Chapter 2

Ten minutes later, I was still on the porch. Snow had filled Ethan’s tire tracks. I called the sheriff’s non-emergency dispatch line and explained that Sophie had asthma while our only four-wheel-drive vehicle was heading away from her.

The school was on the rescue list, the dispatcher said, but a multicar collision had trapped two response vehicles. The wait was at least two hours.

Two hours.

I reached into my pocket and closed my hand around the hard plastic shell of Sophie’s spare inhaler. During her last serious attack, it had taken five minutes for her to lose the strength to finish a sentence.

The school was fifteen miles away. I could not walk there. The volunteer fire station was one mile from our house, and west-side crews were staging there. The dispatcher promised nothing. She told me to stay inside.

I pulled on Ethan’s reflective work vest, sealed the inhaler, a blanket, and my hospital badge in a waterproof bag, and stepped outside.

The wind erased the line between road and yard. I followed the mailboxes. By the sixth, my house had vanished. Ice worked beneath my scarf, and my eyelashes stuck together.

Halfway there, I drifted off the shoulder and one knee plunged into a snowbank. The waterproof bag struck my chest. The inhaler rattled inside. I used that sound to steady myself, but when I stood, there was only white ahead.

An amber warning light appeared through the snow. A school district plow stopped beside me, and the driver lowered his window.

“Claire? What are you doing out here?”

I recognized Ryan Hale, the district facilities supervisor and an on-duty volunteer firefighter.

“Sophie is trapped at the school. Ethan took our vehicle.”

Ryan glanced at the empty road behind me. He did not ask for the rest. He pushed open the passenger door.

“Get in. The station is assembling a school rescue team.”

Heat struck my hands like needles. When I removed my wet gloves, four crescent marks from my fingernails remained in my palm.

The station was crowded with stranded residents and volunteers. A whiteboard listed seven students who required medication, but three entries lacked names or dosages. I showed the incident commander my emergency department badge, verified the orders with the school nurse, and sorted inhalers, epinephrine pens, and insulin into rescue bags.

The commander checked my identification. A rescue unit with a medical attendant seat was leaving for the school, so he assigned me to assist with triage under its crew leader.

Forty minutes later, we reached the school. Rows of cots filled the gym. Sophie sat beneath a gray thermal blanket, her face pale and a faint blue tint still edging her lips, but she was conscious and sitting without help.

When she saw me, her hand emerged from the blanket and closed around my sleeve.

“Did Dad not know I was here?”

I folded her cold hand between mine. I did not tell her that Ethan knew—or that he had promised the school he was coming.

“Mom’s here,” I said. “Let’s get you warm first.”

The nurse arranged for Sophie to be taken to the hospital for observation. Before we left, she handed me a printed notification report. Three emergency alerts appeared in a row. The same name followed each one.

Ethan Cole—receipt confirmed.

Three times.