The sound was impossible, a hallucination born of a freezing, oxygen-starved brain. Helicopters didn't fly in conditions like this. It was suicide.

But the sound grew louder, a percussive beat against the storm's fury. A powerful searchlight cut through the swirling snow, sweeping across the desolate landscape before locking onto our position.

Bryan and the others froze, their faces a mixture of confusion and alarm. Kelsi's crocodile tears dried up instantly.

The helicopter, a big, powerful-looking bird painted with SAR-Search and Rescue-markings, hovered expertly above us, its rotors whipping the snow into a blinding frenzy. A door slid open, and two figures began to rappel down with breathtaking speed and efficiency.

They hit the ground running. The lead figure, broad-shouldered and moving with an unnerving calm, strode directly toward our group. He ignored everyone else and headed straight for my snow pit.

"Sir, this is a restricted research site," Bryan began, stepping forward to intercept him. "You can't just-"

The rescuer didn't even break stride. He placed a firm hand on Bryan's chest and shoved him aside with an ease that was almost contemptuous.

He knelt beside me, his face a mask of focused intensity. He wore no helmet, just a thermal beanie, and his eyes, a startlingly clear gray, took in my condition in a single, sweeping glance. He saw the gash in my suit, the blue tinge of my lips, the terrifying stillness of my chest.

"Severe hypothermia, core temp critical," he barked to his partner, his voice a low, commanding rumble that cut through the wind. "Pupils are sluggish. We're losing her. Get the thermal capsule and the IV, now!"

His partner was already moving, working with a silent, practiced urgency.

"What's going on?" Bryan stammered, bewildered. "She's fine, she's just being difficult."

The rescuer's head snapped up, and he fixed Bryan with a look so cold it could have frozen hell over. "Your teammate activated an emergency beacon fifteen minutes ago. Her biometric signature is flatlining. You have thirty seconds to explain to me why she's lying in a hole in the ice with a compromised suit while you're standing here fully functional."

His name tag read HOLT LEVY, SAR-LEAD.

Bryan's face went pale. "Beacon? That's impossible, I have her sat phone."

Holt ignored him. His gloved hands were surprisingly gentle as he checked my pulse, his touch a spark of warmth against my frozen skin. "Hang on, Alex," he murmured, his voice close to my ear. "We've got you."

He knew my name. Of course, he did. The beacon was registered to me.

He and his partner worked with a fluid, terrifying efficiency. They sliced open my ruined sleeve to insert an IV, flooding my system with a warm saline solution. A searing, painful warmth began to spread through my veins. They wrapped me in a silver, crinkling hypothermia blanket, then carefully placed me into an insulated transport capsule.

As they prepared to hoist me up to the helicopter, Holt stood and faced Bryan. His calm demeanor had vanished, replaced by a tightly controlled fury.

"Who the hell are you?" Bryan demanded, trying to reclaim some shred of authority.

"I'm Holt Levy. My team is contracted by OmniClimb for high-risk field test emergencies," Holt said, his voice dangerously low. "Which means right now, on this mountain, I am God. And you just left one of my charges to die."

He held up a small satellite phone. "As per our contract, I've already patched in your CEO."

A familiar voice, crackling with static but clear as a bell, erupted from the phone's speaker. It was Edward Bullock, the founder and CEO of OmniClimb, a former mountaineer himself with a zero-tolerance policy for incompetence.

"Acosta!" Bullock's voice was a roar of pure fury. "Levy's team just sent me Alex's vitals and a photo of her suit. Explain yourself. Now."

"Sir, it's a misunderstanding," Bryan stammered, his face ashen. "She was acting irrationally, she was a danger to the team…"

"She's the most competent engineer I have!" Bullock bellowed. "And you left her to die in a blizzard over what? An intern got chilly? You're fired, Acosta. You and the intern. Your credentials are revoked. Your careers are over. You will be billed for the full cost of this rescue and every piece of damaged equipment. If Alex doesn't make it, I will personally see to it that you are charged with negligent homicide."

Kelsi let out a horrified squeak.

The line went dead.

Holt pocketed the phone, his gray eyes boring into Bryan. "You'll be hearing from my legal team as well."

He turned away without another word, clipping himself onto the hoist line next to my capsule. As we were lifted into the churning, snow-filled sky, the last thing I saw was Bryan Acosta standing alone on the mountain, his face a mask of disbelief and utter ruin.

---

Holt POV:

The helicopter cabin jolted violently, throwing my weight against the safety harness.

Outside the reinforced windows, the Alaskan blizzard raged like a cornered beast.

Inside, the emergency red lights bathed the narrow space in a harsh, pulsing glow, casting deep shadows across the sharp angles of my jaw.

I did not care about the turbulence. My eyes were locked onto the stretcher bolted to the floor.

Alex lay there, completely still.

Her lips were a ghastly, bruised shade of purple. Her skin, usually so full of vibrant defiance, was the color of dirty ash.

There was no rise and fall to her chest. There was no life in her at all.

The paramedic straddled her, his hands locked together over her sternum. He drove his weight down in rapid, punishing compressions.

Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose, sliding off his chin and landing on the thick, insulated fabric of his winter gear.

"Come on," the paramedic grunted, his voice barely audible over the deafening roar of the rotors.

I stared at the cardiac monitor.

The green line crawled across the screen, flat and dead. A continuous, high-pitched tone pierced the noise of the engine.

That sound ripped straight through my chest. It dragged me back twenty years, to a sterile hospital room, watching a different flatline take my mother away while I stood by, small and useless.

I gripped the edge of the metal bench until my knuckles turned stark white.

Another massive air pocket hit the chopper. The aircraft dropped ten feet in a second.

The paramedic lost his footing. He stumbled backward, his hands slipping off Alex's chest. The compressions stopped.

I did not think. I moved.

I shoved the paramedic aside with enough force to send him crashing into the medical supply wall.

I dropped to my knees beside the stretcher, ignoring the biting cold of the metal floor.

I stacked my hands, locked my elbows, and drove the heel of my palm directly into the center of Alex's chest.

Her skin was like ice. The freezing temperature of her sternum seeped straight through my gloves, sending a violent spike of rage into my bloodstream.

I pushed down hard, feeling the sickening give of her ribs. One, two, three, four.

"Fly faster!" I roared over my shoulder, my voice raw and entirely stripped of its usual boardroom polish. "Get us to Anchorage now!"

"I'm redlining the engine, sir!" the pilot shouted back.

The long, continuous tone of the monitor mocked my efforts.

The paramedic recovered his balance and looked at the screen. He shook his head, his eyes full of grim finality.

"Sir, we've lost her," he yelled over the noise. "There are no life signs."

I stopped compressions for a fraction of a second. I reached out, grabbed the thick collar of his uniform, and yanked him down until his face was inches from mine.

I looked at him with the eyes of a starving wolf defending its kill.

"Get the defibrillator," I ordered, my voice dropping to a low, lethal octave. "Now."

The paramedic swallowed hard, terrified of the violence radiating from my body. He scrambled for the machine, his hands shaking as he pulled out the electrode paddles.

He handed them to me. I snatched them out of his grip.

I grabbed the collar of Alex's inner thermal shirt. I ripped it down the middle, the fabric tearing loudly, exposing the snow-white skin of her chest covered in angry red frostbite burns.

I pressed the cold metal paddles directly against her skin.

"Clear!" I shouted, hitting the discharge button.

The machine whined and delivered a massive electrical shock.

Alex's body jerked upward, her spine arching off the stretcher before she slammed back down onto the thin mattress.

I whipped my head toward the monitor. The green line remained perfectly flat.

My breathing turned heavy and ragged. The edges of my vision blurred with red. The absolute terror of losing her clawed at my throat.

I had guarded her for years in the digital shadows. I was not going to let death take her from me now.

"Max charge," I commanded, my voice cracking.

The machine hummed higher. I pressed the paddles down harder, feeling the rigid cold of her ribs.

"Clear!"

The second shock hit her. Her body convulsed violently.

She fell back. Still no breath. Still no heartbeat.

The temperature in the cabin seemed to drop to absolute zero. Even the pilot glanced back through the rearview mirror, his eyes filled with pity.

I threw the paddles onto the floor.

I leaned over her, ignoring the blood and the ice. I framed her freezing face with both of my large, warm hands.

I leaned down until my forehead rested heavily against hers. I closed my eyes.

"Do not die," I whispered, the sound rough and completely broken. "Do not let him win."

Deep in the dark, frozen abyss of her subconscious, something shifted.

Perhaps it was the heat of my skin. Perhaps it was the echo of Bryan's cowardly betrayal triggering the deepest, most violent hatred in her orphan soul. She despised being abandoned.

Suddenly, the flatline on the monitor hitched.

A tiny, weak peak appeared on the screen.

Then another. It was slow, erratic, but it was there.

The paramedic's eyes went wide. He pointed a trembling finger at the screen.

"We have a pulse!" he screamed. "She's back!"

The tension holding my spine together snapped. A heavy drop of cold sweat slid down the bridge of my nose and landed softly on Alex's pale cheek.

I pushed myself back up. I grabbed the thick thermal foil blanket from the rack.

I wrapped it tightly around her shivering body, tucking the edges under her shoulders with a gentleness that completely contradicted my brutal exterior.

I took her right hand, still devoid of any real warmth, and pressed her bruised knuckles firmly against my lips.

I turned my head and looked out the small, frost-covered window at the raging mountains below. The fear was gone. Only pure, unadulterated murder remained.

"Whatever the cost, I am going to make the two people left on that mountain wish they were dead."