Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
James
Something was wrong.
I knew it before Ivy said a word. Felt it in my chest like a hook pulling loose, a thread snapping somewhere deep. The hum that had been my constant companion since the moment I'd seen Lumi—that warm, insistent pulse beneath my skin—had gone quiet overnight.
Not faded. Not dimmed.
Silent.
I found Ivy in the dining hall at breakfast, sitting alone at a table near the windows. She was picking at a muffin, her usual energy subdued.
"Hey," I said, sliding into the seat across from her. "Where's Lumi?"
Ivy looked up, something flickering across her face. "Med center. She left a note this morning—said she wasn't feeling well. Probably that bug that's been going around."
The words were casual. Normal. The kind of thing you'd say about a roommate who'd caught a cold.
But my gut clenched.
"She went to the med center," I repeated.
"Yeah. Before I woke up, I guess. The note said not to worry, she'd probably be there all day." Ivy shrugged, but her eyes didn't match the gesture. "You know how she is. Probably didn't want me fussing over her."
I knew how she was. That was the problem.
Lumi didn't go to med centers. Lumi powered through illness with the same stubborn determination she applied to everything else. I'd watched her run stairs in a snowstorm, train until her legs shook, push herself past limits that would've broken most people.
She didn't take sick days.
She didn't leave notes.
"Can I see it?" The words came out sharper than I intended. "The note?"
Ivy's eyebrows rose. "It's in our room. Why?"
"I just—" I didn't have a reason. Nothing I could explain without sounding crazy. "Something feels off."
She studied me for a long moment. Then she stood up, leaving her muffin half-eaten. "Come on."
The walk to the dormitory felt endless.
My heart was hammering against my ribs, that silent space where the hum should be aching like a missing tooth. I told myself I was overreacting. Told myself Lumi was fine, probably curled up in a medical center bed being grumpy at nurses.
I didn't believe it.
Ivy unlocked the door and stepped inside. I followed, scanning the room automatically—Ivy's side cluttered and warm, Lumi's side bare and functional.
Too bare.
Her desk was empty. Her closet door hung slightly open, and even from here I could see the gaps where clothes should have been.
"Where's the note?" My voice sounded strange. Distant.
Ivy crossed to her bed and picked up a folded piece of paper from the pillow. "Here. But James, I don't think—"
I took it from her hand and read it.
Short. Casual. Impersonal.
Wrong.
"What?"
"Look at it." I held up the note.
Ivy took the note back, frowning. "James, I think you're—"
But she stopped. Her eyes had caught something on Lumi's bed. Another piece of paper, half-hidden under the pillow.
She reached for it before I could.
I watched her face as she read. Watched the color drain from her cheeks, her mouth falling open.
"Oh my god," she whispered.
"What? What does it say?"
She handed it to me without a word.
Ivy—
I have to leave for a while. I can't explain why, and I can't tell you when I'll be back. I'm sorry for the way this looks. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you in person.
You've been a better friend than I deserved. Please don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing.
If anyone asks, you don't know anything. That's not a lie—I never told you. Keep it that way.
Thank you. For everything.
— Lumi
The paper shook in my hands.
"She's gone," Ivy said. Her voice was hollow. "She actually— James, where would she go? What is she—"
But I was already moving.
I'd known. Some part of me had known for weeks. I’d seen the books she read in the library.
Mountain climbing. Denali. Arctic Survival.
The way she'd trained, relentless and focused.
The questions she'd asked in Wilderness First Aid—solo survival, hypothermia protocols, what to do when no one was coming.
The way she'd looked north sometimes, like she was listening for something only she could hear.
She was climbing Denali. Alone. In late season, with weather closing in and routes becoming deadly.
And she'd left without telling anyone.
"James." Ivy grabbed my arm. "James, what are you doing?"
"I have to go after her."
"What? No. We should tell someone—campus security, or Coach Reeves, or—"
"Tell them what?" I pulled free of her grip. "That a student left campus? That we think she’s going to climb a mountain?”
"And you chasing her into the wilderness is better?"
I didn't have an answer for that. Didn't have time to find one.
"I know you think I'm crazy," I said. "I know this doesn't make sense. But there's something—" I pressed my hand against my chest, where the silence lived. "I can't explain it. I just know I have to find her."
Ivy stared at me. For a long moment, I thought she was going to argue. Going to tell me I was an idiot, that Lumi wouldn't want me following her, that this was the worst idea I'd ever had.
She wasn't wrong about any of it.
"The gear storage," she said finally. "Behind the athletic complex. The overnight stuff—tents, sleeping bags, emergency supplies."
"Ivy—"
"If you're going to do something stupid, at least don't die." Her eyes were bright, fierce. "And when you find her, tell her I'm going to kill her myself."
I was out the door before she finished speaking.
The gear storage was exactly where Ivy said it would be.
The lock was shit.
Inside, shelves lined the walls—sleeping bags, tents, emergency supplies. I grabbed everything I could carry. Sleeping bag rated for extreme cold. Thermal blankets. Chemical heat packs. First aid kit. Emergency bivvy.
My hands moved fast, shoving gear into the biggest pack I could find. Too big, probably—the kind of pack that would slow a smaller person down. But I'd been hauling hay bales and fence posts since I was twelve. I could handle the weight.
My outer layers were already good. Mom had gone overboard when I'd told her I was going to school in Alaska—bought me a whole kit of cold-weather gear rated for temperatures I'd never expected to see. At the time, I'd thought she was being paranoid.
Now I was grateful.
I changed quickly, layering up. Base layers.
Mid-layers. The jacket Mom had insisted on, bright blue and windproof.
Boots that were probably not designed for actual mountaineering but were better than sneakers.
I grabbed the crampons from the mountaineering shelf and clipped them to my pack with a carabiner.
Not enough. I knew it wasn't enough. I didn't have an ice axe or any of the specialized gear a real climber would bring. I was going into the backcountry with borrowed supplies and borrowed knowledge and nothing but stubbornness to keep me alive.
But the alternative was staying here. Waiting. Hoping she came back.
That wasn't an option.
The library was quiet at mid-morning.
I moved through the stacks with purpose, scanning titles until I found what I needed—a thick book with a worn spine: Denali: A Climbing Guide. Maps in the back. Route descriptions. Everything a person would need to find their way up the mountain.
Or to find someone trying to climb it.
I read for twenty minutes, tapping my foot the whole time, knowing I needed to leave—but also knowing I needed a direction first. I tucked the book into my pack and headed for the exit. No one stopped me. No one asked questions.
The clock on the wall read 11:47 a.m.
Lumi had at least six hours on me at least. Probably more, if she'd left before dawn. She was smart, prepared, knew exactly where she was going.
I was none of those things.
But I was fast. And I was stubborn. And somewhere out there, in the cold and the white and the silence, she was alone.
That wasn't acceptable.
The boundary wall was easy to find—a low stone barrier marking the edge of campus. I climbed over it without hesitation, dropping into the snow on the other side.
The trees were thick, old growth, blocking most of the pale winter light. Snow lay heavy on branches overhead, muffling sound until the only thing I could hear was my own breathing and the crunch of my boots breaking through the crust.
I moved fast. Faster than was probably smart, burning energy I might need later. But every minute I wasted was another minute Lumi got further away.
The book said the standard route to Denali started in Talkeetna—a small town north of here, accessible by highway. From there, climbers flew to base camp on the glacier. But Lumi didn't have money for a plane. She was doing this solo, under the radar, which meant she'd be taking the long route.
Overland through the forest. North to the highway. Hitch a ride if she could, walk if she couldn't.
I followed the same path.
The first few hours were manageable.
The forest was dense but navigable, the terrain rolling but not steep. I fell into a rhythm—steps crunching, breath fogging, the weight of the pack settling into my shoulders like a familiar burden.
My mind kept circling back to Lumi.
I'd known something was different about her from the moment we'd met. The way she moved—efficient, aware. The way she held herself—guarded, ready, never quite relaxing even when she smiled.
And the pull. That inexplicable pull that had drawn me to her like gravity, making me rearrange my schedule and memorize her patterns and sit on cold benches in the early morning just for a chance to see her.
I didn't understand it. Couldn't explain it. But I knew it was real. Knew it in my bones, in my blood, in the silent ache where the hum used to live.
She was out here somewhere. Alone. Walking toward something she wouldn't tell anyone about.
And I was going to find her.
Late afternoon, I found the first sign.
A broken branch at shoulder height, the wood still fresh where it had snapped. A bootprint in a patch of softer snow, partially filled but still visible. She'd passed this way. Recently.
Hope flared in my chest—sharp, almost painful.
I pushed harder.
The trees were sparse now, scattered across rocky slopes that climbed toward distant ridges.
The wind had picked up, biting through my layers, and I could see clouds building to the north.
Storm coming. The book had warned about late-season weather—unpredictable, deadly, capable of stranding climbers for days.
Lumi knew that. She'd researched everything. She'd known the risks and gone anyway.
What was out there that was worth dying for?
She knew better than to push into the dark. I pushed anyway.
I found where she’d camped at dawn—or what should have been sunrise—and she was already gone. I was still running on adrenaline and kept going.
The light had stopped being a measure of time. In Alaska, the sun was fleeting now, thinning as we approached the long dark.
A figure appeared in the distance, small against the white expanse of a snow-covered slope. Moving steadily, deliberately, heading north toward the mountains that loomed on the horizon.
Lumi.
I knew it was her before I could make out details. Knew it the way I knew my own heartbeat—instinctive, undeniable, bone-deep.
She was too far ahead to catch quickly. The temperature dropping, and pushing through another night would be suicide even for someone who knew what they were doing.
I didn't know what I was doing.
But I knew what I was going to do.
I found a spot behind a rock outcrop, sheltered from the worst of the wind. Set up the emergency bivvy with hands that shook from cold and exhaustion. Crawled inside with all my layers on, the sleeping bag wrapped around me like armor against the creeping freeze.
Somewhere up ahead, Lumi was doing the same thing. Finding shelter. Resting before beginning again. Moving toward whatever had called her into this frozen wilderness.
Tomorrow, I would catch her.
Tomorrow, I would make her explain.
Tomorrow, I would tell her—
What? What could I possibly say that would make any of this make sense?
I followed you into the backcountry because something in my chest told me to.
I broke into a gear closet and stole supplies because I couldn't stand the thought of you being alone.
I don't know what this thing between us is, but I know it's real, and I'm not letting you walk away from it.
None of it was rational. None of it was smart.
But I was past caring about smart. The cold pressed in. The wind howled.
She didn't want me to follow. I followed anyway.
That was the only truth that mattered.