Snowed In

“HEEEEEYYYYYYYY!”

I took a step in that direction. Two steps. Three. My heart was soaring, my body filled with all new levels of adrenaline. Even so, something in the back of my mind was nagging at me. Nagging hard.

MORGAN! WAI—

It hit me at once, where I was, what I was standing on. My mistake, my crucial error.

Then I was falling…

… and everything around me was thick and white.

Nineteen

BOONE

Even over the wind, I heard the scream. Not sure the other dingbats did, though.

I left them in the dust as I raced back outside.

The wind struck me full force, as if screaming at my return. This time I didn’t have my jacket. I didn’t even have more than a sleeveless Tee.

But if I was right abo

ut what happened…

If I was right about what happened, she didn’t have much time. The snow was coming down so heavily, and so thickly, any marks or indications she’d made up there would be covered in minutes.

I ran up the leeward side of the building, the only part still exposed to the world. Getting out of the wind felt almost warm. I wanted to stop there. Huddle up…

Instead I sprinted past the wind-swept dunes and toward the low corner of the garage. The roof was low here, and I could reach it if I timed it correctly. Maybe. Hopefully…

I jumped.

DAMN!

My fingers scraped the snow-covered edge of something, and then I was tumbling into a drift. My body disappeared into it completely, swallowed whole by the thin, billowy powder of the wind-manufactured wall of ice and snow.

Get up!

Scrambling to my feet was easy. It was emerging from the snow dune that sucked. My body heat had melted the thinnest layers of snow against my skin, creating a slick layer of instant wetness. It felt a hundred degrees colder as I stepped back into the wind, like being stabbed with icicles along every inch of my exposed skin.

My ears pricked up as a heard a faint shout, but it came from behind rather than ahead of me. The others — somewhere back at the doorway. Probably pissed I didn’t wait up for them, or something equally ridiculous.

From what I’d heard of them around campus, they weren’t bad guys. I didn’t even begrudge them for being Delta Lambs. But there wasn’t any time to explain myself, and I wasn’t sure I wanted them following anyway. Three people trying to do the same thing always got complicated, and right now there was no time for complicated.

Shaking it off I looked up at my target again — the exposed corner of the low-slung roof. I sprinted at it once more and leapt, digging deeper this time, coiling my legs and springing hard. Bringing myself that much closer…

My fingertips caught. I held on, grunting through the pain, pulling my body upward even as the snow and sleet and wind stung my face.

“Unghhh!”

I’d always hated pullups. My body was just big, too bulky. Strength-wise I could do just about anything, but pulling my giant body upwards like this…

Somehow I managed. I pulled just high enough to swing one leg over the edge, then I was plowing through thick feet of snow on my way to the upper rooftop.

Visibility was abysmal. My footing was treacherous. Luckily, I knew exactly where I was going. I’d seen it before, on the way in, stuck to the side of the building — a long, metal-runged ladder.

I slipped three times. On the third, more than halfway up, I actually slid down a rung. My chin hit one of the unforgiving metal bars, snapping my jaw shut painfully. I growled rather than cried out. Got angry, rather than nursed my wounds, or paid any attention to the thick, coppery taste of blood in my mouth.