The ground looks so smooth beneath its blanket of snow, but the sensation is of being pulled bodily across a cheese grater. My hidden ballistic vest absorbs a lot of the punishment. If they’d taken a moment to search me, they would have stripped me to the waist. But the Dillons are in too big of a rush.

Still, the pain—head, arms, torso, and especially my bad leg—is so intense my left hand loses its grip on the rope, and now my wrist is being squeezed as the cords tighten. How long before the rope severs my hand?

I struggle to keep my chin raised despite the projectiles being churned up by the sled’s tracks. I am having trouble breathing. It’s not just the pressure on my chest. The engine smoke is displacing the air from my lungs.

My legs start fishtailing as Tiff accelerates.

I pull hard with my right hand, straining the muscles in my arm to gain a few precious inches. I’m not sure how I manage it—adrenaline is said to give you extra strength—but I get hold of the rope again with my left hand. I throw back my head and puff out my chest. Skidding along on my forearms and chest, I reach ahead with my right hand, trying to climb the rope.

Tiff must be watching me over her shoulder. She doesn’t like what she sees.

She begins to switchback across the road, moving from one snowbank to the next in a sine wave pattern. Being jerked around like this is about as pleasant on the spinal column as you might imagine. But the maneuver has the unintended consequence of introducing slack into the line that I can use to continue climbing toward the rear of her sled.

Tiff’s attempt to dislocate my shoulders and flay the skin from my body isn’t working out the way she planned.

She tries something new. She veers off the road. I feel the bounce as she goes up and over a snowbank. When my body hits the plowed ridge, I go airborne. If I flip onto my back, I will be dead in seconds; there will be no way to protect my head in an upside-down position.

Maybe I imagine the sound of Tiff laughing.

But it comes moments before a terrific crash.

I feel a sudden slack in the rope while my own forward momentum continues. The next thing I know I am rolling on my side. The line catches around a tree and I am whipped halfway around its trunk.

I find myself lying on my back, gasping for air. I have no idea what has happened. The agony is so all-encompassing, I can’t move.