“Look, I can’t just leave. I have to try,” I say. “I need my phone.”

It’s my only tether to the real world—my world. The one where Christmas is happening, and Zari and I might be okay, and my mom… I just need to get there and all of this will make sense.

“Let’s just look a little longer,” Josh says.

“We’ve already looked. Maybe it’s time to see the writing on the wall on this one,” Brecken says. Harper gives him a look that could wilt lettuce.

He takes the hint and we keep searching. Kayla’s efforts are cursory at best once her space is checked over. As soon as we stop paying attention, she curls up in the middle of the back seat and watches everyone else—everyone who’s still outside in the cold, mind you—in silence.

In the end, Josh and I are the only ones who won’t give up. Even with his leg immobilized, he manages to awkwardly search under the driver’s seat and all three of the back seats. Twice.

He even makes Brecken check the back, where our bags are, and, to Brecken’s credit, it sounds like he’s doing a good job of it back there. He wrestles every bag in and out, searching every possible inch of space.

And then there’s nothing left to check. Everyone has retreated to the warmth of the car, and it’s just Josh and me, staring at each other over the open back passenger door. Josh’s flashlight turns off and he frowns.

“Sorry. I think my battery’s still low.”

“It’s okay,” I say. And then I look at the car, where Harper is checking her watch. My stomach squeezes. “Maybe we should go.”

“Maybe,” Josh says. But when I move to pass him, he touches my sleeve, taking a little breath.

I shiver, either from the cold or the strange feeling I’m having—danger or interest or some other emotion I’m too wrung out to identify. “What is it?”

“It feels weird, right?”

“Getting into the car knowing my phone is lost?”

“No, the fact that we’ve all lost something,” he says. And then he leans in, his eyes bright as he whispers, “It’s scary.”

I look at him, but he’s distant, pensive, his fingers on my sleeve seemingly forgotten. If I were to paint this scene, I know how the canvas would take shape—stark white and gray lines of snow-covered hills, his face turned away. But his strange grip on my sleeve—that’s what matters here. That’s the focus.

He shakes his head like maybe he’s rethinking it. “I’m sure it’s coincidence. But Harper’s wallet. Your phone. My book. Are we really all so clumsy that we’d lose these things and have no memory of it?”