There is still no bear. She turns her focus, desperate; the rhythmic sound is there, and under the wind, there’s another noise now, a hum, soft and growing. Something up there, hidden by cloud or darkness. Someone up there, looking down. Looking for survivors. It’s what she hoped for yesterday. A helicopter. Someone searching for them. Searching for Maeve.

The bear, or the woods, drew her here for a reason.

“Maeve. Come on!” More urgent than a whisper. A snarl. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll die out here. Come with me! Come back with me.”

She needs to get her bearings. She can’t stay here, invisible, lost in the trees. She looks over her shoulder, judging the distance to the open, from here to where the ledge leans out over the valley and the frozen river below. The ledge she saw shift and fall just a day before.

But the highest point is not the ridge. The highest point is farther on: the SkyLift.

Daylight rises all around them and she scours the forest ahead. New growth sweeps along the gully to a rocky outcrop just beyond, a rock wall that leads up to the same ridge where it wraps around on the other side.

That’s the fastest way to the lift. Not along the unstable ledge but down through the ditch, past the bear bed, and up the outcrop beyond. A shortcut. Over the wall, the rock covered in ice and snow.

This is her only chance. Now.

She pushes off, leaping down into the woods ahead. Her heavy boots kicking at bone left in the snow.

“Maeve—”

He’s still calling, but the voice is far behind her now, distant. She twists to check as she’s running—she can see him there, fearful, unwilling to go down into what is obviously the bear’s territory—and then moves on again. The muscles in her legs are dragging with exhaustion, her bones weighing her down. But when she turns back a second time, he’s gone, and she makes a mistake.

She pauses, afraid. Looking for him before she gets there.

It’s only a moment.

She scans the cache, the woods to either side of it, the day growing brighter now, it seems, with every passing breath. Sim has disappeared. The waning hum above her, circling, but the pulse of it still strong. There’s a vague crackling higher in the trees, the sound of friction or wind moving through the rimy branches over her head. She’s alone.

And then she turns.

She can smell the thing before she sees it, before she hears it even—then it’s there. As if the forest simply opened to it.

The bear. Maybe a hundred yards back, maybe more. Deep in the woods. Its massive head trained on Maeve, a dust of snow on the shaggy fur of its shoulder. A grizzly: she can tell by the shape of it, its humped back. The sheer size. Its snout, lifting; it squints back at her.