Page 140 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

Snowflakes had started drifting down whilst I slept, and now they came even faster, coating the windscreen.

Rory pressed the button to pop the boot. “How hard can this be?”

The answer, it turned out, was extremely hard.

The instruction manual was entirely in German, featuring incomprehensible diagrams that seemed to show a car being embraced by what looked like medieval torture devices. I ended up googling “how to put on snow chains for dummies” on my phone, crouched beside the massive tyres whilst snow collected on my shoulders.

Forty-five minutes later, after a spectacular amount of creative swearing from both of us, we had something that vaguely resembled chains attached to our tyres. Rory’s hands had gone completely numb, and I felt utterly useless—every time I tried to help, I seemed to make things worse.

“There,” Rory announced, wiping his red nose with the back of his sleeve. “That will do.”

We dragged the road barriers aside just enough for the Range Rover to squeeze through, then set off again at a much more cautious pace as the sun continued its relentless march towards the horizon. We raced against the rapidly approaching darkness, the roads growing narrower as the snow thickened around us. The warmth inside the car felt increasingly precious as the landscape outside grew more hostile.

Soon we’d be on foot. In the cold. In the dark.

The Range Rover’s tyres spun, found purchase, spun again. Soon, we were crawling, the chains clanking against the wheel wells with every rotation.

Then we weren’t moving at all.

Rory revved the engine hopefully. The tyres whined against the snow, but the car stayed exactly where it was, nose deep in a drift that had appeared around a bend.

“Well,” Rory said brightly, though I caught the quiver of fear beneath his cheerful tone. “I wanted to park here anyway!”

I could easily have cried. We were still miles away. I peered through the windscreen at the wall of white ahead of us, then at the rapidly darkening sky above. The snow was falling harder now, thick flakes that stuck to everything they touched.

“We’d better get going,” I whispered.

We climbed out into the biting cold and retrieved our gear from the boot. I opened the passenger door and crouched down beside Princess, still wedged safely on the car floor.

“See you soon,” I told the little plant, though the words caught in my throat. The mountain silence pressed against us, broken only by the whisper of falling snow.

Rory was waiting, his pack already secured, that determined glint in his eyes that meant he’d walk through hell itself to get Kit back.

The thing was, we might actually have to.

I shouldered my pack and followed him into the white, leaving the last trace of civilization behind. Somewhere ahead in this frozen wilderness, Kit was waiting.

If he was still alive to wait at all.

31

Kit

Time had become meaningless in the cell. Hours? A day? The silver-lined walls didn’t care about my confusion, and neither did the guards who eventually returned.

“On your feet,” the older one barked. “Pre-operative assessment.”

The younger guard—the cocky little shit I’d taken down during my escape attempt—sported a magnificent purple bruise across his left cheek. He kept his distance this time, rifle trained on me whilst his partner unlocked my restraints, before handing me a hospital gown.

“It’s this or naked. Your choice.”

I stood and changed without resistance. What was the point? Save energy for what mattered.

They marched me down another sterile corridor, past doors that could have led anywhere—or nowhere. The facility felt endless, a maze of white walls and fluorescent lights that hummed with barely contained menace.

The medical room was small. Examination table. Sink. Cabinet full of instruments. I sat where they pointed and let myself drift away from my body whilst someone in scrubs—a woman with tired eyes but steady hands—took my blood pressure, drew samples, checked my reflexes.

The guards flanked the door. The woman worked in silence. I stared at the ceiling and purposefully thought about Felix. About the way his hair fell into his eyes when he was concentrating. The sound he made when he laughed—really laughed, not the nervous half smile he gave strangers. The blissed-out look on his face when he ate something particularly sweet. How adorably awkward he’d been when he’d given me his hoodie.