the yellow glow of the emergency lights behind and plunged into the gray of the blizzard.
It couldn’t have been later than early afternoon, but the clouds and the whirling snow made the day dim and colorless, impossible to see for more than a few yards in any direction.
Jem used the outlines of chalets on either side of him as guideposts, but almost immediately he left them behind.
After that, all he could do was chase after the blurred form ahead of him.
Snow crunching underfoot. Spilling into his ROOS.
Snow stinging his face, his cheeks hot, his eyes watering so badly he had to blink constantly to keep them from freezing shut.
This is stupid.
This is how people get themselves killed.
Tean is going to be so mad.
He crushed the thoughts and kept running.
A curtain of snow rippled between him and Stephen. For a moment, everything was white. When the snow shifted, and the air cleared—or at least, got clearer—Stephen was gone.
Jem stumbled a few more paces. Slowed. Stopped.
He turned in a circle, looking for any sign of the other man.
The wind howled. He raised an arm to shield his face—at least his ears had finally stopped hurting—but it didn’t help.
He still couldn’t see more than a few yards, no matter which way he turned.
The smart thing would be to go back.
Which was…
That way.
Right?
Jem shuffled a step in what he thought was the right direction.
His feet were frozen. His sneakers were packed with snow.
Were those the outlines of the chalets? He looked down, trying to find his tracks, but all he saw was fresh snow drifting across the ground.
He glanced behind him; his last footprint was already filling in.
This is how people get themselves killed.
But thinking like that didn’t help. He had to be smart. He had to think. There were buildings. There were lights. It wasn’t like he’d run for miles and miles. Hell, he probably hadn’t even gotten as far as the ski slopes.
Down.
That was smart, right?
People skied down. He’d go down. He’d find where the slope ended. Or the run. Or whatever you called it. He’d be right back at the lodge.
He turned—
And a bang broke through the storm’s shrieking.
It took almost half a second before Jem realized he’d just heard a gunshot.
Tean.
Oh God.
He turned in the direction of the sound and started to run.
Tried to run. His feet were stiff and heavy, and the snow made it impossible to gauge the ground underneath, which meant every step turned into a stumble, a near-fall, and then a recovery that only sent him into the next uncertain step.
It was so much harder than it should have been.
Worse, a part of him recognized that he was getting tired. And cold. Maybe too cold.
Dark shapes resolved themselves out of the whirling gray. The chalets. The lodge’s outbuildings. Of course. Because he hadn’t gotten lost after all. He’d just freaked out. The storm, and not being able to see anything, and—
Then he was closer.
Not buildings.
Trees. Evergreens, their needles furry with snow.
Had he seen any trees?
A rope barrier marked off the trees, probably to keep people from skiing straight into them. No sign of a shooter. No sign of anyone—
And then he saw the hand.
It was sticking out of the snow at the base of the trees, almost hidden because the branches came so close to the ground, and the shadows were thicker there.
Jem took a few steps closer.
It was definitely a hand.
White. Probably a man’s.
He had a moment when he thought, Stephen? And at the same time: What the actual fuck?
He took another step.
He didn’t hear anything except the wind, so when someone struck him from behind, he was totally unprepared—his weight still on the balls of his feet, his body loose. The blow drove him forward. He took a stumbling step, then another, and then his feet went out from under him.
He slid under the branches, toward the hand.
Get up, get on your feet, get the fuck up—
And then the ground opened up, and snow swallowed him, and he fell.