Updated Apr 11, 2026 • ~8 min read
Chapter 1: Wrong Turn
Sloane
The last coherent thought I have before everything goes to hell is that Marcus was right, and I hate him for it.
My legs shake as I stumble over another root hidden beneath the carpet of fallen leaves, the trail—if I can even call it a trail anymore—nothing more than a suggestion of disturbed earth that keeps disappearing beneath pine needles and October frost. The temperature has dropped at least fifteen degrees since this morning when I set out on this monumentally stupid hike through Glacier National Park, armed with nothing but my ex-boyfriend’s condescending voice echoing in my head and a phone that died two hours ago.
“You’re not adventurous, Sloane. You’re a corporate robot who wouldn’t last five minutes outside your climate-controlled bubble.”
Well, I’m going to last a hell of a lot less than five minutes if I don’t find the actual marked trail in the next thirty seconds, because the sun is sinking behind the mountain peaks with the kind of speed that makes my heart pound against my ribs, and the sky is turning that particular shade of purple-gray that means darkness is coming whether I’m ready for it or not.
Spoiler alert: I’m not ready for it.
I’ve been lost for six hours.
Six. Hours.
I know this because the last time I checked my phone before the battery gave up completely was 11:47 AM, right around the time I made the brilliant decision to take what I thought was a shortcut to a better viewpoint, leaving behind the clearly marked trail with its helpful signs and responsible hikers who probably weren’t trying to prove anything to anyone. Now it’s well past five o’clock, the air tastes like ice, and I can’t feel my fingers despite the designer hiking gloves I bought specifically for this trip, the ones the REI salesperson promised would keep me warm in “moderately cold conditions.”
These conditions have blown past moderate and landed somewhere in the territory of “you’re going to die alone in the wilderness because you let your ex-boyfriend’s opinion matter more than common sense.”
My breath comes out in clouds of vapor that hang in the air for a moment before dissipating, and I wrap my arms around myself as another shiver racks through my body—the kind that starts deep in my core and radiates outward until even my teeth are chattering. I’m wearing layers, all the right technical fabrics that wick moisture and trap heat, but none of it seems to matter when the temperature is plummeting and I’ve been walking in circles for hours, working up a sweat that’s now cooling against my skin and making everything so much worse.
“Okay, Sloane,” I say out loud, my voice sounding small and pathetic in the vastness of the Montana wilderness. “You’re a lawyer. You solve problems for a living. This is just another problem.”
Except my problems usually involve contract negotiations and courtroom arguments, not potential hypothermia and the very real possibility that I’m going to become a cautionary tale told to other stupid city girls who think they can conquer nature with nothing but spite and a credit card.
I take another step forward, trying to orient myself using the fading light, and that’s when my foot catches on something—a rock, a root, the universe’s way of saying I’ve made enough bad decisions for one day—and I go down hard, my ankle twisting at an angle that sends a bright burst of pain shooting up my leg.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I gasp, clutching at my ankle as I sit there in the dirt and leaves, feeling the joint already starting to swell inside my hiking boot. “Please, not this. Anything but this.”
But the universe doesn’t care about my negotiations, and my ankle throbs with the kind of pain that makes my vision blur at the edges, the kind that means I’ve definitely sprained it and possibly done worse. I try to put weight on it, hauling myself up using a nearby tree trunk, but the moment my foot touches the ground, the pain nearly makes me black out.
I can’t walk.
I’m lost in the wilderness, the sun is setting, the temperature is dropping into what I’m pretty sure is going to be below freezing, and I can’t walk.
The panic that I’ve been keeping at bay for the last six hours finally breaks through, flooding my system with adrenaline that does absolutely nothing useful except make my hands shake harder and my breathing turn shallow and fast. I’m going to die out here. I’m actually going to die out here, alone, because I was too proud to admit that Marcus was right about me, too stubborn to stay on the marked trail, too stupid to turn back when I first realized I was lost.
My mom is going to be devastated. My dad is going to give that speech about how he always worried about me working too hard and never taking time to learn practical skills. My best friend Kenzie is going to cry at my funeral and then probably start dating Marcus out of grief, which would be the worst possible outcome of this entire disaster.
I sink back down to the ground, my back against the tree trunk, and pull my knees up to my chest, trying to conserve what little body heat I have left. The cold is seeping into my bones now, making my thoughts feel sluggish and thick, like I’m thinking through molasses. I know this is bad. I know I should keep moving, should try to find shelter, should do literally anything other than sit here and wait for hypothermia to take me, but my ankle is screaming and my body is so tired and the cold is actually starting to feel almost comfortable, which some distant part of my brain recognizes as a very bad sign.
My eyelids feel heavy.
That’s wrong. I shouldn’t let myself fall asleep. I know that. I definitely know that.
But I’m so tired, and the cold doesn’t seem quite so cold anymore, and maybe if I just close my eyes for a minute, just a few seconds to rest, I’ll be able to think more clearly, figure out a plan…
The last thing I register is the sound of my own breathing, shallow and slow, and the way the forest has gone quiet around me, like it’s holding its breath.
Waiting.
***
I don’t know how much time passes.
It could be minutes or hours or days, but suddenly there’s something warm against my face, something that feels like breath, and a sound—deep, rhythmic, familiar in a way I can’t quite place through the fog that’s taken over my brain.
My eyelids flutter open, and the first thing I see is fur.
Lots of fur.
Attached to something massive that’s breathing right next to my face, something with yellow eyes that glow in the dying light and teeth that—oh God, those are very large teeth.
I try to scream, but what comes out is more of a whimper, my body too cold and too weak to manage anything else, and that’s when I hear the voice.
“Bear, back.”
It’s a man’s voice, rough and deep, with an authority that makes the creature—Bear?—immediately step away from me, and then there’s a figure looming over me, blocking out what’s left of the light.
He’s huge.
That’s the only word my hypothermic brain can conjure up. Huge. Tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a heavy canvas jacket and a knit hat, with a face that’s all hard angles and dark scruff and eyes that assess me with the kind of clinical detachment that would normally offend me if I weren’t currently dying.
“You’re lucky I found you,” he says, his voice carrying that same rough quality, like he doesn’t use it very often. “Another hour, you’d be dead.”
I try to respond, try to say something that sounds intelligent and capable and like I’m totally fine, but what comes out is, “C-c-cold.”
“Yeah, you are.” He’s already moving, shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around me before crouching down to scoop me up like I weigh nothing, his arms solid and strong beneath me. “Don’t pass out on me.”
But the world is already tilting, the edges going dark and fuzzy, and the last thing I register before consciousness slips away completely is the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my ear and the thought that at least if I die now, I won’t die alone.
At least there’s that.
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