Chapter Two
Ava
My ambulance wipers drag across the windshield in useless arcs, smearing more white onto white.
Storms in Silver Ridge aren’t gentle things—they descend with teeth.
They swallow the road. They erase the horizon.
They make even the bravest locals stay inside and curse whoever angered the weather gods this time.
I shouldn’t be out here. Dispatch shouldn’t have sent me. No one should be driving in a whiteout where the road vanishes every three seconds.
But when a frantic tourist radios the ranger station screaming that he saw someone walking toward the south ridge right before the avalanche hit, you don’t ignore it.
You go.
Because someone might be alive. Someone might be trapped. Someone might be waiting for help that never comes if I decide to play it safe.
“Unit Three,” the radio crackles over a wave of static. “Visibility is dropping—”
“I know,” I mutter, leaning closer to the windshield. “I’m almost at the marker.”
The tires skid before the chains finally grab. The flag marking the trailhead whips violently in the wind, almost bending in half under the force of it. I pull the ambulance as far onto the shoulder as I dare. The engine growls in protest as I kill it and step out into the storm.
The cold hits like a punch to the lungs.
Snow blasts sideways into my face, stinging my eyes and numbing my cheeks before I even slam the door shut behind me. The wind is so sharp it feels surgical. I hunch into my coat, pull my hood tight, and start trudging up the slope.
“Hello?” I shout, though the wind snatches the sound immediately. “Silver Ridge EMT! If you can hear me—call out!”
No answer.
Just the howl of the storm and, beneath it, the low, unsettling after groan of an avalanche settling somewhere far above. My stomach knots. Avalanches never come alone. Once the snowpack destabilizes, the whole ridge becomes a sleeping dragon—one misstep away from waking.
Perfect place for someone to go wandering, apparently.
“Reckless idiot,” I mutter, teeth chattering as I fight my way through drifts that swallow my boots.
A few minutes later, my GPS pings softly in my pocket. I’m at the coordinates. Or as close as the storm will let me get. For a heartbeat, all I see is endless white—an unbroken blanket of snow that looks untouched, uncrossed, uncaring.
And then my light catches on something dark.
A shape. A shadow. A miracle or a nightmare—I can’t tell yet.
“Hey!” My voice breaks from the force of it. “HEY! Can you hear me?”
I drop to my knees beside the mound and start digging with gloved hands, snow burning cold against my wrists where my sleeves have ridden up. Clothing appears first—a jacket so frozen it hardly bends. Then a shoulder. Then a cheek, pale and ice-speckled.
“Oh God,” I whisper. “Come on… stay with me…”
I brush more snow aside, revealing a face—sharp features gone slack with cold, lashes frosted, lips tinged blue. His hair is stiff with ice. He looks carved from the snow itself.
Too long. He’s been here too long. I press two fingers to his neck and find a pulse. Faint, but there.
“Okay,” I breathe out, half in relief, half in panic. “Okay, you stubborn mountain goat, you’re not done yet.”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even twitch. His eyelids flutter once, barely noticeable, like some distant instinct is still trying to keep him alive.
“Come on,” I murmur, sliding my hands beneath his arms. “Help me out here.”
He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. He’s deadweight—tall, heavy, rigid with cold. But adrenaline is a miracle drug, and so is fear. I brace my boots deep into the snow and haul upward with every ounce of strength I have.
Moving him is like dragging a felled tree.
“God, sir,” I gasp, muscles trembling, “you could try to meet me halfway. Or at least pretend.”
His head lolls against my shoulder, breath barely fogging against my cheek.
Somewhere in the storm above us, thunder cracks—no, not thunder. Snow shifting again.
I push harder.
We stumble, slide, lurch our way toward the faint outline of the trail. My thighs tremble from effort. My gloves are soaked and numb. Every exhale feels like inhaling knives. But I keep going.
Because if I leave him here, he’s dead. And I refuse to lose someone tonight.
“Almost there,” I promise, though the wind shreds the words as soon as I speak them.
His head rolls weakly. A sound slips from him—something like a groan or a denial, I can’t tell.
“You’re okay,” I lie. “You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you.”
By the time the ambulance comes into blurry view, my breath is ragged and spots dance in my vision. But I don’t stop. Not until I muscled him into the passenger seat, propped him upright.
“Hey,” I say sharply, tapping his cheek. “Open your eyes.”
His lashes tremble. Barely. But they do.
“That’s it,” I say, relief flooding me. “Stay awake.”
I sprint around to the driver’s side, throw myself in, and fire the engine.
“Dispatch,” I shout into the radio, “Hypothermia, possible concussion, barely responsive—en route to ranger station.”
Static answers me. The storm is eating the signal alive.
But the ambulance roars forward anyway, crawling down the unplowed road. The man beside me sways with each jolt. His head slumps. I reach over with one hand and shake his shoulder.
“Don’t,” I warn. “Don’t go under. I need you with me.”
His eyelids lift in a slow, ragged flutter. The eyes beneath are startling—a sharp, storm-swept blue that would be striking if they weren’t so glassy with cold.
“Reckless…” he whispers, voice cracked. “EMT.”
I snort despite myself. “You walked into an avalanche zone. I think you win ‘most reckless.’ Congratulations.”
His mouth twitches. Could be a grimace. Could be a smile. Could be his body quitting on him entirely.
“Should’ve… left me,” he manages.
“Not an option,” I fire back. “I have a kid who would judge me forever if I let you turn into a snow-flavored corpsicle.”
His eyes flicker again—brief, sharp, broken. The kind of look people get right before saying something that scares you.
“Don’t,” he murmurs.
My throat tightens. “Don’t what?”
“…care.”
My hands grip the wheel so hard the leather creaks. “Too late for that,” I say quietly. “Comes with the job.”
He slips back into silence. A heavy, frightening one.
I reach the ranger station just as my nerves start to fray. The building glows like a lighthouse through the storm. Never in my life have I been so grateful for the sight of a structure.
Inside, Ranger Tom and the station medic rush toward us, faces tense.
“What were you doing out there?” Tom asks as we lower him onto a stretcher.
The man shivers violently, jaw clenched. “Walking.”
I bark a laugh—too loud, too brittle. “Walking? In a whiteout? Near avalanche terrain? Are you kidding me?”
His gaze lifts to mine, and for the first time I see the truth beneath the frost—something dark and hollowed-out, as if he’s made entirely of old grief and half-buried ghosts.
“Should’ve left me,” he whispers.
My heart stutters. For a moment, all the heat drains from my body.
The medic gives me a worried look, but I force my voice steady. “We’re going to pretend you didn’t say that. Because you’re alive, and that’s what we’re focusing on.”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look at me again as they wheel him away toward the exam bay.
He is a storm. A wall. A man who shouldn’t have survived and, by the look in his eyes, wasn’t expecting to.
I stand in the doorway long after they disappear behind the curtain, snow melting into my collar and dripping down my spine. My hands shake with leftover adrenaline.
He’ll live. Thank God for that.
But even through the exhaustion, the relief, the cold that’s seeped into my bones, one truth settles heavily in my chest.
Whoever he is—this stranger with frostbitten lips, storm-blue eyes, and a death wish—he’s going to be trouble.
And I still don’t even know his name.