Chapter One
“Nola!”
Cold. She knew only cold. Unrelenting, irredeemable cold.
Pain grew deep within the ice.
The cold held no power to hurt her. The pain came from something else.
A ragged, itching ache that blossomed at the center of her stomach, tingling like a thousand bugs burrowing inside of her.
If the bugs were going to eat her away, it would be best if they worked more quickly. If there were nothing left of her, there could be no more cold.
Maybe.
Maybe it will all end.
She formed the words in her mind.
More words existed, fighting through the fierce frost that enveloped her.
“If we don’t move now, we’ll never make it out.”
The words faded from her ears before she could think of their meaning.
“She would never, not in a million years…”
A million years. The cold will k
