Chapter Nineteen #2
She didn’t care if he never wrote a poem or brought her flowers or declared anything with fancy words. She just wanted more mornings. More stolen glances. More rides. More everything, so long as he was there beside her. To kiss her after. To tell her, in his way, that he’d do it all again.
Please, she begged silently, pressing her heart into the dark.
Please don’t take him from me.
*
The weight pressed against Sebastian’s arms, trembling now, despite his stubborn attempts to keep steady. The weight was immense, relentless, crushing down on him with an unforgiving force.
How much did snow weigh? A ton? It certainly felt like it, pressing on his back, on his shoulders, grinding his body into the cold abyss.
Suddenly, his arms trembled violently against the burden, every muscle in his body alight with searing pain.
His instincts screamed at him to drop, to collapse into the suffocating white, anything to make the agony stop.
But Sebastian knew if he gave in, the fragile chamber of air he’d created over Maddie would vanish.
The snow would claim her completely, seep into every inch of what lay beneath him, leaving no space to breathe, no space to survive. If he fell, they would die.
He roared and pushed himself farther up, trying to see if Maddie was alive. Was she safe? Breathing?
The realization hit him like another avalanche, heavier than the one that buried them.
It wasn’t just his strength fighting gravity now; it was his will, forcing his body to endure past its limits.
He had thrown himself over her in those frantic moments, instinct taking over before fear could paralyze him.
His arms had locked, forming a barrier, and for all he knew, it was that thin, trembling shield that stood between Maddie and death.
The snow weighed so much more than he’d imagined.
Every second dragged through him as though the icy mass above grew heavier, testing his resolve.
His muscles burned with each breath he took, threatening to give way, to betray him.
His knees were pinned beneath his twisted body, trapped so firmly he barely had feeling left in them, yet even that unpleasant numbness was a gift compared to the screaming ache across his shoulders.
And still, he held.
Because if he didn’t, Maddie would disappear beneath the snow, suffocated by the same icy void clawing at him now. Giving up wasn’t just failure. It was a death sentence—for both of them.
How long had it been since the stifling silence had washed over him after the roaring of the rockslide?
Seconds?
Minutes?
Sebastian shifted slightly, his torso burning from the strain of keeping himself aloft.
Snow had crept into every space it could find, chilling his body to the core, soaking through his coat to claw at his skin.
His legs were twisted beneath him, trapped awkwardly by the force of the avalanche, but he ignored the sharp protests of pain racing through his muscles.
Pain meant he could still move. Pain meant he was still alive.
“Maddie,” he rasped, her name escaping him in a voice he barely recognized.
His breath clouded the pocket of air above her, his mouth close enough to see the faint tremble of snowflakes on her hair.
She didn’t answer. Her silence was worse than the crushing cold, worse than the suffocating darkness encompassing them.
“Say something,” he murmured, his voice breaking.
“I just… need to know you’re alive.” He adjusted his posture to shield her more fully.
The motion sent a stab of agony through his shoulders, but he bit down on it until his teeth ached.
He couldn’t move too much, not without risking further collapse.
“Maddie?”
The memory of the avalanche flashed through his mind.
He had seen it before she had, the first shift of snow on the ridgeline, like sand tumbling from an hourglass.
The terror swallowed him whole, not for himself, but because she had been so still, so unaware.
She’d barely started to turn before he acted, instinct taking over as he shoved her down, throwing his body over hers.
He hadn’t even stopped to think. There hadn’t been time.
Above her now, he closed his eyes for a moment, forcing out the thoughts that clawed at him. He hadn’t been nearly fast enough. If he had pulled her further… If he had done more… His jaw clenched painfully. The what-ifs threatened to drown him almost as much as the snow.
Sebastian leaned closer to her ear, forced to shift precious inches down as his strength faltered.
“Maddie,” he said again, more desperate now.
His voice cracked like a brittle branch underfoot.
“You… you have to hang on for me. Just for a little while longer.” A pause.
The silence around them was too heavy, a reminder that they were both buried in something much too large to fight. “It’ll be alright. It has to be.”
Still no reply. His breath hitched, but his determination didn’t waver.
He wasn’t going to lose her here. Not like this.
Not under this frozen grave. “You’re not allowed to give up,” he said, his words jumbled and rushed.
“That’s not who you are, Maddie. And I need you. I need you to fight with me.”
He hadn’t prayed since he was a boy.
Not when his father fell ill. Not even during those empty years where he’d lost the ability to want anything at all. But now, with Maddie buried beneath him, her life balancing on the strength of his arms, he prayed.
Not for miracles.
Just for her.
Let her breathe. Let her wake. Let her laugh again and argue with him over absolutely everything. Let her glare at him the way she did when she was hiding a smile. Let her live.
He would take the pain, the frostbite, the collapse of every part of him that still worked if it meant she would live.
And the truth? The thing he hadn’t dared speak, even to himself?
He didn’t know how to go back to a world without her in it.
She’d marched into his life in that green cloak and unsettled everything. Challenged every belief he had. Every line he’d drawn to keep others out. And he hadn’t just let her in, he’d wanted her there. He needed her there.
The thought of failing her, of this being the last moment they shared broke something in him.
And yet… if this was the end, he would meet it like this. Holding the line. Protecting her. Loving her.
Even if she never heard the words.
Even if she never got the chance to say them back.
The snow pressed tighter against his body, his weight sinking against it as his strength drained.
He wracked his mind for something else to tell her, something to keep her with him.
“I…” He hesitated, his chest tightening in a way that wasn’t caused by the cold.
His voice softened, barely audible. “I couldn’t bear it, you know, if…
” He stopped again, feeling the words scrape at him, raw and exposed.
“I’ll get us out of here,” he promised, reaching as deeply into himself as he could muster.
“Even if you hate me for shoving you like that, I’ll make sure you’re all right. ”
His arm trembled uncontrollably, and he gritted his teeth again. “I’ll bring you home. I don’t care about the rest.” He gave a hoarse chuckle as if any of this could be lightened. “Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve been repulsed by me.”
And still, he propped himself up, the weight of endless snow pressing down, the cold gnawing into his very bones.
Because it didn’t matter what it cost him.
Maddie was beneath him, alive, barely moving but still his.
And so long as she drew even the shallowest breath, he’d fight for both of them.
If she didn’t hate him now, he reckoned she might once they escaped, especially when she realized what he had done.
But he’d bear that too, gladly. With Maddie safe, he’d bear anything.
Would she respond?