Even if I know where that highway is headed.

On the entrance ramp, the plow has carved a clearer path than any road I’ve seen thus far. Once we’re on, things look even better, wide scraped sections of pavement trailing out before us like gray ribbons under the confetti of snow.

It’s definitely clearer here. The snow is falling, but the road crews are keeping up.

Brecken sighs loudly, slouching back a little. “See? It’s already clearing up.”

I settle back, trying to shake that itchy feeling that’s been plaguing me all day. Maybe I just need to take a breath. Things are turning around. I’ll be home before I know it, and this whole bizarre trip will be a thing of the past.

I try not to notice Josh’s thumb tracking across the pages, over and over. Or Harper’s endless scratching in her notebook. Or the way Kayla twitches and shakes next to me, her forehead still shiny, shadows like bruises under her eyes. And Brecken, always looking. Always dragging his eyes from the road to one of us.

This is ridiculous. There’s nothing sinister about any of this. None of this is abnormal and I shouldn’t be unnerved.

But I am.

Fortunately, the uneventful miles eventually calm my stomach and my nerves. The mountains loom ahead, stark, gray shadows behind the mist of snow, but they’re too far away to feel like a threat.

The highway, clear at first, grows a little snowier as the miles pass, but it’s fine. Brecken slows down. The other cars stay in their lanes. This isn’t the documentary-worthy nightmare of spinning cars on I-78. I wait fifteen minutes and then twenty, but nothing changes. Everything is fine.

Until it’s not.

* * *

I don’t know I’ve fallen asleep until I wake up to us sliding. My eyes drift open in time to feel the tires catch. I sit up, looking around to see the mountains, once distant shadows, are all around us now, steep and shrouded in a fog of snow.

I must have slept longer than I thought.

“Where are we?” I ask, voice scratchy.

“We’re on I-80,” Harper says. I notice that her notebook and phone are nowhere in sight, her gaze fixed on the road. Tension thickens the air, making it hard to breathe.

“A little past Old Furnace,” Josh says, voice tight. He’s staring ahead, too.

The car slips again, and I take a sharp breath, looking around. Kayla sniffs, her eyes watery like she’s been crying.

“Are you okay?” I ask her.

She looks at me, sniffing again and clearly annoyed.

“I’m fine.” She’s not crying—not in a something’s-wrong way, at least. Maybe she has a cold. Did she have a cold before and I didn’t notice?

“Are you sure?” I press.