She bent her knees and drew her legs up, searching with her toes for the crevices that had given her a handhold on their first attempt. Found one of them. In the darkness, she felt around the ground outside the tube. Her fingers connected with a large, solid rock, and she wrapped them around the frozen surface.

Pushing with her toe, pulling with her fingers, she managed to wriggle out of the opening inch by painful inch.

Once free of the tube, she collapsed in a heap on the snow-covered ground, gasping and shaking as silent tears coursed down her cheeks and black spots peppered her vision.

“Cate? Are you all right?”

Kayla’s voice was hollow and far away.

Gritting her teeth, she crawled back to the opening. “I’m out.” Not an answer, but why complain about her own discomfort when Kayla was suffering from a gunshot wound?

“Are you going to send the rope down?”

“Yeah.”

She unwound it from her waist and lowered it into the opening.

As she waited for Kayla to tie a boot or her jacket to the end, she huddled into a tuck and scanned the landscape as an icy blast of wind slammed into her.

There was a blizzard out here!

How could the meteorologists have gotten the weather so wrong? What had happened to their prediction of a light snow that left a minor dusting of powder?

Already there were four or five inches on the ground.

Kayla tugged on the rope, and she pulled it up.

Her parka was attached.

She untied it and sent the rope back down, leaving the end attached to her waist.

Her boots were next, and she hauled them up in rapid succession.

Once she had all her gear, she put everything on.

An improvement, but not sufficient protection in this type of storm for any extended outdoor activity.

And who knew how long it would take to find help?

Much as they’d accomplished, they weren’t out of the woods yet—literally or figuratively.

“Cate?”

She leaned over the opening to find Kayla looking up at her, anxiety written in every taut line of her face.

“We did it, Kayla!” She mustered as much enthusiasm as she could. “Sit tight until help comes.”

“Be careful.”

“I will. See you soon.”

She backed away from the opening and turned toward the path that had led them to the cistern, now covered in snow.

Getting back to the main road wouldn’t be an issue. Once there, all she had to do was walk along the edge until she came to a house or could flag down a passing car.

Wilson, however, had said few cars traveled that road at night, let alone in weather like this. And he’d claimed there were no houses nearby.

But he could have lied.

She started forward, grimacing with every step as pain shot through her midsection.