Page 10 of Snowbound with the Santas

What the hell is going on?

My wobbling steps take me outside where a sudden cold wind pulls at my dress and stabs across my clammy bare shoulders. Yet, just like the cold tile floor, the drop in temperature barely registers in my mind.

No serviceflashes in the corner of my mobile, and I vaguely remember something on the radio about a change in the weather. A few steps further outside and my bare feet sink into ice-cold snow, but I don’t feel it.

My body still runs impossibly hot, fueled by my exhaustive, racing heart and spiraling mind.

If I can’t call Nina from here, then fuck it, I’ll call her on the way to the airport. I can’t stay here. I fucking can’t.

The picturesque ski lodge, with all of its twinkling lights and dancing reindeer on the roof, becomes dull in my mind. I slide through the snow, not feeling the fat flakes that drift down from the sky and land on my skin and hair, or the biting wind that cuts across the parking lot.

All I focus on is getting out of here.

It takes me no time at all to locate the small parking booth and swipe a set of keys from the stand inside. Then I wander the parking lot, blinking through tears for the telltale flash of lights indicating which jeep the keys belong to.

A big blue Jeep answers my button press, and I make a beeline for it. My frozen feet continue to slide on the snow while my quick steps become slower as I wade through the rising snow on the ground. None of it matters.

Once inside the jeep, I toss my purse into the opposite seat, slam the keys into the lock, and bring the jeep to life. Then I pull out of the parking lot and take a left toward the airport.

Or was it right…?

While driving, I have one hand on the steering wheel and the other on my phone. I repeatedly try to call Nina.

“Please,” I whisper into the dark of the car. “Please let me make the call. Please, please.”

Each call attempt fails, claiming a lack of reception. Even my attempts to access my flight information and the local airport to check flight times fail. How can a ski lodge like that operate with no reception?

With my attention split between my phone and the road, I don’t notice the increasingly heavy snowfall or the fact that the once grey road becomes completely white. The snow swallows up the trees alongside the road, and within minutes, I’m driving right through the center of a marshmallow.

The entire world is whiter, with signs and indicators swallowed up by the storm that descends within seconds.

My attention remains down on my phone, tapping the call over and over.

This can’t be happening. I need her. I need to get out of here.

I should never have come.

Fucking Ashton is here? How has he managed to worm his way back into my circle once again? And with those threats of telling everyone the truth about what happened that night six years ago… will he do it?

Will people take his side once they know the truth? Will they remain blind to what he put me through?

Probably. I certainly can’t count on my mother, given how her focus in the bedroom was on protecting her and Cecil and not her distraught daughter.

It feels like I’ve liked a week in a matter of hours, and now that I’m driving to the… to the…?

I finally give where I’m driving my full focus and realize pretty quickly that I have no clue where the hell I am. The storm has descended so quickly that I could have driven past the airport for all I knew, if I even took the right turn to begin with.

The wipers squeak furiously as they fly back and forth, fighting to provide me a clear line of sight to the white road in front of me. Snow swirls around the car, and I feel the cold for the first time.

The entire car is frozen.

I’m frozen.

My bare feet throb in time to my heartbeat and cold clings to my shoulders like a shawl.

“Fuck…” Just as the gravity of my decision hits me, the entire Jeep suddenly slides to the left as if there’s no more road to drive on. I drop my phone with a gasp and clutch the wheel with both hands. Pulling it to the right, I attempt to guide the Jeep back to where I think the road is, but the vehicle has absolutely no traction on the snow-covered ground.

In a panic, I slam both bare feet onto the brake pedal. The Jeep screeches loudly, and I’m thrown to the side as the vehicle starts to spin.

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