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It goes on forever. Or at least it feels like it, as I huddle against the rock, clinging to the back of it like it’s my only shot at salvation. Maybe it is—it sure as fuck feels like that.
Seconds pass, minutes, as the freight train roars over me. I tell myself to close my eyes, that I don’t want to see, but it’s a lie. Because even here, in the middle of what might very well kill me, this avalanche is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
Wild. Free. Unstoppable. An immovable force of nature that has my heart stuck in my throat and my stomach turned inside out.
The snow surrounds me, buries my legs, my waist, my chest as the avalanche roars past. Then somehow it’s gone, moving on, the sound fading just enough that I can think. And I’m still alive.
I’m buried up to the middle of my chest, but the boulder broke the impact of the snow, kept me from going under completely.
For long seconds, I can barely comprehend it. I can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but sit here and try to prove to myself that I really am alive.
When it sinks in, when it really hits me that somehow I managed to make it through, I throw my head back and I laugh. I laugh and laugh and laugh.
Chapter 12
Tansy
“Oh, fuck.” Z says it grimly and I don’t get it. At least not at first.
We’ve spent the last couple of minutes standing at the top of this mountain, looking down at Ash as he tears up the snow in his bright yellow and blue snowboarding gear. He was doing really good, too, and I was enjoying watching him, despite all the crap between us, right up until he went around a curve in the mountain about ninety seconds ago and disappeared.
I thought that was normal—that he was just following the terrain—but judging from the anxious way Z, Luc, and Cam just started peering over the edge of the cliff, something’s gone wrong. Even Logan looks freaked out, wheeling his chair way too close to the edge to get a better look.
I grab on to the handles, pull him back. He tells me to stop, but I force myself to ignore him. He’s freaking out and if he rolls any closer to the edge, he’s going to end up going straight over it.
“What’s going—”
I break off in the middle of the question when I finally feel it, a shakiness to the ground that wasn’t there a minute ago. It feels strange, powerful, and my knees turn to Jell-O beneath me, like they just won’t support me anymore. I reach out, grab on to Logan’s chair to steady myself, but it’s shaking, too.
Everything is.
At the same time, there’s a rumbling in the distance, low and steady and almost indistinguishable. It’s far enough away that I can’t put my finger on what it sounds like, but I don’t even need to see the looks on the others’ faces to know it isn’t good.
Anything that sounds like that can’t be. It just can’t be.
“What’s going on?” I finally force the words out.
“Z!” Logan’s voice is high-pitched and terrified. “What is that?”
I can tell he already knows, can see it in the way his pupils dilate, in the way his face goes as pale as the snow beneath our feet and his hands clench on the arms of his chair, like they’re the only things keeping him from spinning out of control.
Z doesn’t answer. Instead, he’s digging in his backpack, pulling out some weird-looking gadget with a screen and a bunch of round buttons. He’s cursing low and long and vile as he turns it on, his hands shaking so badly he can barely work the switch.
At the same time, Luc is screaming and running for our guide who has hiked one peak over, checking out the conditions. He doesn’t have to run very far, though, because Tomas is all but flying across the mountaintop toward us.
“Avalanche!” he yells when he gets close enough for us to hear. “There’s an avalanche!”
“No shit!” Z answers, pointing down the mountain to where Ash just disappeared. “I’m pretty sure he’s in the fucking middle of it.”
“Ash?” Timmy cries out. “Is he okay?”
His parents gather around him, murmuring something but I don’t hear it. I can’t hear anything but the rush of blood in my ears and the echo of that word over and over and over again.
Avalanche.
Avalanche.
Avalanche.
