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Sarah Winters adjusted her goggles and studied the floodlit slope before her. The artificial light cast harsh shadows across the pristine snow, creating an otherworldly landscape of bright patches and deep darkness.

At night, with no other riders around, the run felt like it belonged to her alone.

She knew it was risky being out here so soon after Bradley Greenwald's suspicious death just this morning, but this was her escape, her sanctuary.

Out here, she didn't have to think about the argument with Ian, or her mother's increasingly desperate phone calls about coming back to California, or the stack of medical school applications sitting untouched on her desk.

Here, it was just her, her board, and the mountain.

She wasn't going to let someone else's death, tragic as that was, ruin this for her.

The night air bit at her exposed cheeks as she pushed off. Her board cut through the fresh powder with a satisfying hiss, the sound cutting through the unnatural stillness. The resort was technically closed, but being friends with Diana Pierce, one of the senior instructors, had its perks.

Like access to the practice slopes after hours.

As she carved her way down, muscle memory took over.

Sarah had been snowboarding since she was twelve when her father first took her to Big Bear Mountain.

He'd been determined to make her into a skier like him, but she'd fallen in love with boarding instead.

One of their last good memories together before the divorce was him finally accepting her choice and telling her he was proud of her.

She hit a small jump, grabbing her board mid-air, then landed smoothly. The rush of adrenaline pushed away the echoes of Ian's words from earlier: "You can't keep avoiding your future like this."

Easy for him to say. Ian had his life figured out—a steady job at his uncle's real estate firm, a clear career path ahead of him.

He didn't understand why she couldn't just follow her parents' plan: medical school, residency, joining her mother's dermatology practice back in Orange County. A safe, secure future.

A future that also felt like a cage.

Up here on the mountain, she felt free. The past year working as a lift operator had been the happiest of her life, even if her mother called it "wasting your potential," and Ian viewed it as a phase she needed to outgrow.

Their argument tonight had covered familiar ground. Ian had found her MCAT study guides gathering dust under a pile of snowboarding magazines. One thing led to another, and soon they were rehashing the same fight they'd been having for months.

"You can't run lifts forever," he'd said. "Is this really how you want to spend your life? Living in a resort town, making minimum wage?"

"Maybe it is," she shot back. "At least I'm doing something that makes me happy."

"Being happy won't pay your student loans," he countered. "Or help you save for retirement. Or give you the kind of life you deserve."

The kind of life you think I deserve, she corrected mentally as she carved through another turn.

Ian was a planner, always thinking five steps ahead.

In his mind, their future was already mapped out: She'd go to medical school while he built his real estate portfolio, then they'd settle down somewhere respectable, have two or three kids, join the country club.

Sarah hit another jump, higher this time, letting herself fly.

She thought about the rumors she'd heard about Bradley Greenwald, the skier found frozen on the slopes that morning.

People said he'd been some hotshot amateur photographer, always chasing the perfect shot for his social media, taking stupid risks and endangering others.

Diana had mentioned reporting him for setting up his camera in dangerous spots. "He cared more about likes than lives," she'd said during their coffee break. Some of the other staff had even suggested he'd gotten what he deserved, though they'd quickly shut up when management walked by.

Sarah landed her jump and cut hard to the right, spraying snow. The floodlights created strange patterns on the powder, like a dance floor made of diamonds. She was already feeling better, the physical exertion burning away her frustration with Ian.

Maybe he was right about some things. She couldn't avoid making decisions forever. But did those decisions have to be the ones everyone else wanted for her?

As she neared the bottom of the run, movement caught her eye. A shadow seemed to shift in the tree line, something more substantial than the play of light on branches. Sarah slowed, squinting through her goggles. The shadow moved again.

For a moment, her mind flashed to Greenwald's frozen body, and a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature ran down her spine.

But that was ridiculous—she was letting the ghost stories that had been circulating all day get to her.

It was probably just a deer. They often came down to the lower slopes at night, drawn by the salt used to de-ice the paths.

Still, she found herself picking up speed, suddenly eager to reach the well-lit area near the lift. The bottom of the run stretched out before her, an expanse of white broken only by the dark silhouettes of the lift towers.

Sarah frowned at something glinting in the snow ahead—something metallic catching the floodlights. She slowed to a stop about twenty feet from the lift, her board sliding sideways to rest perpendicular to the slope.

Curiosity overcame her natural instinct to keep moving. The object looked like a camera lens, its glass reflecting the artificial light. Was it the missing camera everyone had been whispering about? Bradley Greenwald's?

She popped her back foot out of its binding and pushed forward with her other leg, propelling herself toward the object.

The snow muffled any other sounds—not that there were many at this hour.

The night felt preternaturally still, the kind of deep quiet that only came with heavy snow and extreme cold.

As she drew closer, the object resolved into something else entirely—just a broken piece of ski pole catching the light at an odd angle. Sarah felt foolish for stopping. She should get back to the employee lot where her truck was parked. Maybe she'd call Ian, try to smooth things over.

The attack came without warning. No footsteps, no sound at all—just sudden, explosive pain as something struck the back of her head. The impact drove her face-first into the snow. Her goggles twisted sideways, the edge cutting into her cheek.

Her board, still attached to one foot, tangled beneath her as she fell. The world spun, fragments of light and shadow whirling together. She tried to push herself up, but her arms felt disconnected from her body.

The last thing Sarah registered before consciousness slipped away was the crunch of boots in snow, and a voice speaking softly: "Don't worry. I'll make this moment perfect—and I'll have you with me forever."