Chapter 7
Kieran floored it and reached the ski resort in under thirty minutes.
From far away, he could see yellow tape blocking off the north slope, several rescue workers in reflective
vests talking quietly.
Kieran’s heart dropped.
He grabbed the nearest security guard, his voice trembling without him realizing: “What happened?”
The guard said: “Some girl fell in a snow pit. Ambulance got here but it was too late…”
Before he finished speaking, Kieran had torn through the barrier and charged in.
‘SAGE!”
This time, he finally stopped pretending to be mute.
‘SAGE!”
‘Get out here!”
‘Don’t fucking joke around like this!”
‘You said you wanted me to get my voice fixed, wanted to hear me talk?”
‘I’ll talk to you…”
Kieran’s voice was shredded by the mountain wind.
Sounded like he was crying.
A doctor approached: “You knew the deceased?”
The word “deceased” hit Kieran like a punch to the gut, making everything go black.
He swayed: “What the hell are you talking about?! She just took a little fall!”
The doctor, pissed at being cursed out, snapped back:
“Who the fuck are you? What’s your relationship to her?”
Kieran’s throat felt blocked: “I’m… I’m her boyfriend.”
The doctor raised an eyebrow: “Kieran Rhodes?”
Kieran’s eyes flashed with hope: “I KNEW she was okay! She told you my name, right?”
The doctor looked at him strangely: “I saw it in her phone’s notes.”
‘She wrote her last words there.”
‘What kind of boyfriend are you? What did you do to that poor girl to make her not want to see you even in
leath?”
Kieran felt like a thousand needles were stabbing his brain.
Stop saying she’s DEAD! Say that shit again and I’ll file a complaint against you!”
The doctor rolled his eyes:
The deceased already had terminal bone cancer. After falling in the pit, her right leg was fractured-no way
he could climb out.”
Plus hypothermia leading to multiple organ failure. By the time we found her, it was too late.”
The words “terminal bone cancer” hit Kieran like lightning.
She’d never told him.
When she couldn’t sleep all night from pain, he’d just gotten annoyed and rolled over.
When she coughed up blood, he thought it was just a cold.
When she got so thin she was practically skeletal, he thought she was too cheap to buy food.
He knew NOTHING.
He’d noticed NOTHING.
While she was suffering, what had he been doing?
He’d been plotting with his friends about how to mess with her.
When she broke open her last piggy bank just to fulfill his sick joke-how must she have felt?
Kieran didn’t dare think about it.
His throat felt stuffed with ice.
Chapter 7
He couldn’t make a sound.
Kieran collapsed to his knees, hitting the snow hard.
The doctor saw his condition and understood: “Don’t tell me you didn’t even know your girlfriend was sick?”
He looked at the doctor desperately:
“Where is she?”
“Give her back to me, please. I’m begging you.”
“She wouldn’t see you,” the doctor sighed. “Already notified her emergency contact to pick her up.”
“Who?” Kieran demanded urgently. “Her parents don’t give a damn about her. Who could she have called?”
The doctor was done talking to him: “I don’t know, but someone came for her.”
‘Look, I’m telling you to drop it. If it was the deceased’s final wish, you should respect it.”
Kieran crumpled to the ground, already broken.
Just then, the resort manager rushed over with a tablet:
“Mr. Rhodes, is this your friend?”
On screen, Mia violently rammed into Sage, watching her tumble into the snow pit.
Her innocent face was filled with pure malice.
Kieran stared at the surveillance footage, his heart feeling like it was being crushed by an invisible fist, blood freezing in his veins.
Had she been in too much pain to speak then?
Had she waited for him in that pit for a long time?
Zet he hadn’t even gone looking for her.
Kieran crumpled into the snow, choking out ragged sobs.
I’m sorry…”
But the howling wind and
