Chapter 3Climbing for Love, Watching Her Stray

Skyler's POV

We never made it to Camp Three.

The blizzard hit far sooner than anyone had expected. A deep rumble came from somewhere inside the mountain, like the growl of some enormous beast.

Mike's face went pale. "Avalanche! Everyone, down!"

The world seemed to turn upside down. A massive wall of snow crashed down from the ridge, roaring as it swept everything in its path away.

The blast knocked me off my feet. My ears rang violently as chunks of snow slammed into me, ice pouring down the collar of my jacket. My whole body convulsed from the cold.

It went on for some time before the first wave finally passed. I lay face-down in the snow, too stunned to move. It took me a few seconds to register that I was still alive.

"Amber!" I screamed.

Through the blowing snow, a figure staggered to her feet. It was her.

She was covered in snow, a thin streak of blood running down her face. She didn't run toward me. She ran toward Theo.

He was sprawled on the slope about 50 feet away, shivering violently. "Amber… Amber, my leg is cramping… I can't stand up…"

Amber ran to his side and dragged him into a sheltered spot out of the wind. "You're okay. You're okay."

She quickly examined him. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I can't feel anything…" he stuttered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "I'm freezing, Amber…"

Amber looked up and swept her gaze across the area. Then she spotted me—more precisely, the emergency bivy blanket wrapped around my body.

It was the last one the team had. All the others had been buried by the avalanche.

She strode toward me. I thought she was coming to pull me to safety, but she reached out and yanked the blanket from my shoulders.

My fingers tightened around it instinctively.

"Skyler, let go," she urged me, leaving no room for argument. "Theo's going hypothermic. He won't make it without it."

"What about me?"

My voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar, even to my ears.

She paused. "You're in better shape. You can handle the cold better than he can."

She tore the blanket away from me, and a bone-deep cold immediately rushed in from every direction, as if I had been thrown alive into a freezer.

Amber wrapped the blanket around Theo, then crouched down and began unclipping the climbing rope from around my waist.

"What are you doing?" I questioned, actually panicking this time.

"I can only get one person out at a time."

She didn't even look at me as she swiftly unfastened the buckle. "This is the only rope we have left. Mike says there are crevasses below, and we have to stay roped up to cross them.

"Theo isn't strong enough. He won't make it across without the rope."

"And what about me?"

I seized her arm, my nails digging into the fabric of her jacket.

Amber finally looked at me. In it, I saw hesitation, guilt, and an unquestioning trust—the kind that said, "You're so capable. You'll be fine."

"Wait for rescue, Skyler."

She stood up and secured the climbing rope around Theo's waist. "Mike has already sent out a distress signal. The rescue team will be here within two hours, tops. You can make it. You always have."

She took hold of Theo's arm and turned toward the route down. The blowing snow soon swallowed her figure. I parted my lips, wanting to call her name, but the wind tore my voice to pieces.

Amber never looked back.

When the second avalanche hit, the snow beneath my feet collapsed with a deafening roar. Darkness swallowed me whole.

In the last moments I was conscious, I heard the dull thud of my body slamming into the ice wall. Once, twice, and thrice. Then, silence.

It was 22 degrees Fahrenheit below zero down there.

Amber said help would arrive in two hours. She said I could make it. Perhaps she had forgotten that I was an ordinary human capable of experiencing fear, cold, and death.