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AURELIA

I t feels like a building fell on top of me.

My ears are ringing, and I can’t feel the rest of my body. I’m choking on something cold and powdery, and whenever I try to breathe, my lungs scream that there’s no air. Meanwhile, something keeps beeping, and it annoys me.

Where am I?

What happened?

The last thing I remember is…

A massive wall of snow, ice, and death racing toward the four of us. I remember how there was no time to run. Seth was swept up first, followed by Thorin and me.

God, I didn’t see what happened to Khalil.

He was the furthest away from us. The avalanche would have hit him last. He would have watched us get swept up like I had to watch Tyler.

I whimper, and it sounds like Khalil’s name to my ears. The beeping grows more rapid and louder, and then I hear my name.

“Aurelia!”

The voice is muffled, but I’d know it anywhere.

It’s Khalil.

I try desperately to move my arms and limbs to get to him, but I can’t. There’s too much snow, and I’m buried deep. I can’t even cry out to him.

Khalil seems to know because he shouts, “It’s okay, baby! Stay still and take small breaths. I’ll get you out!”

I do what he says, conserving my air, and not a moment later, I hear the muffled sound of him digging. It feels like a lifetime before the snow thins enough for me to see the sun piercing the powder.

The only problem is I’ve just taken my last breath, and I’m officially suffocating. Panic claws at my chest as I silently plead for Khalil to hurry.

The snow above my face finally parts, and I suck in a ragged breath. The sun still hovers above the slope, blinding me until I look away and into Khalil’s relieved yet worried gaze.

“Baby, I have to leave you for a moment. Thorin and Seth are still under.”

“Go,” I urge him immediately.

Khalil managed to free one of my arms while looking for my head, so I use it now to claw the remaining snow from my chest and arm until I’m free enough to sit up.

Khalil is holding the avalanche tracker, and I realize it’s causing the beeping I heard. Thorin would only take me hunting if I agreed to wear it, so it’s around my ankle again.

Yes, even after I made a huge deal about it.

Whatever.

I’m starting to believe Khalil was right…I clearly have nine lives. How many does this make now? How many more times will the mountain test me?

The tracker starts to beep rapidly again. Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep!

Thorin.

He was next to me when the avalanche hit us, so I’m not surprised to find him close.

I quickly dig my legs out while Khalil begins unearthing Thorin.

By the time I crawl and wiggle free of my own snowy grave, he finds Thorin’s chest. I scramble over on my hands and knees since I’m not strong enough to stand just yet, and I start clawing away the snow from where his head should be.

“How?” I can’t help but ask despite us racing against the clock to free Thor.

Khalil flings a hurried arm out, and my gaze follows its muscular line to the slanted boulder where he’d been checking the dead. He would have had just enough time to duck behind it before the mass came for him.

I can see snow piled around the back and sides of the boulder even now, but it doesn’t crest the tip of the slant.

Focusing on my task again, I silently thank the mountain for sparing him and dig faster .

Finally, I see pale skin and blond hair.

Please, please, please.

My heart crumples with relief when I hear Thorin inhale deeply. Grateful tears spring to my eyes, blurring my vision just as his blue ones spring open.

I keep shoveling to get the rest of him out, but Khalil moves off.

Seth.

Oh, God, he’s still buried.

The avalanche took him first. How much air will he have left?

Don’t.

The tracker is still beeping a heartbreaking slow and steady rhythm.

Beep…beep…beep…beep.

I keep one ear open while digging Thorin out, waiting to hear that telling tempo increase. I have to get to Seth. I have to do something.

“Can you get yourself free?” I ask Thorin once both of his arms are finally free.

Thorin nods in answer and waves me off.

I want to kiss him for not dying. I want to kiss them both. Instead, I spring to my feet only to collapse again when I try to step through the deep snow.

“Where is he?” I beg more than ask Khalil. “Where is he!”

“I don’t know!” he roars back.

His face is pinched with worry as he turns this way and that.

“Was he wearing his tracer?”

“I don’t…” Khalil’s voice breaks. “Fuck, I don’t know.” To himself, he mumbles, “Seth, you fucking idiot.”

Snatching the tracker from Khalil, who’s gone catatonic, I stumble and crawl through the snow. I point the little device in the last place I saw him.

“Seth!” I trip again when I try to run in another direction. “Seth, you answer me!” I demand even though I know he can’t.

No time. No air.

We’re running out of time. Seth’s running out of air.

My fault, my fault.

If I’d just stayed in bed. If I hadn’t snuck out. If I hadn’t felt the need to challenge and push their buttons for the promise of a hot and dirty fuck.

Once again, I’m responsible for people dying.

“Seeeeeth, pleeeeease.” My stomach suddenly cramps, and the crushing pain of losing him forever sends me to my knees, where I double over.

When it subsides, all that’s left is anger.

The only thing more useless than me is this fucking tracker. In a fit of rage and hopelessness, I chuck it as far as I can and scream.

I don’t watch where it goes, but I hear it land in the snow a few feet away.

Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep!

My head snaps up with a gasp.

Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep!

I surge from the ground and back onto my feet. Khalil and Thorin must hear it, too. They sprint past me and beat me to the tracker as we all race for it at the same time.

Their cleated boots help them navigate the extra feet of snow a little better, though they still struggle, losing precious seconds. They’re already digging by the time I reach the tracker.

None of us speak as I join them.

The only thing we can do is dig.

Khalil and Thorin dig for their brother. I dig for the man I love. One of the men I love.

It feels like forever before we see even a small part of him.

His glove.

He’s still holding onto that purple flower he picked for me as if he still wanted me to have it even through death. My smile is wobbly as I take it from him and tuck it into my hair.

We manage to find his head and get his face free, but Seth doesn’t take a breath. It’s eerily silent, his face wholly still as Thorin and Khalil keep digging.

I…I can’t.

I’m stuck staring at his frozen face. His beautiful, taunting, sweet face. Seth’s eyes are closed, but no matter how long I wait, they don’t open.

No, no, no.

I’m clutching the front of his coat and shaking him before Thor and Khalil can finish getting him free. I don’t realize they’ve dug him out completely until Khalil starts dragging me away. When I punch and scream at him, he simply locks his arms around me, holding me immobile as much as comforting me while Thorin rests his head on Seth’s.

No. Not resting.

His ear is hovering above Seth’s parted lips.

Thorin’s checking for breathing.

I don’t get a chance to delude myself into thinking that maybe Seth’s just unconscious before Thorin places both hands over Seth’s chest and starts compressions.

My heart hiccups inside my chest as I look on helplessly.

I feel as useless as I had when I watched Tyler go over the cliff. Had this been what the end felt like for him? Alone in a snowy grave, suffocating to death?

“Come on, Seth,” Khalil encourages when Thorin pauses the compressions to push air into Seth’s mouth.

“Please,” I whisper in turn. “Please, please, please.”

I lose sight of him for a second when my vision blurs, and then it clears again once I feel something hot and wet trailing down my cheeks. It happens again—like a dam that’s been broken. The salty liquid spills into my mouth and over my chin. I still don’t comprehend what’s happening until Khalil swipes his thumb over my cheek.

“Goldilocks…you’re crying.”

More tears fall, and I have no idea what to do with them. Unless they’re life-giving, they’re utterly useless to me now. Khalil nudges my head with his own to comfort me and let me know he’s here, and he has me. I clutch him harder as I turn to tuck my tear-stained face into his neck.

I can’t watch anymore.

Seconds later, I hear Thorin start compressions again.

I don’t know how many times he attempts to resuscitate Seth before Khalil murmurs, “Thorin.”

“No,” he gruffly snaps.

I peek over my shoulder as Thorin pauses pumping to give him two measured breaths again.

Seth’s chest still doesn’t rise.

Through my despair, an untimely question pierces my mind, and I wonder who Thorin is trying so hard to save? His frenemy turned unlikely ally or best friend? Seth or Zeke?

I haven’t met Zeke yet, but I highly doubt the alters are one and the same to Thorin and Khalil. Seth is as real to them as he is to Zeke.

He’s real to me, too.

I hear a cough, and it doesn’t register where it came from until I clock movement and see Seth rolling over toward Thorin.

Alive.

Seth’s alive .

A sharp sound of relief tears from my throat, and then I push away from Khalil and claw through the snow to get to him.

Thorin’s brows are turned down as he peers closely at his friend. Hearing me coming, his blue gaze snaps to me, and he holds out a scarred and callused hand.

“Aurelia…wait.”

Ignoring Thorin, I place a hand on Seth’s shoulder and turn him around to face me. The moment I see his handsome face and sad green eyes, I kiss his frozen lips. Seth stiffens, but I’m too overcome with gratitude that he’s not dead to care. I just want to hold him and let him feel how much I love him.

Seth curls his hands around my arms, and I wait for him to pull me into him and nuzzle and scent me like he always does.

Instead, he shoves me back.

I’m thrown off him and into the snow while Seth scrambles away from me.

His chest is heaving as he stares at me like I’ve grown two heads. His hair is no longer slicked back. Instead, it falls over his forehead and around his ears. It’s grown longer over the last couple of months, so it shields his eyes, which are no longer flirty and adoring but shifty and distrustful as he watches me like he thinks I’ll eat him alive.

“Seth…” He stiffens at the name. “Baby, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

Seth’s green eyes narrow with suspicion rather than swim with mischief.

In hindsight, it should have been my first clue that something was off, but I can’t help but remember the dell and the devastation in his eyes when I left him there. It feels like my soul is reaching out, making a desperate grab for his.

Ignoring the warning bells, I inch forward, trying to close this emotional and physical gap. Right now, it feels like the entire mountain is between us, so I reach out a hand, hoping it’s in my head and not reality.

“Goldilocks, don’t,” Khalil warns. “That’s not—”

Seth flinches away from my touch and finally speaks in a voice that isn’t his. “Who the fuck are you?”