On a Dark Wing

by Jordan Dane

  If a spirit had really possessed him, where was it now? How did he get control back?

  “N-Nate? What h-happened?” Josh’s eyes fluttered open. When he moved, he cried out in pain. “Ahh…shit!”

  “Oh, man. Stay still. You’ve got a busted arm and leg, but you’re gonna be okay.”

  “Where are we?”

  Nate didn’t have the heart to tell him the whole truth. “A freak storm hit us hard. You wandered off and got lost, but I found you.”

  “Why would I—? I mean, I don’t remember…” He winced. “And my leg hurts real bad.”

  Pain. If they were both in pain, didn’t that mean they were still alive?

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. Wish I could do more, but there’s something else.” Nate put a hand on his friend’s chest. “I think you’ve got mountain sickness. It makes you do crazy stuff, but none of this is your fault. You just need rest.”

  Rest wasn’t the answer to Josh’s problem. He wouldn’t get better without medical attention, but Nate didn’t see the point in telling him things were about to get worse.

  “We’re stuck until the storm clears, but my dad is gonna get us off this mountain.” He forced a smile. “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

  Josh took a labored breath and his eyes watered. Nate knew him well enough to suspect his best friend wasn’t buying everything he told him, but to his credit, he didn’t push him for more. He let it go. After Josh shut his eyes again, Nate didn’t have to put up a front anymore.

  Josh wasn’t the only one getting worse.

  In the biting cold, Nate had a hard time staying awake. After his fall through the ice, he had all the symptoms of a concussion, with hypothermia compounding his deteriorating condition. Fighting nausea and a pounding headache, he worked through his dizziness and aching belly to use his tie line to immobilize Josh’s broken bones and keep him from making his injuries worse. Moving to care for Josh had done nothing for Nate’s head. The activity kept his body warmer, but he felt weaker. With every move, he got more sluggish and slow and all he wanted to do was sleep.

  After he tended to his friend’s wounds, he felt exhausted, but there was only one thing left for Nate to do. He had to deal with the hypothermia. He moved closer to Josh and wedged his body next to his, careful not to hurt him. The last thing he did was turn off the flashlight to conserve the battery.

  He hated the dark. Darkness made it too easy to imagine being dead.

  Like an anchor holding him steady, Josh’s breaths grounded Nate and gave him what little comfort was left, but nothing made him feel safe—not when that thing lurked in the shadows. Shivering in the cold, Nate searched the inky black for any sign of the creature that terrorized him. Every time he nodded off, sharp pops of the ice or the hiss of settling snow jerked him awake and the shadows played tricks on his eyes. But before he collapsed into a fitful sleep, Nate found that his thoughts turned as dark as his prison of ice.

  Despite what he’d told Josh to make him feel better, Nate had to face facts. His father had no way to know where they were and without pinpointing their location, no one was likely to rescue them. Nate’s hope ran thin. Josh was sick and getting worse. It would only be a matter of time before hypothermia and his concussion would drag him down, too.

  For the first time in his life, he was afraid of dying.

  All he had left—for any sliver of hope—was his strange lifeline to Abbey Chandler. And the only way to reach her was to give up his freedom and his body to a dark spirit that scared the hell out of him.

  Nate felt cold and sick—and he had no idea what to do.

  Chapter 9

  On Denali

  After gut-wrenching hours of wrestling driving snows and gale-force winds—and suffering through the dwindling hope of finding Nate and Josh alive after hours of enduring an unresponsive tracking beacon—Bob Holden clung to the only comfort he could. With the fierce storm receding, the sun had broken through the clouds. That gave him hope the ranger station could launch a more thorough rescue attempt, using their helicopter and more advanced equipment to track a digital beacon from the air.

  “We’re nearly out of marker wands,” Mike Childers yelled over the sound of the wind. “But when this storm blows over, we won’t need them. How are you holding up?”

  Bob felt the subtle difference in the higher altitude. The air felt thinner and his lungs were working harder, but he only shrugged and shook his head. Childers didn’t push it.

  “I got an update from the ranger station,” the man told him. “They’re expecting a break in the storm in an hour or two. When it’s clear enough to deploy a helicopter, they’ve got a high-altitude aircraft standing by.”

  “Good. We’ll take a short break,” Bob said. “But tell Joe and Stan to keep an eye out.” After Childers left, he whispered, “God, please. Help these boys. Don’t let it be too late.”

  With his cheeks chafed from windburn and his throat raspy from thirst, Bob ignored his discomfort. He didn’t want a break, but the others needed one to keep their eyes fresh. He couldn’t stop searching until he found Nate and Josh. Behind his polarized sunglasses, he peered over the tint-colored snow. From the red flagged wands they’d left to mark the way back to camp, to the narrow passage ahead that led to the summit, he saw nothing but a bleak stretch of white that tortured his eyes.

  As his team rested and hydrated along the trail, Bob kept looking with his digital tracker, searching for a signal from Nate’s beacon. He couldn’t stop, even with the tracker dead silent. The blizzard that had hampered visibility was no longer a factor and the rays of sunlight piercing through the thick shroud of gray would help, too. While he searched, Bob remained tethered to his team. If anything happened to him, he trusted Childers and the others would know what to do. He ventured off the trail and poked the wand he had in his hand through the snow. Clamped to his boots, Bob’s crampons dug into the ice underneath as he poked and prodded, looking for any sign of the boys.

  Higher up the mountain, he searched for breaks or unusual formations that his trained eye would notice. With the visibility better, it didn’t take him long to find something. A thick layer of snowpack had broken loose from a steep pitch and an avalanche had slid down in one massive chunk. The slab covered over the base layer of snow near him, but exposed a fractured ridge of ice pack higher up where the avalanche had broken free. The slide could have occurred naturally after such a bad storm, but his gut instincts warned him not to ignore it.

  In his heart he wanted to believe that he’d caught a lucky break. The love he had for his son wouldn’t let him see otherwise. If the blizzard had remained strong, he would have missed the avalanche. And if he and his team had remained at camp, waiting for rescuers, they would have lost precious time searching for the boys. They were fast running out of options. At least now they had a likely place to search until help arrived.

  “Mike!” he called over his shoulder and waved at Childers.

  Even though avalanches and rock falls were common in this steep section of the climb, he knew to pay close attention to anything out of the ordinary. Nate or Josh could have triggered the slide, especially under storm conditions with heavy snowfall. When Childers got within earshot, he pointed a gloved hand toward the slope.

  “You see that sharp break in the snow?” After Childers nodded, he said, “That’s a slab avalanche. The boys might have triggered it or gotten caught in it. It’s a long shot, but we’ve got nothing else until help arrives.”

  “Yeah, I’m with you. What do you want us to do?”

  “Use your trackers to search the perimeter of that slide, especially along the debris line. And use a wand to poke through the snow as you go. Look for any breaks in the ice underneath or debris like clothes and tools. Nate had his ice ax, tie line and a flashlight with him. We might get lucky. If we can narr
ow down the search grid for the rescue helicopter, it could make all the difference.”

  “Do you know if both boys have their beacons?”

  “Unfortunately, Josh left his behind. I saw it in his gear before we left camp.”

  Two signals might have made it easier to track them, but Bob was thankful that Nate had thought to take his. That showed he was thinking, but as Bob shared his thoughts with Childers, he fought the doubts mounting in his head. Why had the boys wandered off during the storm? He had trained Nate what to do in bad weather and how to survive it, but when faced with the stark reality of the boys being missing, Bob had to admit that he’d fallen short.

  Nate and Josh would pay the price for his failure.

  “You want the ranger station to contact your wife?” Childers asked.

  At the mention of his wife, Bob got yanked from his misery into a different kind of hurt.

  “What?”

  “Once the weather clears and the helicopter takes off, the media might find out,” the man said. “It’ll only be a matter of time before reporters make contact with Jackie.”

  Bob turned his face toward the summit and shut his eyes. His throat wedged tight when he thought about his family. Mike Childers was right. Jackie and Zoey needed to know what happened before they heard it on the local news or from an overzealous reporter. He couldn’t put off telling them any longer.

  “If they can patch me through, I want to be the one who tells her.”

  Childers grabbed his arm and said, “You got it.”

  After the man left, Bob heard him update Joe and Stan, but he only half listened. With memories of his son haunting him, he raged against the impotence that threatened to choke him. He felt powerless to help his family and now there was little he could do except wait for the ranger station to mobilize. Bob had no idea what to tell Jackie. Without knowing where the boys were, he felt as helpless as she’d be, waiting for news.

  He didn’t want to accept that, but he had to. The lives of Nate and Josh would be in someone else’s hands soon.

  Abbey

  Near Healy, Alaska

  When Dad knocked on my bedroom door to ask if I wanted to take the canoe across the lake with him, I gave his invite serious thought. On a normal day, parting with my mattress so early wasn’t my usual thing. Unless Dad made me or I had my own weird reason, I rarely did it. After what happened last night, I seriously could have used the distraction, but something made me stay in bed.

  Spending time with Nate had changed me and I had no desire to pretend to be normal.

  After sneaking back into the cabin at dawn, I’d tried to sleep, but my mind only let me get as far as dream limbo, the tortured sleep of those with a guilty conscience. Out of the blue, the collision that killed my mother bombarded me in cruel flashes. With Nate pressuring me to talk about my mom, that must have stirred something I’d pushed deep inside, an ugly reality that lurked beneath my paper-thin skin when it came to her.

  Screeching tires, broken glass and the smell of gasoline battered me in the safety of my bedroom. In my sleep, I felt vulnerable. In a frightening rush that horrible moment happened again. In the stillness after the crash, when I remembered waiting to die, I squinted into the intense light of that memory. But instead of seeing the beautiful boy made of clouds with the unforgettable blue eyes—and feeling his gentle warmth—I saw Nate staring back at me through the broken windshield. He looked scared and when he opened his mouth and screamed my name, his perfect face shattered into shards of bloody glass.

  “No!” I jumped up in bed, gasping. I caught the tail end of my scream and gulped it down like nasty-tasting medicine. “Damn it.”

  I collapsed back onto my mattress—a pathetic puddle—shaking and covered in sweat. All of it felt too real. Seeing Nate invade my memories of the crash confused me. Since we didn’t know each other five years ago, I had no idea what his being in my nightmare meant. Seeing him made me feel like he’d intruded on something very personal and private. Or maybe his being there had been my doing—his sudden and unexpected appearance held a meaning that I hadn’t figured out yet. Nate either had the power to invade my dreams or I’d chosen him to sabotage my life and dredge up a past I would be better off not remembering.

  Either way spelled trouble for me. Once I opened my eyes, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom for what felt like an eternity. When that got ridiculous, I got up and looked out my window, gazing at my mountain and wondering what Nate was doing.

  Fantasizing about him had become almost second nature to me.

  Before this trip to the cabin, he’d been the maraschino cherry that topped off my chocolate sundae, the special treat that I gave myself when life sucked worse than usual. Having him in my head had made things tolerable—good, even. But after meeting him for real and kissing him and talking for hours last night by the fire—something about him had burrowed deeper under my skin and rooted there. His voice had become a favorite song that I wanted to play over and over in my head. Every time I looked out my bedroom window and stared up the mountain, I pictured him on the ridge—and I felt guilty for keeping him waiting.

  After yesterday, Nate Holden wasn’t just a nice daydream. He haunted me.

  Maybe it was being at the cabin, when all I thought about was him because I had little else to distract me. After that kiss, I tipped the scale toward being a woman for the first time and it felt good. I wanted him to kiss me again, but something dark kept me from racing up that hill and looking for him.

  Not all of my newfound feelings for Nate were good.

  In a million years, I never would have thought that he could scare me, but he did. That kiss had been everything I’d dreamed of and yet something felt off about it…and Nate. Being alone with him, knowing my dad wouldn’t approve, had been an exhilarating part of that fear. But my hesitation came more from how fast and in how many ways he could shake me up.

  He was painfully targeted on death and how I felt about my mother dying. Except for my dad, I hadn’t talked about that with anyone who didn’t charge by the hour. Nate seemed to sense my vulnerability and seized on it, but why? Did he have a cruel streak that he disguised or was the compassion on his face genuine? I knew what I wanted that answer to be, but I wasn’t sure if I was only being gullible. If I trusted him, would I open myself up for the biggest hurt since my mother died? Meeting Nate for real wasn’t what I had expected—and that drove me crazy.

  But what happened last night before I left him had petrified me the most. Nate had lost it. When he grabbed my arm, he hadn’t been in control. It looked as if he had a split personality or something had possessed him. I felt sorry for him. He had to be desperate if he’d come to me for help, like I was the only one he had left. The fear that edged his voice had worried me ever since.

  I must have been insane to even think about seeing Nate again, but I couldn’t turn my back on him. This time when I looked out my window, all I saw was the urgency in his eyes as his voice echoed in my head, the way he had begged me. I had to see him. Rushing to the bathroom, I got ready in a flash. In ten minutes, I headed out the door.

  If Nate had something wrong with him, I had to know, even if he scared me.

  On Denali

  When Josh moaned, Nate heard the sound as if it came from inside a deep barrel. At first he couldn’t place it. After he opened his eyes, he found it hard to move a muscle until Josh groaned again. With great effort, Nate lifted his head, triggering a worsening bout with nausea and a head that threatened to explode.

  “Ah,” he gasped.

  In the murky darkness, seconds ticked by before Nate remembered where he was. The wall of ice surrounding him billowed and shifted in the gloom as if it had a life of its own. His dizziness had breathed life into them and played tricks on his mind. He fumbled his hands over
the ice, feeling for the flashlight. When he found it, he turned the beam on and let the dim glow cast shadowy fingers into the cavern, but Nate had only a few seconds to let his eyes focus.

  After bile rose hot from his belly, he barely had enough time to react. He rolled to his hands and knees and heaved until he didn’t have anything left in his stomach. He felt weaker and with his head tight, that put a strain on his eyesight. Spots spiraled before his eyes and with every pinpoint of light, he thought the creature had come back to take over his body again.

  “Josh?” he whispered and crawled toward his friend.

  What he saw made his heart lurch. Josh looked dead. Dark circles made his eyes appear sunken and his breaths were shallow. His skin looked gray as if every drop of blood had been drained from him and his lips were dark blue with bits of skin peeling off.

  Despite his own pain, Nate yanked off his gloves and grabbed snow in his hands, rubbing it until it melted. Cupping his hands over Josh, Nate let every drop of melted snow target his friend’s mouth. Josh needed water. Nate knew that exposing his hands to the cold wasn’t the smartest move, but letting cold snow melt in Josh’s mouth would only chill his core and bring on hypothermia faster.

  When Josh felt the water drip into his mouth, he opened his eyes and ran his tongue over his parched lips and coughed. The effort looked painful.

  “Th—thanks,” he choked. “My leg. It doesn’t hurt…anymore.”

  Nate forced a weak smile, but inside he was miserable. If Josh’s leg felt better, that only meant his body had grown numb from the worsening cold—a very bad sign. His extremities were shutting down. He wanted to keep Josh awake and force him to talk—to fight for his life. Sleeping would be giving in to the cold, letting it win an inch at a time. But when Nate couldn’t come up with an argument for prolonging the inevitable, it pained him to wish his friend would simply shut his eyes and let it happen.