Page 16 of Stuck With Mr. Frosty

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to hold it together. This isn’t the worst thing to happen to me. That was losing Mom. If I could get through that, then I can get through this.

But as the wind howls louder and snow whips around, blinding me, wolves start to howl in the distance.

A shiver runs down my spine, and though I want to move faster, Aiden’s voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me that it’s important to keep my pace. That I need to conserve my energy.

I take a deep breath and try to still the racing of my heart, but it’s impossible. I didn’t think I would ever be in a position like this, but now that I am, I don’t know how I’m going to get out of it.

Just a little while longer. I just have to keep going for a little while longer.

But I don’t know where I am or what I’m trying to get to anymore.

My boot catches on something again, and I go crashing backward, landing hard on my butt, my head cracking against the ground. Stars dance across my vision and pain ricochets through my body, settling in my ankle.

I groan and sit up even though everything in my body is telling me to stay down with my smushed backpack. I could just spend the rest of the evening on the ground.

If it weren’t for the howling wind.

Or the wolves in the distance.

And then there’s the problem of the snow still coming down in a blinding white sheet, making it hard to see anything around me.

“Please, please, please,” I whisper, trying to ease my ankle out of the rocks it’s caught between. “This can’t be happening right now.”

But it is.

The wind gets colder as I tug at my boot, pulling the laces and trying to get my foot out, but even that doesn’t work. And I don’t want to get my foot wet. The last thing I need is frostbite on my toes.

I stick my foot back in the boot and lace it up tight.

All right, just take a moment to think this through. The worst thing I can do right now is panic.

I take a deep breath and blow it out, trying to slow my racing heart. Everything is going to be fine. I just have to take a moment to breathe.

But even after a couple moments of breathing, I still can’t get my foot out.

And the wolves are getting louder.

CHAPTER 8

AIDEN

Rosie trudges along beside me. “Do you think we’re going to find her soon?”

Ryder pulls up on my other side, hoisting his bag higher on his back. “The storm is getting bad. If we don’t find her in the next few minutes, we’re going to have to turn back and try again in the morning.”

I glare at Rosie. “If you’d told me that she went out hiking when the storm started, we wouldn’t be out here right now.”

Tears spring to her eyes. “I know. I didn’t think anything of it when I came home and found the note. If I knew the weather was going to get this bad, I would’ve come to find you.”

I sigh and stop, huddling in on myself to keep warmer against the wind that’s whipping around me. “Why don’t both of you head back to the cabin together?”

“No.” Ryder shakes his head. “We’re not going to leave you out here alone to search for her. It’s too dangerous.”

I sigh and look around, watching the red light I have attached to Honey bouncing through the thick snow falling. She circles back, the light growing bigger as she comes closer to me.

“Aiden, what are we going to do?” Rosie’s voice wobbles and then breaks. “I know you don’t like her much, but we can’t leave her out here.”

“Do you know where she might’ve gone?” I motion Honey to my side, holding onto her collar to make sure that she stays with me while we’re not moving.

---