The figure has their back to us and wears a jacket with the hood up. He or she is small—not much taller than Heather. Heather cowers, ice axe slipping from her fingers. There’s an exchange between them, a heated one, from the looks of it, because Heather shies away, both hands raised protectively.

The figure lifts an arm as though directing her forward.

God. The trap’s right there. And Heather clearly knows nothing about it because she walks forward as directed.

No, Heather! Don’t go any farther!

I turn to Curtis in alarm. “We have to stop her.”

“No time,” he says bleakly as she takes another step.

“Stop!” I shout, but of course she can’t hear me.

One more step. And Heather sinks clean through the snow.

Gone. Just like that.

I blink, hardly able to process it.

Brent struggles to his feet.

Curtis grabs him. “No.”

“What do you mean?” Brent says, straining for the door. “We have to help her.”

“I’m sorry,” Curtis says. “But there’s no way she’ll have survived the fall.”

Brent tries to break free. “Let me go, you fucker. We can’t just sit here.”

Heather’s fall plays over and over in my head like a stuck record as Curtis and Brent grapple. I clench my fists. Suck in jagged breaths. Curtis is right, though. We saw how deep that crevasse was. We need to put poor Heather out of our minds for now and focus on this situation we’re in, or we’ll be joining her.

“Who is that?” Curtis says, watching the screen over Brent’s head.

“It’s that bastard Julien,” Brent says, voice muffled by Curtis’s shoulder. “It has to be.”

“Julien’s dead,” Curtis says, eyes intent on the screen. “He died in a car accident last year. I read about it on—” He lets out a strangled gasp.

I see the screen and realize why. The hooded figure has turned to face us.

To reveal flowing white-blond hair.

CHAPTER 60

TEN YEARS AGO

It’s been four days since Odette’s accident. The sight of all those tubes coming out of her doesn’t get any easier, but I’ve been driving down here every day to visit her. It’s the least I can do. I put her here. If it weren’t for me, Saskia would have been at the comp and Odette wouldn’t have fallen.

She still hasn’t regained movement in her arms or legs. She’s broken her C2 vertebra. The worst kind of spinal injury. Doctors are waiting on scan results to see how much damage she’s done to her spinal cord.

I stroke the back of her hand even though I know she can’t feel it.

“Where’s Saskia?” she asks. It’s the first thing she always asks me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know.”