by Lydia Sharp
I hold my hand out as far toward him as I can, letting the chain drip from my fingers. The pendant hangs heavy at the bottom, swinging and twirling until it settles. Motionless. Dead.
“No.” He shakes his head, eyes glistening, then looks at the pendant, then at the wreckage all around us, like he’s seeing it now for the first time, then back at the pendant. He drops the picture of his family, and glass shatters at his feet. His breaths become ragged. “Gabi … I can’t …”
An iron weight presses onto my chest and my throat closes up. I can’t save him from what he’s about to go through. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted him to be here for you. I really did believe it was possible at first, but not anymore.”
“No,” he says again.
“If he were alive, he would have come back for this. He wouldn’t have left behind something so important to him. Kai, I’m sorry,” I repeat. “This is your proof. He’s gone.”
“No.” It comes out more like a squeak than a word this time.
“Come back to me. I’m not going anywhere; just come back over here where it’s safe.” I reach for him, but he’s lost in his grief. He doubles over, pushes his fists onto his thighs, and finally—finally—lets himself cry.
It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard, the sound of mourning from somewhere so deep inside I think even the marrow of his bones sheds tears, releasing all the pain he’s ever felt over all the things he’s lost with this realization—his dad, the time they could have spent together, the things he had yet to learn from him. Tears sting my eyes, too, and fall freely. I know he needed to face this, but it still hurts to see him crumble.
And something inside me is crumbling along with him—my belief that what I said to my mother was the right thing to do. Was it how I truly felt? Yes. Was it necessary? No. What if those are the last words I ever speak to her? I don’t think I could bear it. I thought I wanted her out of my life, but even a world away she’s still been with me every day in my thoughts, and not all those thoughts have been bad. I don’t want to lose her, not like this. Not permanently.
I settle back against the wall and slowly drop to the floor, on the opposite side of the cabin from Kai. I ache to hold him, but I can’t get myself to go across to him. Wood creaks and the wind continues its assault. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it felt like the wall shifted. Safer to stay put.
The sun has abandoned us completely by the time Kai stops crying, drained and quiet, in a heap on the floor. A ghostly glow has cast over him—the moon. At least we’ll have some light to help us find that other man’s cabin, assuming his offer to let us spend the night still stands.
“Kai,” I say gently. “I know you don’t want to leave, but we can’t stay here all night.” My feet fell asleep, staying in the same position for too long. I slip his dad’s necklace into the pocket of my coat and then zip it closed, shaking out my left foot as it prickles back to life. The needles stab into my injury, and I endure the sensations with gritted teeth.
Kai looks up at me, his eyes dead and hollow—and then suddenly very focused and alert, looking past me. “Gabi, don’t move. Stop moving your foot.”
I set my foot down, which only intensifies the needle pricks and the pain of torn ligaments, or whatever I did to myself, and then I start to look over my shoulder. “Holy sh—”
“Don’t move,” Kai repeats. He hasn’t gotten up, either. “Don’t even look.”
He must not have heard my reaction. “I already saw it.” Just barely, though, before I turned my head back toward Kai. The glow of yellow eyes. The wolf did follow us, and it waited until dark to strike. Or maybe this is a different wolf, and our noise alerted it to our location.
Either way, we’re trapped in this broken house. If it comes in here …
“What do we do?” Besides panic, because I’m already there. “What do we do?”
“Just stay still. Stay against the wall. Don’t draw attention to yourself.” He pushes himself up slowly, eyes locked on the wolf. Didn’t he just tell me not to move—what is he doing? Using himself as bait?
Well, there’s a slight problem with that plan, besides that it ends with Kai getting eaten and leaving me stranded out here alone. To reach him, the wolf has to get past me first.
Kai growls at the thing. Actually growls. “Come here,” he says, never breaking eye contact—staring it down in challenge. “I’m the one you want.”
Don’t do anything that makes you seem like a predator or prey, he told me before. Way to take his own advice. He’s gone into full-blown predator mode. But we’re equals in this. There has to be a way to save us both.
And I’m the only one here to do it. I’m the only one standing between Kai and a wolf.
This whole trip, I’ve been relying on other people to get me through. Because knowing what needs to be done isn’t the same as knowing how to do it—and I know how to do nothing out here in the wild. But now, I have no choice but to try. I have no choice but to be brave, and I’m scared out of my mind. Is it possible to be both?
I rack my brain for any survival clues Kai might have dropped in the past few days. The first thing I hear in my memory is:
Don’t try to fight Alaska. She always wins. Work with her instead.
How do you work with a hungry wolf?
A hungry wolf. That’s it.
It’s hungry, just trying to fill one of its basic needs, like anyone or anything else in this world. “Kai—”
My new plan dies on my lips, as a giant lump of gray fur leaps past me, then lands on the flooring by the mantel. It ignored me, like Kai wanted. But now it has him cornered, and that side of the cabin dips with the added weight.
“Gabi, get out of here! Run!”
“I’m not leaving you!” Not when I can offer that beast something more appetizing than my boyfriend. In the wolf’s opinion, not mine.
I fumble with the zippers of Kai’s pack, my fingertips buzzing with adrenaline. As soon as it’s open, I smell it. Cooked moose meat. Kai packed a lot of it for this trip.
The wolf turns its giant head toward me, nose sniffing the air. Yes. I’m the one you want. Not him. Come and get it.
Kai has other plans, though. He takes advantage of the wolf’s distraction and kicks it square in the ribs, knocking it hard. Not hard enough to push it off the broken flooring—this wolf is as big as he is—but hard enough for it to lose its balance. Paws scramble, scratching across the floor, until its hind legs slip over the edge. It bites at the leg of Kai’s pants to keep from falling, bringing him down with it. The cabin creaks and shifts again, and I brace myself against the wall. As they slip toward the edge, Kai punches the wolf in the jaw, and it quickly disappears from my view. The wolf’s howls and ear-piercing yelps get quieter and quieter in its descent, only to be replaced by Kai yelling as he slips down.
He catches himself on the ledge with a pained grunt.
“Kai!” I scramble through his pack. Wasn’t there a rope in here? He lifts one foot up high enough to catch the floor above, but when he tries to pull himself up with it, the board breaks and his foot slips down again. Crap crap crap. This place is falling apart around us.
My heart pounds against my ribs like a mad gorilla. The sound of blood rushing through my ears is almost deafening—but still, I hear it. Something low and guttural. I pop my face toward the trees, and immediately wish I hadn’t.
More pairs of yellow eyes, catching the light of the moon, all on me.
Black, gray, mud-colored, and a white wolf at the lead. I can only hope there’s enough meat in here to satisfy them.
“Gabi, help!” Kai screams, still scrambling to get up. “Grab the rope!”
Now he asks me for help. Now, when I can only do one thing or the other.
Help him. Or help myself.
Get the rope. Or get the meat.
“Hang on, I’m coming!” I find the rope, finally, and yank it out. The lead wolf—the big white one—lunges toward me, head low, eyes intent. I throw
Kai’s pack as hard as I can, which isn’t very hard, because the cinder blocks are still in there, apparently. The bag lands with a thud only a few feet away, stopping the wolf in its tracks. It bares its teeth at me.
For a moment I wonder if I made the wrong choice. The wolves are going to come after us anyway, and I just tossed all of our supplies away. Even if I can get Kai back up to safety, how will we survive?
I don’t know. But I won’t find the answer if Kai drops to his death now. Together we can face anything, right? We’ve come this far—God, we’ve come so far. Faced Death head-on. Faced every threat imaginable. Faced our own personal demons. And we’re still here.
The stuff I went through with my mother is nothing compared to this. Nothing. Why did I think it was everything? Why did I think it was irreversible? Unforgivable? Life is constant trial and error, and I’ve made enough errors in this trial. It’s time to stop expecting my mother to change back to who she was before. It’s time for me to change myself. Who I am now.
I can do this. I can be brave and scared at the same time, no matter the challenge. I can have a mother who makes mistakes, doesn’t always love me the way I need her to, and still be okay. And right now, I can save Kai and myself.
I brace my shoulder against the lip of stone where the hearth connects to the wall and throw him one end of the rope. He lets loose one secure hand to grab it, and for a moment I think he might pull me right over, the corner of the hearth cutting into my shoulder, but the pressure is gone as quickly as it appeared. He’s up. He’s safe.
Safe for only one second before the cabin starts falling out from under him.
“Kai,” I scream. “Run!”
He pushes to his feet in a blink, one step, then two, then he grabs my arm as he’s running, and we take a giant leap toward stable ground.
We land and turn to see the cabin collapse, leaving only the corner we’re standing in at the front end. Then the snarl of wolves steals my attention, and I snap my head back toward the woods. They’re fighting over the meat in the pack—that’s what they wanted all along, not us. The lead wolf snatches it by one of the straps and starts dragging it away.
And now I feel like I might puke, as my brain realizes the danger has passed, unsure what to do with this excess adrenaline. This day … this everything … it was too much.
Kai cradles me in his arms. We huddle silently in the corner for a few minutes. Our breaths fall into sync and my heartbeat slows.
“The wolves took our stuff,” I say.
He sniffs a laugh. “Actually, you gave it to them.”
“We’re screwed.”
“Completely screwed,” he agrees. “Unless that guy we passed before turns out to be the good-est of Good Samaritans and lets us crash at his place and borrow his supplies.”
“Good-est?” I must be on the brink of hysteria, because after all that’s happened, I can’t stop laughing at the dumbest thing. “Good-est is not a word.”
“Anything can be a word.” He pulls a mad face, but it breaks quickly and then he’s laughing, too. “We are insane.”
“The insane-est.”
“The most-est in trouble-est when we get-est home. Est,” he adds.
“You can’t do anything without going overboard.”
“Nope. That’s just me. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” I say. His lips meet mine, transferring heat and goose bumps and a future with no limits. Together. In Alaska, or anywhere.
I’m so lost in him, I almost miss it—but then it becomes too strong to ignore. The rumble of helicopter blades overhead, accompanied by an even fiercer wind than we encountered on the exposed mountainside. Kai and I look up in unison. A bright light shines down on us, blinding me, and I turn my head away.
“Is there really a helicopter up there, or am I delirious?”
“There’s really a helicopter up there,” Kai says. His tone is just as confused as mine.
A man in a harness drops down on a line. He tells us that, one at a time, he’s going to pull me and Kai up to the helicopter. Kai insists I go first, because of my injury. My ankle. I almost forgot. It’s like my brain doesn’t know which signals to focus on anymore; there are too many. And suddenly I’m very, very cold. Shaking so hard my teeth chatter.
When I get up to the helicopter and see Hunter, I collapse in relief. “Y-y-you’re okay.”
“And you’re in shock,” he says, wrapping a warm blanket around me. “Just relax. Everything’s okay now. We’re going home.” He looks out the opening of the helicopter, and I assume he’s watching them rescue Kai. But then he rubs his palms against his eyes and catches his breath. Pulls back inside.
“He’s gone.”
My heart jumps, thinking he means something happened to Kai, but then they start pulling him up to the helicopter with the line.
“You mean your dad,” I say.
He shakes his head, as if clearing away confusion. “I knew he was. It’s just … seeing it—knowing Dad is under there somewhere.” He turns to look at me. “Is Kai okay? After seeing this?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s okay,” I tell him, muscles melting as they soak up heat. “But he will be. He’s not denying it anymore. He knows your dad isn’t coming back.”
He nods and swallows. “When I got to the hospital in Fairbanks, after a few hours of fluids and a bowl of broth, I started to feel a lot better.” He coughs, still not completely well yet. “The whole time, they drilled me and Jack and Vicki with questions about where you and Kai ran off to. We didn’t tell them anything until they agreed to take me along to pick you up. Sorry if that was overstepping, but I couldn’t go home until I knew you guys were safe … And … yes. I did it so I could see the inside of a rescue chopper, too.” Sheepish grin.
“You did the right thing. I wouldn’t have made it another day.” I take off my boot and show him Kai’s handiwork with the bandage. “Your brother did that, and he learned it from watching you. He needs you, Hunter, even if he doesn’t say it.”
He smiles big, his eyes glistening. Kai and his rescuer arrive, and once Kai is safely inside the helicopter Hunter tackles him with a hug. They say nothing to each other, not with words, anyway. And then we veer off, leaving the wreckage behind.
Dad meets me at the hospital in Fairbanks, and although I’m ecstatic to see him, my gut clenches. Time to face the music.
“Your mother was right,” he says. “I am a bad parent. I didn’t know you ran away until she called me back and explained what she meant about the credit card.” His face is all hard edges, but his forehead is creased with worry. I did that to him. He’s not a bad parent; I’m a bad daughter.
“I didn’t run away. I didn’t mean to be gone longer than a few hours, and then … things got out of control.” I thought they were under control at the time, but looking back, it was more like surfing a tsunami and hoping you don’t wipe out—I’m surprised we survived. And I thought I was done crying, too, but fresh tears pour down my cheeks as freely as the IV drip in my arm. “I promise this will never happen again.”
“No, it won’t. Because I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
“Never? Not even to go to the bathroom?” I tease. But it feels so good to joke with him like we used to that I might start crying again.
“You know what I mean,” he says. “You deserve a better papi than I’ve been lately.” He hugs me for an eternity, squeezing me hard.
Finally, I grunt. “I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry.” He clears his throat and lets go. “I’m just glad to see you’re okay, querida.” He hands me a plastic bag. It’s full of my clothes. Clean clothes. I could kiss him. Then he says, “As soon as you’re cleared by the doctors here, we’re taking the first plane home.”
I don’t question which home he means. I shift my gaze from Dad to Kai, who’s sitting on the ER bed next to mine, then look at Hunter and Vicki talking and smiling at each other in the chairs across the room. Even Jack stuck a
round the hospital to make sure we made it back okay. Alaska is my real home, because home is where your family is. The people who stick their necks out for you, not the ones raising the ax. This may be one of the coldest, most brutal corners of the planet, but it’s the warmest home I’ve ever had.
Thanksgiving brings with it a few inches of snow and a few prayers that Kai won’t reject what I’m about to offer him. While everyone, including my dad, congregates around the Locklear dinner table, Kai and I escape out the front door. It’s only seven p.m., but the sun went down hours ago, before we even sat down for dinner. “Close your eyes,” I say, leading Kai across the driveway to my garage. He steals a kiss, kicking my heartbeat up from anxious to exhilarated, and then shutters his eyelids. “No peeking.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he teases.
The garage door lifts slowly, hinges creaking. The automatic lights blink on and the scent of gasoline greets us. I tell Kai to wait while I squeeze around Dad’s car and retrieve my gift. It’s black and silver, sleek and shiny, and nearly as tall as I am.
“Okay,” I say. “Open your eyes.”
He cracks one eye open, then the other, his smile fading as he realizes what it is.
“I was planning on buying my own snowboard,” he says. “I mean … thank you. It’s really great of you. But, Gabi …”
“This isn’t for you. It’s mine.”
His face quirks in confusion.
“You’re going to teach me how to snowboard this winter, just like you said you would when we first met. But you’re not teaching me for free. So … once you’ve earned enough to buy your own, then …”
Kai isn’t the only person I’m taking lessons from. I’ve been going to the Grinning Bear Lodge for cooking lessons from Vicki whenever I can, and Hunter’s been teaching me first aid. This snowboard arrangement can’t really be a surprise to Kai. Ever since we got back home, I’ve been trying to learn how to do things for myself. I even wash dishes now.
A grin tugs up into one of his cheeks, and I hand him the snowboard.
“This is nice,” he says. “Better than my old one. You’re gonna love snowboarding.” He smiles fully again. Boyish. Giddy. He’s practically bouncing on his toes. “How did you know what kind to get?”