I spun to Owen. “This is your fault!” It wasn’t really.
He still gripped the pole, but his head flinched back. “My fault?”
“Yes,” I snapped, working myself into a truly Bee Perkins tither—a bee in my bonnet, if you would—all my frustrations and worries came spewing out toward him. “This wouldn’t have happened if not for you! I wanted to stay up there, and you took me against the wall.” His face blanched, and I realized what I’d said. “I mean, you took meagainst my will! I did not mean to say that other thing. Ignore that.” I frowned. That took metoo close to embarrassment, so I yelled louder. “If we die of exposure, I’m suing you!”
His dazed expression cleared, making way for his own anger. “Yeah, go for it. If we die from exposure, I’m telling everyone that you were cutting your hair and possibly planning to be a professional flasher!” he roared back.
I snorted a laugh. Was that what he construed from my trench coat? What a funny guy. He wasn’t that far off.
“Like anybody would believe you. They wouldn’t even know who you were talking about.”
“You were breaking and entering!” He said it likeIwas the one missing the point.
“I broke nothing and was already entered. It’s not my fault that literally nobody ever sees me!” I threw my arms out to the side. “Azi was meant to close up and check to make sure everyone was down, wasn’t he? He looked right at me and didn’t even see me. How is that my fault? So, for once in the history of my sad life of always beingoverlooked,I played it to my advantage. So sue me.” More came pouring out than I meant, and a wave of itchy embarrassment followed. I wanted to do something ridiculous to distract him from my truths, but there was nowhere to hide, and again, still no hand puppets. “Don’t actually sue me,” I said softer, losing steam. “That would suck.”
I didn’t appreciate the pitying look that passed over Owen’s features. He let out a rush of breath before pushing up his winter hat to scratch at his scalp. “Let’s just take a breath and calm down. Okay?”
I dropped my chin to glare at him.
“We don’t even know the situation yet. Maybe it isn’t that bad. Maybe we’ll get moving here in a moment,” Owen said.
Poor, sweet, naive man.
“Yo, big guy?” The radio crackled through the thick material of his jacket.
Owen fumbled in his layers to grab the walkie-talkie. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“The tram stopped,” Azi said.
“Yes, we noticed that too.” Owen met my gaze as we shared a look ofno, duh.
“I was afraid of this happening. This isn’t the first time the line has frozen. Benny Jr. was an idiot to send you up to begin with.”
All color drained from Owen’s face.
“Are either of you injured?” Azi asked.
Owen scanned me from head to toe as I shook my head. “No. We’re both okay,” he said.
“Just freezing,” I grumbled.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is, we can’t send anybody up right now,” Azi explained. “Whiteout conditions, my man. So long as you guys are okay with waiting it out, we can’t risk anybody else going out in this.”
I opened my mouth to argue that we were so not fine, but seeming to understand that Azi was about to get a verbal onslaught, Owen held up a gloved hand, finger up to preemptively stop me. I mimed biting it.
The side of his mouth twitched.
“Right,” he said to Azi.
“Sorry, man. It’s a crappy way to ring in the new year. But just hunker down, and as soon as it’s safe, we will send someone—” There was a brief silence after somebody shouted something to him in the background. “If not me, somebody.” Everybody was already celebrating the new year and wouldn’t be able to operate machinery—snowmobile or otherwise—for quite some time.
“Yep. Gotcha,” Owen said shortly.
“If things get too dicey up there, there’s the Hook—the emergency cabin less than a quarter mile away. If you can getdown the tower, then you can wait it out there. It has a wood-burning oven, plenty of supplies, and food reserves we just restocked. But if it were me, I’d just hang out until this storm passes over. No sense in leaving the heat of the tram.”
“Yeah,” Owen said.
“Hunker down. We’ll de-ice the line as soon as possible. I’ll make sure someone is here if you need anything,” Azi said.
