I crouch down, crossing my arms against the cold. Brecken holds up one of the chains, pointing to links that are twisted and pinched. They look like someone’s taken vise grips to them. Did some amateur think pinching them was how you tighten them on the tire?

“Those aren’t broken, they’re pinched together,” I say.

“Maybe the last car that used them put them on wrong,” Josh says.

“No,” Brecken says. “It looks like someone intentionally wrecked them. These are the exact links you need to hook to attach the chains to the wheels.”

I let out half a laugh. “You think someone sabotaged our snow chains? On Christmas Eve? I think this is a wee bit paranoid. Someone probably tried to tighten them and screwed them up.”

“Is it?” Josh asks. “I’m not a snow chain expert, but I’d think anyone would see tightening them like this would make them unusable in the future.”

“Maybe somebody couldn’t get them off,” Harper says. “If they got frustrated…”

I nod. “That totally makes sense. They could have tried to pull them off, not realizing they were smashing the links.”

“Maybe,” Brecken says, but he doesn’t look convinced.

Harper checks her phone and her face goes tight. She shoves it into her purse. “It doesn’t even matter. We’ve wasted enough time here already.”

We load back into the car in the same order, and I wish things were different, that I didn’t end up next to the girl who sometimes slumps onto my shoulder in her sleep. I wish, too, that my optimistic words to my mom would have held off the weather, but things are changing fast.

Back on the highway, snow is collecting on the road and we’re crawling with the rest of traffic through lanes that are growing slipperier by the mile. We follow a narrow set of tire tracks through the thick snow pelting the windshield. Brecken drives slow and steady, scrutinizing the road conditions with narrowed eyes. His grip on the wheel stays tight, hands at the prescribed ten and two.

He exhales hard. “I think we need to cut north at Easton and head up one of the county highways to I-80. I think we’re heading directly into the storm.”

“Agreed,” Josh says. “The snow must have shifted south.”

“Weather said it would probably take one track or another,” Brecken says.

“I’m no expert,” Kayla says. “But don’t the mountains get bad?”

“Only if it snows. At all,” I deadpan.

“That’s always what I’ve heard, too,” Harper says, scratching away again in her leather book. She closes it with a thoughtful frown. “I wonder if he has a point. Heading away from all of this.”

“I-80. It almost sounds scary,” Kayla says.

I tilt my head. “Uh, that’s because it’s a death trap painted with pretty yellow lines.”