Read Chapter 39: The Rope Between

The crevasse walls were a cathedral of blue ice, beautiful and utterly indifferent. Élise’s arms screamed as she clung to the narrow ledge, her legs dangling into the void. Above her, a ragged circle of grey sky framed Luc’s silhouette as he lay flat on his stomach, reaching down.

“I’ve got you,” he called, his voice tight but steady. “Get your other hand up.”

She scrambled for the rope he’d thrown, but it was tangled around her pack. The diary was still in her jacket, a hard weight against her ribs. Her fingers, numb and clumsy, found the knot.

“Just hold on, Élise. Don’t you dare let go.”

She looked up again. He was straddling the edge now, leaning far over, his arms stretched toward her. Snow dusted from the lip and skittered down past her face into the darkness below. The wind had picked up, a low moan that vibrated through the ice.

“I can’t reach,” she gasped. “The rope’s caught.”

“Pull the pack off! Drop it if you have to.”

She fumbled with the straps. The diary—No. She couldn’t drop the diary. She shrugged the pack down one arm, the strap still looped around her wrist. Then the ledge cracked beneath her fingers, a sharp report like a rifle shot.

Her grip failed.

For a heartbeat she was falling, her stomach lurching into her throat. Then her wrist slammed taut against the strap, the pack wedging between her body and the ice wall, arresting her fall. She swung, hard, into the frozen side of the crevasse.

“Élise!”

But as she looked up, the real sound came: a deep, resonant groan above them. A chunk of ice the size of a refrigerator sheared off the lip, dislodged by Luc’s weight. He saw it too. In the fragment of a second, he twisted, trying to roll away.

It clipped his helmet with a sickening crack.

His body went slack instantly, tumbling over the edge, falling past her. She screamed his name as he plummeted, and then he hit the snowbank below her ledge with a muffled thud. He lay crumpled, one arm bent beneath him, utterly still.

And then the world went quiet except for the wind, which was rising to a howl.

Élise forced her shaking legs to find purchase on a small knob of ice, freed her wrist, and dropped the last few feet to land beside him. His helmet was cracked. A thin line of blood traced from his temple down his cheek, staining the snow.

“Luc. Luc, wake up.” She slapped his face gently. Nothing. She pulled off her gloves and pressed her fingers to his neck. The pulse was there, thready but present. He was alive. For now.

She looked up. The opening above was impossibly high, a pale oval of storm light. Climbing out alone with an unconscious man was not an option. The wind roared across the mouth like a physical force, and with it came a sound she knew too well from years in the mountains. A deep, grinding rumble, building.

The avalanche was coming. And they were in a crevasse, the perfect funnel for debris.

“No,” she whispered, looking down at him. His eyes fluttered. “Luc. Stay with me.”

He groaned, trying to sit up. “What—what happened?”

“You fell. I fell. The mountain tried to kill us again.” She crouched beside him, pulling his arm over her shoulder. “We have to move. Now.”

They scrambled, half-crawling, to the far wall of the crevasse, where a slight overhang formed a shallow alcove. The rumble grew louder, shaking the ice around them. Snow began to stream past the opening above like water down a drain.

“Dig,” she said, already clawing at the wall with her hands. “We have to dig a cave. The snow’s going to bury us. We need an air pocket.”

He understood instantly. Despite the blood on his face, he dug with her, their hands raw, their movements frantic as the roar became deafening. Snow rained down on them, thick and fast, whiting out the world above. They burrowed into the alcove’s deepest corner, carving a small chamber with their fists and feet.

Élise pulled him inside as the first heavy wave of snow hit the crevasse floor, a flood tide that filled the space behind them, turning the dim light to blackness. She curled her body around his, pressing her face into his chest, and the avalanche thundered overhead like a freight train for what felt like hours.

Then silence. Deep, absolute, and suffocating.

She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek. She could hear her own breath, ragged and too loud. The air was cold and thin. They were sealed in a coffin of snow, with maybe a few cubic feet of space between their bodies and the oppressive weight above.

His hand found her face in the dark. His thumb traced her jawline.

“You saved me again,” he said, his voice hoarse and barely a whisper.

“You fell on me first. I had to correct the error.”

He laughed, a dry, broken sound that turned into a cough. “I’m sorry, Élise. For everything. For leaving. For never telling you how I really felt.”

Her throat tightened. This was it. The end of all their running.

“I was afraid,” she confessed, her voice cracking. “Afraid you’d see all the broken pieces and leave. So I left first.”

His fingers laced through hers in the darkness. “I never wanted to leave. But I could see you pushing me away. I thought… I thought I was making it easier for you.”

“You were wrong.”

“I know.”

The air was getting thicker, colder. She could feel herself starting to drift, her mind growing foggy. But his voice anchored her.

“Élise.”

“Yes?”

“I love you. I never stopped. Not once.”

She squeezed his hand so hard it hurt. “I love you too, you idiot. I’ve loved you since the day you told me the mountain was jealous of my camera.”

In the crushing dark, she felt him smile against her hair. The avalanche had silenced the world, but between them, something finally spoke.