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Our eyes meet, and ice shoots through my veins. “What’s happening?”

“Dove never came back to the house.” Noel’s voice rises an octave. She spins on her heel and bolts out the back door, yelling, “Dove! Dove!” She screams her names again, louder, and I’m right behind her—we all are.

“Dove!” Sawyer’s deep voice projects across the hill. He catches Noel’s arm. “How long ago did you see her? Where was she?”

Roaring is in my ears. I can still see her little blonde head skipping away from me down the hill, Akela right behind her.

“About an hour? Maybe less?” Adrenaline spikes in my veins. “It was right after Leon passed us. She wanted to come back here to see him.”

Leon takes off running up the hill toward the store. “I’ll check the road.”

“Snowing…” Noel trembles, and tears are on her cheeks. “She said it was snowing.”

“Think!” Sawyer orders us. “Where could she have gone?”

We grab coats and flashlights. The air is freezing with snow clumps still falling to the ground.

“It’s so cold. Oh, God, it’s so cold.” Noel’s voice trembles.

I’m internally panicking, but trying to stay focuse

d. “Akela’s with her.”

Noel takes off running in the direction her brother went, and I’m right behind her, flashlights shining along the road.

My stomach cramps. A million horrible images crowd together in my mind, but I shove them all out. If she fell, we’ll find her. If she got distracted and wanted to build a snowman, we’ll find her. If she decided to wander into the woods…

Why would she do that?

We meet Leon jogging back in our direction. “I didn’t see any sign of her.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Noel collapses, but I catch her. “You don’t think somebody—”

“No.” Sawyer cuts her off sharply. “We’d have seen someone or traces of someone.”

“She doesn’t just wander off by herself!” Noel’s voice rises to a shout. Her entire body is trembling.

She’s crying, but not entirely broken down, and I’m trying to force my brain to focus.

“Akela is with her…” Sawyer’s voice is strained. He’s thinking, but I can tell he’s like me—close to the edge. “Where would she—”

The realization hits us both at the same time. “The reservoir!” He turns to his little brother. “Get help.”

Leon sprints to the peach shed, while the rest of us charge in the opposite direction toward the small thicket of trees in the distance. Noel’s hand is clasped in mine. Her brother is ahead of us, and our feet make damp, swishing sounds in the snowy slush.

“Oh, God, please…” Noel’s voice is low, strained.

My insides are wracked with terror. My little girl, my side-kick, my mouseling. She has to be okay. I summon my military training, strategic thinking, focus under pressure as we get closer to the small body of water, a frigid holding pond between two rivers. In the summer, it’s relatively calm, but as Noel’s brother pointed out, the current grows faster in the winter.

Ice is in the pit of my stomach the closer we get. It’s too quiet. God, no… I just hear the first whine of a dog when the loud noise of the three-wheeler breaks the silence.

Leon races over the hill, joining us fast, and Sawyer shines his light over the surface. Two lines cutting through the snowy face show us where she ventured out. He shines his light farther up, and it hits the yellow reflection of Akela’s eyes thirty yards away. She’s in the water, her front paws clawing the ice.

Noel lets out a scream. “Dove!”

Leon kills the engine, and we hear Akela’s whines, the click of her claws as she struggles to climb out of the rushing water.

Sawyer catches Noel around the waist before she can charge out onto the thin ice. Leon has a yellow, nylon rope he’s tying around the cage on the back of the ATV. It all feels like it’s taking too long, but we’re moving as fast as we can.