A Matter of Trust(93)

She might have picked the beacon up, but . . .

His was clipped securely to his body.

While she could be lost in a tsunami of snow.

The thought hit him like a fist as he watched her bend low, shoot down the hill, racing the wave of snow.

He shouldn’t have let her come with him. Should have stopped her from getting on that chopper.

He’d led her to her death. Just like Dylan—

Unless he got to her first.

God, please make me fast.

Behind him, he heard Pete yelling over the roar of the snowmobiles, where they were packing up Oliver for delivery. Pete had him unwrapped and had been checking his vitals and radioing them into PEAK HQ when Gage saw the cornice start to slip.

Now, as the tumult of snow raged down the mountain, he kept his eyes on Ella, who was bending over her board to increase her speed.

Stay on your edge.

If only he hadn’t made her go first, cut the line—but he couldn’t go there now.

He set a course to intercept, his board on one slick edge as he cut downhill at a diagonal. He went right up over the lip of the bowl into the path of the slide.

She screamed his name as she shot across his path, and he cut hard, turned his board, and lit out after her.

The forward trickles of the slide swept past him, the full force thundering down just yards behind him. Ella looked back over her shoulder and reached out to him.

He caught her hand. And then in a second had his arms around her, pulling her against him.

But they couldn’t ski this way and get out of the path of danger. “Put your board on my feet!”

He lifted her up and she set her board on his boots. Now he could move. “Hang on!”

She didn’t argue, just put her arms around his neck, leaning into his movements.

Good girl.

He held her tight against him as he cut hard again and headed out, toward the edge of the flow.

But the swell had reached them. It caught them up in the force of the flow.

“We can’t get separated!” Gage fought to stay on his feet, to balance with the tumult of the wave. The powder and debris rose around him, engulfing them, turning the world white.

Ella started to scream.

“I can’t hold you—don’t let go!” He began to swim with his arms, moving the snow away from them even as he rode the slide down. It crested over his head, a cloud of white, blinding him.

Just stay calm.

The thunder of the force filled his ears, and he wrapped one arm again around Ella as he thrashed to keep upright. He had to stay above the debris of rock, tree—anything the slide had mowed down on its way down the mountain.

He felt the wave lift them, and Ella’s arms around him loosened.

“Ella!”

He clamped both arms around her and squeezed, leaning back to keep his feet under him.

But the snow crested over his head, a hand on his back, his shoulders, slamming him forward.

And then they were in the wash, tumbling, their bodies at the mercy of the slide.

He felt his board rip off his boots, a violent twisting of his ankles, and beside him, deep inside the surge of the wave, he could hear Ella’s muffled screams.

Boulders of snow slammed his back, his shoulders, and he focused on holding Ella to him, despite the wrath of the slide fighting to rip her from his embrace.

He couldn’t breathe, not with the snow filling his mouth, his nose. Still, he arched one arm in front of him, hoping to clear out a pocket of air.

Elle had apparently lost her board too because she clamped one leg around his body, glued to him as the pressure eased.

The roar subsided.

All at once, they jerked to a stop, encased in layers of ice. Silence, abrupt and thick, enfolded them.

Above them, in a bluish wash of light, the final runnels of snow rolled over the top, adding layers to their tomb.

He’d managed to eke out a bare channel of space in front of them, but now he couldn’t move.

Eerie quiet descended, and he fought the memories, hearing only the hammer of his heartbeat against his rib cage. And Ella’s soft gasps beside him. But he couldn’t move; their bodies were cemented in snow.

Their biggest danger, right now, was suffocation.

He began, however, to spit, to breathe out, create a pocket of air before the snow settled and his body shut down with cold. When he’d created a tiny air bubble, he shook Ella.

“Ella—you need to spit. I know it sounds gross, but you need to create a pocket of air for yourself. Spit and blow and breathe and make a hole.”

Hypothermia would come later.

Please let my beacon be working.

He could hear her, next to him, obeying, and he widened his own pocket, able now to move his arm. He started digging with his hand, hoping to free it through the layers, to give Pete and Ty a visual.

He had no clue how far they’d slid. It could be five hundred feet, given the clear terrain of the bowl.