8. The Fire and the Flood
CHAPTER EIGHT
the fire and the flood
Light hits the snow first. It slides through the hole in the roof and pools across the slush like curdled milk.
For a second, I think it’s peace. Then I hear the hiss.
The ice on the rafters is melting. Dripping.
Drip. Drip. Rush. The sound changes in seconds.
From a trickle to a roar. The heat from the fire, buried under the snow, has turned the collapse into a slush slide.
The mountain isn't done. It didn't kill us with cold.
Now it wants to drown us. Water begins to pool on the floorboards, mixing with the ash and blood, forming a black, viscous sludge.
It rises fast, fed by the melting drift above.
"Rowan?"
"Flood," I say. My voice is a croak. I force my body to move. My joints scream— rusted hinges that don't want to open. "We have to move."
"It’s morning," she whispers, staring at the patch of grey sky.
"Not for long. The water is rising."
The water is already ankle deep. Freezing slush that numbs the skin instantly. It laps at our boots, greedy and dark.
"Up," I say. "To the roof."
There’s a maintenance ladder bolted to the side of the shed wall that’s still standing. Rusted iron rungs leading to the sky. It looks treacherous, fragile. I drag Clara to her feet. She screams when her shoulder moves, a high, thin sound that cuts through the rushing water.
"Sorry. I’m sorry."
I push her toward the ladder. "Climb."
"I can't... my arm..."
"Climb or drown, Clara. Those are the choices."
She grabs the rung with her good hand. She pulls.
She is shaking, weeping, but she pulls. I shove her from behind, taking her weight, ignoring the fire in my own hips.
We climb out of the grave. The wind on the roof is brutal.
It tries to peel us off the wood. Below, the shack is filling with water—a black soup of debris.
Our sanctuary has become a cistern. We huddle on the peak of the roof, clinging to the chimney.
The world opens up around us. White ridges.
Black sky. Everything glittered like broken glass.
It’s breathtakingly beautiful and completely indifferent.
The bus is gone and buried under twenty feet of fresh snow. The mountain took it back. I look at the valley below—miles of white. Then I see it. Smoke. Curling from a tree line far below. Rescue? Or just a trick of the light? A hallucination brought on by the hunger?
I point. "There."
Clara squints, her eyes barely open. "How far?"
"Too far to walk. But they might see us."
She nods. She’s shivering violently now. Her clothes are soaked. "I thought the warmth would save us," she says, her teeth chattering.
"It did. Now it wants us dead again." I take her hand—the one I didn't stitch. I squeeze it. It feels like holding a piece of ice.
"Don't let go."
"I won't." She leans forward until her forehead touches mine. Her skin is cold, but alive.
"Rowan."
"Yeah?"
She kisses me. It’s not desperate this time. It’s sad. It’s goodbye. It tastes of salt and smoke and resignation.
"We made it," she whispers.
"Yeah."
We sit there for a long time. The wind strips the heat from us layer by layer. It takes the warmth from our skin, then our blood, then our bones.
"Rowan," she says. Her voice is slurring. "Why do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Fight. Hurt people. You're... you're gentle. With me. But on the ice... on the bus..."
I look at my hands. The knuckles are scarred maps of violence.
"My old man," I say. The words feel heavy, like stones in my mouth. "He worked at the slaughterhouse in Red Deer. He used to come home smelling of copper and wet fur. He told me that the world is divided into two kinds of things. The butcher and the beef."
Clara rests her head on my shoulder. "And he wanted you to be the butcher."
"He didn't want me to be the beef. He put me in skates when I was four. Told me to hit anything that moved. Said if I wasn't hitting, I was getting hit." I pause, watching the snow swirl around the chimney.
"The first time I broke a guy's nose... I was twelve. Pee-Wee league. He slashed me. I snapped. I dropped the gloves and just... unloaded. Felt good, Clara. It felt quiet. All the noise in my head just stopped."
"The silence," she whispers.
"Yeah. The silence. When I'm bleeding, or making someone else bleed... the world makes sense. It’s simple. Physics. Force. Consequence."
She shivers against me. "My father... he didn't work in a slaughterhouse. He was a gambler. High stakes. Horses, cards, hockey games."
"I know. Devi Devine. Everyone knew him."
"He didn't just love the team, Rowan. He owned them. Not on paper. In debt. He owed money to people who don't send invoices. He bet the house. He bet everything."
She looks up at me, her eyes dull gold.
"He bet me," she says softly.
I stiffen. "What?"
"The job. The PR gig. It wasn't an offer. It was a payment. I was supposed to... smooth things over. Keep the players happy. Keep the creditors happy. I was the collateral."
"Jesus."
"He died before he could pay it off. Cardiac arrest. Or poison. I never asked. So the debt passed to me. I took the job to keep them from breaking my legs."
She laughs, a sound like cracking ice.
"And now... the mountain broke them for free."
"You're not collateral anymore," I say fiercely. " You're surviving."
"Am I? Look down, Rowan."
I look. The valley below isn't empty anymore. The snow is swirling, forming shapes. Tents. Massive, striped tents rising from the white. A Ferris wheel made of ice, turning slowly against the grey sky.
"Do you see it?" she asks.
"I see it."
"Is it real?" I ask.
"Does it matter?" She closes her eyes. "It’s waiting for us."
"We're not going down there."
Keep something alive, I tell myself, even if it’s just the madness.
I kiss the top of her head. "Stay with me, Clara. Don't go to the tents."
"But the music," she sighs. "It's so loud."
Keep something alive.