She pulls her thigh in to her chest, but her foot just dangles—the ankle almost certainly broken, the leg useless now below the knee. She brings her other foot up and catapults herself over the lip, landing roughly on her side and rolling quickly away from the edge. Maeve draws herself to a crawl and punches at chunks of ice and exposed rock along the rim, sending them hurtling below like warning shots. The bear is still down there, trying its luck against the ice. The lift terminal behind her, a hundred feet away.

She’s on her knees, trying to stand, when she hears something scrabbling up the ridge from the other side. She listens for the rumble, for the ledge to collapse—but this time it holds. The injured leg drags behind her as she heaves up, crying out as she wrenches the claw out of the ice, then throwing her arms out high and wide and bellowing as loud as she can. Blood soaks her jeans where the bear has ripped her open at the calf.

But it’s not the grizzly that comes bounding up along the ridge.

It’s Sim.

Her leg suddenly gives and she’s back down again on one knee.

She looks up to see him already bearing down. Maeve braces her good leg. She’s holding the claw tight between her fingers, like a set of keys. A weapon.

Above them, the mechanical hum grows in strength, and for just a second she tilts her head to the sky, squinting through the cloud cover to see what’s there.

“You hear that?” Her voice surprises her, low and used up.

But the distraction is enough: his eyes flick away from her, and Maeve rises, quiet, her sock foot gingerly on the snow. As though she is standing on it. She doesn’t want him to know the ankle is broken, the leg ruined. Maeve can stay silent through just about anything. She needs him to think she can still fight.

There’s another crash from the woods below.

Sim jerks his head: it’s the second time she’s seen him look scared. She takes her chance and starts to move away toward the polished steel girders of the SkyLift terminal, the cables extending out dull in the gray light—but he catches her by the shoulder and she stumbles back. The bad ankle like a tether, holding her in place.

She pushes him off and he catches her again.

“Maeve, there’s nowhere to go. Come on with me.”

She pushes him off again, but he won’t let go and the effort knocks her back. She lands down on one knee. Beneath them, the ice shelf groans. The combined weight of two people, too much.

“Careful, now.” He steps in closer, like he wants to help. But when he reaches out a hand for her, his coat swings open: there’s a flash of black, a leather strap. The gun, there in its holster.