Chapter 2 - Two Miles of Ice
The forest was a labyrinth of shadows and blinding white static. The pine trees groaned under the weight of the snow, their branches snapping like pistol shots in the frozen air. Every step was an exercise in pure agony for Dominic, and a test of brutal endurance for Sarah.
"Leave me," Dominic rasped, his boots dragging heavily through a snowdrift. His breath came in short, rattling puffs of white steam. "You're... small, Sarah. You can make it alone. If they find you with me, they'll skin you alive."
"Shut up, Mr. Rossi," Sarah snapped, her face numb, her fingers completely losing sensation inside her thin uniform pockets. "I didn't risk getting shot just to let you freeze to death. Keep moving."
A faint flicker of amusement crossed Dominic’s pale features, quickly swallowed by a spasm of pain. "Nobody talks to me like that."
"Well, nobody's trying to save your life right now except the maid. So humor me."
The blood from Dominic’s abdomen was soaking through the apron, through his shirt, and leaving a faint, terrifying trail of crimson droplets in the pristine snow. The wind was covering it quickly, but not quickly enough if Maroni's men brought tracking dogs.
Sarah’s lungs burned. Her thin shoes were soaked through, her toes long past the point of pain. She knew the signs of hypothermia—lethargy, confusion, the sudden false sensation of warmth. She had to keep Dominic awake, and she had to keep herself grounded.
"Tell me about your mother," Dominic murmured, his voice growing dangerously faint. His weight was increasing, pulling Sarah down toward the snow.
"Why?" she gasped, straining to lift him over a fallen log.
"Keep me awake," he whispered. "Distract me."
"She had stage three ovarian cancer," Sarah said, the words cutting through the wind. "The insurance company called her treatments 'experimental' and canceled her coverage. I dropped out of school to pay for her morphine. She died six months ago in a room that smelled like cheap bleach. I'm still paying for her grave."
Dominic was silent for a long moment, the snow piling on his dark hair. "My father... always said the world is divided into predators and prey. He told me the laws of men are a fiction designed to keep the prey docile."
"Your father sounds like a charming man," Sarah muttered dryly.
"He’s a tyrant," Dominic corrected softly. "But he’s right about one thing. When the world tries to crush you, you either break... or you become the thing that does the crushing. You didn't break, Sarah."
"I'm breaking right now if you don't help me lift your feet," she panted.
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Up ahead, through a break in the dense pines, the silhouette of a small, collapsed wooden structure appeared. The old caretaker's cabin. It looked abandoned, its roof bowed under a massive sheet of ice, but to Sarah, it looked like a sanctuary.
With one final, desperate burst of strength, Sarah dragged Dominic up the low wooden steps of the porch. She threw her shoulder against the door. The rusted lock gave way with a sharp crack, and they tumbled inside, collapsing together onto the dusty, frozen floorboards as the door slammed shut behind them, locking out the screaming storm.
