Page 4 of Whiteout

Snow blanketed the windshield, but the car’s interior wasn’t cold, so not very long. Something warm and wet tickled her forehead. She swiped at it. Blood smeared her fingers.

“Don’t panic,” Breanna told herself as she searched for her phone.

Finding it on the passenger side floorboard, she prayed for a signal, not that she expected to be so lucky.

“No bars.” She tossed her phone to the seat. “Course not.”

Think, Bree.

Just sitting here in the car wasn’t going to help. She had to assess the situation, at least. Breanna shrugged into her jacket, and winding her scarf around her neck, went to open the car door.

No go.

“Dammit.”

It wouldn’t budge, forcing her to crawl over the center console to the other side. Pushing the passenger door open, crystallized ice pellets cut into her face like a million tiny daggers. Breanna pulled her scarf up over her nose, feeling along the side of the car until she reached the windshield. The car, buried under snow, seemed wedged into the mountain.

Leaning over the windshield, Breanna flipped the wipers up, so they wouldn’t freeze to the glass. What the fuck was she doing that for? If she didn’t get her ass back inside the car, it was her they’d find frozen.

In May.

After twenty feet of snow melted.

And now she was wet and cold, shivering inside her useless, girly, white car. She turned the hazard lights on. Another car would surely come along, right? But how would anyone be able to spot her in this weather? The snow was coming down in thick, sideways sheets, drifting with the ferocious winds, and rapidly accumulating.

That’s when it hit her. She could die here. On a road named Dalton. Sitting in her car all alone.

“Fuck that.”

She’d watched one of those survivalist shows on National Geographic once. These guys got caught in a snowstorm while hiking. They dug into the snow, and like Inuits in an igloo, they sheltered there. Maybe the snow could insulate the car from the freezing temperatures outside, protecting her from hypothermia and frostbite—for a little while, anyway.

Breanna hit the ignition button to restart the engine and blast the heat for a few minutes. Not for too long. She hadn’t thought to check to see if the exhaust pipe was clear, and she wasn’t about to trade comfort for carbon monoxide poisoning.

Click, click, click.

She hit the start button again.

Nothing.

Squeezing her eyelids closed, her head fell back against the seat. What the fuck was she going to do now? She had a throw blanket in the backseat, the duffel bag she packed for the trip, a few bottles of water, and half a Styrofoam cup of cold, rancid coffee from the gas station on 395.

“Flashlight.”

Breanna reached into the glove compartment. The last time she was home, her stepdad got her one of those heavy-duty Maglites, the same kind cops carry, and put it in there. Being he was LAPD, Nathan Benjamin was always doing things like that.

“Just in case,” he said. “Makes an excellent weapon too, should you ever need one.”

She laughed it off at the time. “Really, Dad?”

“Yes, really. Lots of nut jobs out there,” he said, closing the glove compartment. “We worry about you, okay?”

She wasn’t laughing now. Holding the flashlight in her hands, unbidden tears came to her eyes. Blinking them back, Breanna switched it on. She placed it on the dashboard, aiming the beam out the passenger side window, then reaching behind her, she covered herself with the blanket from the back seat.

And she waited.

Thump, thump, thump.

Scrape.

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