Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Iheard him before I saw him.
Footsteps crunching through snow. Heavy breathing. The unmistakable sound of someone who'd been pushing too hard for too long, running on fumes and stubbornness.
I turned, and there he was.
James. Climbing the ridge behind me, pack too big for any sane person, face red from cold and exertion, wearing a bright blue jacket that probably cost more than my entire kit.
The hum roared to life.
For one suspended moment, we just stared at each other. Him breathing hard, me frozen in place, the wind whipping between us like it was trying to keep us apart.
Then the shock broke, and fury flooded in.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
He stopped a few feet away, bent over with his hands on his knees, gasping. "Following you."
"I can see that. Why?"
"Because you left." He straightened up, and his eyes found mine—brown and steady and absolutely, infuriatingly calm. "Without telling anyone. Without saying goodbye. You just disappeared."
"I left a note."
"You left two notes. One fake, one real." He pulled something from his pocket—a folded piece of paper, creased and worn. My note to Ivy. The real one. "I found this."
My stomach dropped. "You went through my things?"
"Ivy showed me. After I told her the first note was wrong."
"How would you know—"
"Because I know you." He said it simply, like it was obvious. Like knowing me was the easiest thing in the world. "You don't go to med centers when you're sick. You don't leave casual notes. And you don't disappear without a reason."
The wind picked up, driving ice crystals against my face. I turned away from him, facing north, where the mountains waited.
"Go back, James."
"No."
"This isn't a game. You have no idea what you've walked into."
"Then tell me."
I laughed—harsh, bitter. "I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
"Does it matter?" I spun back to face him, anger and fear and something sharper tangling in my chest. "You shouldn't be here. You're not prepared for this. You don't have the right gear, you don't have the training, you don't have—"
“I have you.”
The words hit like a physical blow.
I stared at him. He stared back, unflinching, that stubborn set to his jaw I’d learned to recognize over weeks of watching him refuse to give up on me.
“That’s not enough,” I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted. “James, people die out here. Experienced climbers with years of training and the best equipment money can buy. They die, and no one finds them until spring, and sometimes not even then.”
“I know,” he said. Then he raised his voice—just enough to cut through the wind.
“I know I could die out here. I accepted that before I crossed the boundary.”
He took a step closer. His eyes locked on mine, fierce and steady and utterly unafraid.
“I don’t know why you’re my north star. I just know my whole world reordered itself the first time I saw you. I can’t not be here. I’m ready and willing to pay whatever this costs.”
Silence fell hard between us.
“Do you,” I whispered, “really understand what you’re risking?”
“My life,” he said. Calm. Certain. “And I’m still here.”
“Then why—”
“Because you’re worth it.”
The hum swelled. I felt it in my bones, in my blood, in every cell of my body screaming at me to close the distance between us.
I stepped back instead.
"You don't even know me."
"I know enough." He moved toward me, and I retreated again, maintaining the gap. "I know you train like you're preparing for war. I know you ask questions about survival that no normal student asks. I know you look north sometimes like you're listening for something no one else can hear."
My breath caught.
"And I know," he continued, "that whatever's pulling you up that mountain is the same thing that's been pulling me toward you since the day we met."
Silence. Just the wind and our breathing and the vast white emptiness stretching out in all directions.
"You can't feel that," I whispered. "You're not—"
I stopped myself. Almost said too much. Almost cracked open the door to a world he didn't know existed.
"I'm not what?" He was close now. Close enough that I could see the ice crystals caught in his eyelashes, the chapped red of his wind-burned cheeks. "Tell me, Lumi. Whatever it is you're hiding, whatever secret you think I can't handle—tell me."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because it would change everything!" The words tore out of me, raw and desperate. "Because once you know, you can't unknow it, and your whole life will be different, and I can't—I won't—be the reason you lose—"
My voice broke.
James reached for me.
I didn't pull away.
His hands closed around my arms, steadying me, anchoring me. The hum sang at the contact, warm and bright and overwhelming. I wanted to fall into him. Wanted to let him hold me up the way he had on the equipment shed steps.
But I couldn't. Not here. Not now. Not with the mountain waiting and the wolf howling in my visions and everything I'd worked for hanging by a thread.
"I'm scared," I admitted. The words came out cracked. "Not of the mountain. Not of dying. I'm scared of you."
"Of me?"
"Of what you make me feel." I looked up at him, and I let him see it—all of it.
The fear, the longing, the desperate hope I'd been trying to bury since the moment we met.
"I've been alone my whole life, James. I learned how to survive that.
How to carry my own weight and not need anyone and keep moving no matter what. But you—"
I shook my head, unable to finish.
"But I make you want to stop," he said quietly.
"Yes."
"Is that so bad?"
"It is when there's something I have to do. Something that can't wait."
He was silent for a long moment. His hands were still on my arms, warm through my layers, the only point of heat in this frozen world.
"Then let me help you do it."
"You don't know what you're offering."
"I don't care." His jaw tightened. "Whatever's up there, whatever you're trying to find—you don't have to face it alone. You don't get to face it alone. Not anymore."
"James—"
"I'm not leaving." His voice was steady, certain. "You can yell at me, you can push me away, you can tell me I'm an idiot. I don't care. I'm not leaving you."
The wind howled around us. The cold bit through my layers. And standing there, looking into the eyes of a man who'd followed me into the wilderness with inadequate gear and iron resolve, I felt something crack inside me.
Not break. Crack. Like ice in spring, making way for something new.
"You're an idiot," I said.
"I know."
"You're going to slow me down."
"Probably."
"If you die out here, I'll never forgive you."
"Fair."
I stared at him. He stared back.
And despite everything—despite the fear and the mission and the thousand reasons this was a terrible idea—I laughed.
It burst out of me, half-hysterical, carried away by the wind. James's face split into a grin, surprised and delighted, and suddenly we were both laughing, standing in the middle of nowhere with a mountain trying to kill us and nothing but each other to hold onto.
"You're insane," I gasped.
"You left campus to climb Denali alone in late season. I think we're both a little insane."
He wasn't wrong.
I pressed my hands against my face, trying to get my breathing under control. The laughter faded, leaving something else in its wake. Something that felt dangerously like hope.
"If we do this," I said slowly, "you have to listen to me. No arguments, no heroics, no trying to prove something. When I tell you to stop, you stop. When I tell you to go back, you go back. Understood?"
"Understood."
"I mean it, James. This isn't a hiking trail. One wrong step, one bad decision—"
"I know." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers brushing my cheek. "I trust you."
Three words. Simple. Devastating.
I trust you.
When was the last time someone had said that to me and meant it? When was the last time I'd let anyone close enough for trust to matter?
"Okay," I heard myself say. "Okay. We climb together."
His face lit up. Not triumph—relief. Pure, uncomplicated relief.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. We've got a long way to go, and you're probably going to hate me by the end of it."
"Doubt it."
"You have no idea how hard I can push."
"Looking forward to finding out."
I shook my head, but I was smiling. Couldn't help it. Something about his relentless optimism was contagious, even out here in the cold and the white and the howling wind.
"We need to move," I said, pulling back into mission mode. "There's a shelter about four miles north—an old ranger cabin. If we push hard, we can make it before the weather turns."
James nodded, adjusting his pack. "Lead the way."
I turned north and started walking. After a moment, I heard his footsteps fall into rhythm behind me.
The hum pulsed steady beneath my skin, no longer silent, no longer screaming. Just there. Present. A warmth I could carry without fighting.
Maybe that was enough for now.
We walked for two hours without speaking.
The terrain grew steeper, the snow deeper. James kept pace, though I could hear his breathing grow labored as the altitude climbed. He didn't complain. Didn't ask to stop. Just put one foot in front of the other, matching my stride.
Stubborn. So goddamn stubborn.
Just like me.
"There," I said, pointing to a dark shape huddled against the base of a rock face. "The cabin."
It was barely more than a shed—four walls, a roof, a door that hung crooked on its hinges. But it had a woodstove in the corner and enough firewood stacked outside to get us through the night.
We stumbled inside, and I set about making camp. Fire first—always fire first. Then water, melted from snow in a pot I'd carried from campus. Then food, such as it was. Energy bars and freeze-dried soup, split between us.
James sat against the wall, steam rising from his cup, watching me move through the routine.
"You've done this before," he said.
"Gregor—he ran the orphanage—he made sure I knew how to survive." I settled across from him, wrapping my hands around my own cup. "We spent a lot of time in the backcountry when I was growing up."
"He sounds like a good teacher."
"He was." I paused. "Is. He's not dead, he's just... far away."
James nodded, accepting this. Not pushing for more.
The fire crackled between us. Outside, the wind had picked up, rattling the cabin walls. We were safe here. Warm. Together.
It felt strange. Good strange, but strange.
"Can I ask you something?" James said.
"Depends on the question."
"What's up there? On the mountain?" He met my eyes across the flames. "What are you looking for?"
I'd known this was coming. Had been dreading it since the moment he'd appeared on that ridge.
"I can't tell you everything," I said carefully. "Not yet. But... there's something that needs help. Something lost. And I'm the only one who can find it."
"How do you know that?"
"I just do." It wasn't enough of an answer. We both knew it. "I know how that sounds. Crazy. Arrogant. Like I've got some kind of savior complex."
"That's not what I was thinking."
"What were you thinking?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "I was thinking that you look at that mountain the same way I look at you. Like it's pulling you. Like you couldn't stay away even if you wanted to."
The hum flared. I looked down at my cup, unable to hold his gaze.
"Maybe," I admitted.
"Then I get it." He shifted, stretching his legs toward the fire. "I don't understand it. I don't know the details. But I get it."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
I didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know how to process the easy acceptance, the lack of judgment, the simple willingness to believe me without proof.
"You're strange," I said finally.
“So you’ve told me.” He smiled, soft and warm. “Get some sleep, Lumi.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
The fire crackled between us, filling the small space with heat and the faint scent of smoke. My body was past the point of argument—past pride, past vigilance. Just tired. Bone-deep tired.
I wanted to prove I didn’t need him here. Didn’t need anyone.
But the cabin was warm. The wind was kept at bay. And James was sitting a few feet away, solid and present, not watching over me—just there.
I lay down on the cabin floor, my pack tucked beneath my head, boots still on. Closed my eyes.
Sleep came faster than I expected.