Page 42 of Run Wild Omega

I hit fabric.

I clear a face.

It’s Miles. He’s coughing, blood trickling from his nose, but he’s conscious.

“You okay?” I grab his shoulders, hauling him into a sitting position.

“I’m… I’m good,” he wheezes, his glasses cracked and askew. “Wyatt?”

“He wasn’t on the rope,” I say, dread turning my blood to ice. “He was in the crevice.”

We both look up the slope.

There. Another mound. Smaller.

I don’t remember moving. I just know I’m suddenly clawing at the snow, throwing it behind me in frantic arcs. My fingers are numb, my breath coming in sobbing gasps.

I hit the metal frame of the litter.

It’s bent. Twisted.

“Wyatt!”

I dig deeper, exposing the tangled mess of ropes and metal. And then, underneath it, I see them.

Wyatt is curled around Tess. He’s wrapped around her, his back taking the brunt of the debris, shielding her body with his own. He’s half-buried, his pack torn off his back.

“Wyatt!” I grab his shoulder, rolling him slightly.

He groans, a low, animal sound of pain. He tries to push me away, tries to tighten his grip on Tess. “No… she’s cold.”

“We have to move.” I grab his jacket, shaking him. “Miles, help me!”

Miles is there, digging with me. We clear the snow from Tess.

She’s strapped into the litter, but the frame is bent at a bad angle. Her face is buried against Wyatt’s chest, her skin so pale she looks like carved wax.

That’s when it hits me.

The wind shifts, blowing the loose powder away from her neck.

The scent.

It hits me like a physical blow to the center of my chest. It overwhelms the smell of the storm, the ozone, the sweat, and the dirt.

Fresh alpine meadow.

Crisp apples.

It’s sweet and sharp and clean, cutting through the stench of the avalanche like a knife. But underneath it, threading through the sweetness like a dark ribbon, is the metallic, copper tang of blood.

It’s the most intoxicating thing I have ever smelled.

My knees nearly buckle.

It’s not just a smell. It’s biology. It’s chemistry slamming into my receptors and screaming mine.

I feel a surge of protective instinct rise up in me, hotter and faster than any fire I’ve ever run into. It overrides all logic, all training, all sense of self-preservation. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to shield her, to tear the mountain apart with my bare hands to keep her safe.