Chapter 5
DEVLIN
The wind was so strong that it took Devlin all his strength to close the cabin door. His right arm was a ball of agony — every time he moved it a bolt of pain blazed all the way from his wrist to his shoulder. He just didn’t have the strength to push the door shut, but Darcy appeared next to him, grunting as she put her shoulder to it. It closed with a solid click.
The building fell quiet, the wind just a forlorn howl from outside. Devlin turned so that his back was to the door, leaning against it and trying to catch his breath. He’d been out on these slopes countless times over the years, but never in weather like this, and never without a team of support staff and a Range Rover on standby. He would have kicked himself, if he hadn’t been in so much pain. If the chopper had landed just a few yards to the side, then they both would have plummeted into the ravine. It wasn’t just his life he had risked, it was hers, too, and that was unforgivable.
“I hope you’re happy,” she said. “That was utterly reckless.”
He could have argued with her, but what was the point. She was right. It had been reckless and dangerous and selfish. But that was Devlin Storm all over. He was reckless and dangerous and selfish. This wasn’t the first time he’d come close to death. It had happened a dozen times. It had only been a few years ago that he’d almost died climbing a mountain in the Rockies. He’d snapped a tendon in his knee, and suffered from dangerous levels of hypothermia. The only reason he’d made it back alive was because he was on the climb with some of his APEX brothers and they’d carried him back to safety.
He glanced down at his suitcase, wondering if this trip would even be worth it.
Only, it was worth it. It was something he had to do.
“Utterly reckless,” the girl said again, her teeth chattering. He glanced at her, but it was hard to see anything because the building was so dark. A little snow-bright sun squeezed through the windows, but none of the lights were on. That was weird because ranger stations were usually manned twenty-four hours a day.
Not that this actually looked like a ranger station, he thought once he’d had a chance to glance around.
“If you could stop complaining for a second and give me a chance to think,” he said, ignoring the throbbing pain in his arm as he searched the wall for a switch. He found it after a few seconds, flicking it. The bulbs in the ceiling winked on sleepily, revealing a large room that was empty apart from a small stack of wood in one corner and a couple of crates. The walls were peeling, the floor filthy.
“We could have died,” she muttered, walking away from the door. She had her arms wrapped around herself, but even in the puffer jacket she looked frozen, and her words chattered with her teeth. “I think that’s a valid reason to be complaining, don’t you? Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question that you don’t get a say in. Dead. I’ve done nothing with my life except try to avoid adventure and this is exactly why. Look at me. Frozen. Stuck here with you in . . . what did you say this was? A ranger station?”
“No,” Devlin said. “I don’t think it is.”
“But you said—”
“I said that’s what I thought it was,” he interrupted, walking across the room. There were two doors on the wall to the right and he walked to the first, opening it up to see a small restroom. “This looks more like a science outpost. A deserted one.”
“But the lights are on outside,” she argued. “There’s a helipad with lights on. That means there’s people here, right?”
“Solar lights,” he said, closing the restroom door and opening the one next to it. It led into a dark corridor. “They stay on all year, in case of emergencies.”
“There has to be something useful here, though,” she added, walking past him and switching on the corridor light. Three more doors led off from the narrow space, all closed. “Like a heater or a fire or a radio so we can call someone to come and rescue me. You, too, if you’ll let them.”
“Of course there will be a radio,” he said, ignoring her barbed comment. “This place will have everything we need.”
He was making himself sound more confident than he actually was. He had no idea what they would find here. He walked to the nearest door and opened it, seeing a small bedroom with two single beds pushed to opposite sides. There were blankets on both, but other than them, a small desk, and an empty locker, the room was bare. The girl had opened the door next to it, revealing another room that was deserted except for a few old boxes and a stack of toilet paper.
“Sure, everything we need,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.
Devlin grunted at her, then walked to the final door.
Please . Please have a radio .
He opened the door and flicked on the light. Ahead was what looked like a cosy living room, a corner sofa against two walls, a coffee table, a log-burning stove, and a TV table. There was no TV, though, and certainly no radio or phones. Devlin tried to ignore the sense of dread that was rising inside him. He knew from experience that the supplies they didn’t appear to have were essential to surviving this kind of environment. He walked to the sofa and sat down, wincing at the pain in his arm. He’d have to check it soon to see if it was broken, but he was too afraid to find out.
Just like he was too afraid to think about what might happen to them, stranded here on the mountain.
“I don’t see a radio,” the girl said. “I don’t see food. I don’t see medicine. All I see is a sofa and some toilet paper, and we can’t eat either of them.”
“Just give me a minute,” he snapped back. “Can you please just shut up and let me think.”
“Because you’ve done such a good job of thinking about everything so far,” she replied.
He glared at her, but the anger he felt soon dwindled away. She looked so fragile standing there in the doorway, so vulnerable. Her big eyes were fierce, but they were also full of fear. She knew how close they had come to death, and she was probably in shock. She was also turning a bit blue around the lips.
“Listen, lady,” he said, and her mouth fell open in shock.
“ Lady ?” she interrupted. “You don’t even remember my name?”
He held up his good hand to try to calm her. But she was right, he didn’t know her name. Maybe he was in shock too. Or, more likely, he just hadn’t paid attention when she told him back at the resort. Devlin hated himself a little. He could barely see her beneath the puffy jacket bubbling up around her chin, but just her presence in the room was like his own personal pain relief.
“It’s Darcy ,” she shot. “Darcy Wainwright. Which you’d have heard perfectly well if you hadn’t been so in love with the sound of your own voice.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said, trying to stay calm. “Can you please just let me think.”
“Sure,” she stated. She walked to the arm of the sofa, as far away from him as was possible to be, and perched there, shivering. “Think away.”
Devlin sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “We need a plan. And the first thing to do is make sure we don’t freeze.” He looked at Darcy, offering a gentle smile, trying not to let the way her lips were vibrating with the cold distract him. “And at the risk of looking like exactly the kind of womanising monster everyone says I am, the first thing we need to do is get you out of those wet clothes.”