Snow Angel: Rebirth

Chapter Two

Jake sat in the wooden chair beside the bed, the fire in the corner stove crackling as it fought the storm gathering outside. The cabin was warm, but the woman on the bed looked untouched by it. Her chest rose and fell in slow shallow motions, each breath sounding like it had to claw its way out of her body.

He reached for his phone on the bedside table, thumb hovering over the screen. No service. Just like always.

He let out a frustrated breath and looked back at her.

Whoever had done this hadn’t just hurt her — they’d meant to break her. The lashes on her back were too precise, too controlled. Someone had taken their time. Someone had wanted her to suffer.

He glanced at the pile of ruined clothing on the floor. Loro Piana. Prada. A woman who wore that kind of money didn’t just vanish. She didn’t end up half‑dead on a mountain. There should’ve been news. Alerts. A search. But the radio had been silent.

He looked at her again. Still unconscious. Still fighting for air. Still alive. Barely.

Jake leaned over and pressed his fingers to her neck. Her pulse fluttered against his skin, fast but steadier than before. He grabbed the thermometer from his kit and clicked it into her ear. A slight rise. Good. Not enough, but good.

He sat back, rubbing a hand over his jaw. He could call the cops. He could hand her over and hope they didn’t send her straight back to whoever had done this. He’d seen it happen too many times — women returned to the very monsters who’d put them in the hospital.

Or he could call Doc.

He sat there, weighing the options, anger simmering under his ribs. Damn it. This wasn’t like him. He made decisions. He didn’t freeze.

But the brutality of her condition had knocked something loose in him. Monsters had found his mountain again.

Suddenly, the woman gasped. A sharp, broken sound. Her breathing shifted, turning ragged and panicked. Jake shot out of the chair, gripping the wooden frame of the bed so hard his knuckles whitened.

The calm rhythm from minutes ago was gone. Her body was failing.

Under the blankets, she thrashed weakly, her long blonde hair sticking to her sweat‑damp forehead. Her skin had changed; no longer ice‑cold, but a mottled gray slicked with cold sweat.

Jake leaned close. Her nostrils flared against the plastic tube keeping her airway open. Her chest hitched in short, desperate bursts. Each breath came with a wet, clicking sound from her left side. The unmistakable grind of broken ribs fighting against one another.

She let out a low, strangled whimper. Unconscious, but trapped in pain. Her abdomen tightened as she tried to force air into lungs that refused to expand.

Jake grabbed the thermometer again. Ninety‑three point one. Rising — but wrong. Too fast. Too unstable.

He pressed his fingers to her neck. Her pulse hammered against his skin — frantic, fluttering, barely holding on.

Her body was spiraling. He could see it in her face, in the way her breaths stuttered, in the way her pulse raced like it was trying to outrun death.

A cold dread pooled in his stomach.

He hated this feeling. Helplessness. It had followed him from battlefields to this mountain, and now it sat heavy in his chest as he watched her fight for every breath.

She needed help he couldn’t give.

Jake crossed the cabin in three long strides and yanked the encrypted satellite phone from the wardrobe, anger tightening his grip. It was a relic of the life he’d buried with his family — a line that hadn’t rung when he needed it, when Lindsay needed him. He’d sworn he’d never touch it again.

He dialed the number he’d memorized years ago.

Three rings. Then a gravelly voice.

“Talk to me.”

“Doc, I found a woman.”

“Good job, Jake,” the older man said lightly.

“Not like that,” Jake snapped. “She’s hurt. Bad. Someone whipped her. Her ribs are a mess. She’s freezing and burning up at the same time. I’ve done what I can, but she’s crashing. Doc, this is above my paygrade.”

Silence. Heavy. Then movement — Doc grabbing gear, clearing space.

“Is she breathing on her own?”

“Barely. I’ve got her airway open, but she’s fading.”

More rustling. Then the roar of an engine firing up.

“I’m twenty miles out,” Doc said. “Forty‑five minutes if the powder doesn’t bury me. You need to keep her alive until I get there.”

Jake’s throat tightened. “Tell me what to do.”

“First, stop those ribs from moving. Pad them. Wrap them tight. Slow the pain, slow the heart.”

Jake grabbed a towel, hands already moving.

“What about her temperature?” he asked.

“Hold her where she is,” Doc said sharply. “Don’t warm her any further. If she spikes, she’ll crash. Keep her wrapped, keep her breathing, and don’t let her bleed through those dressings.”

The engine roared louder.

“If she fades,” Doc added, “you start CPR.”

The line went dead.

Jake stood alone in the cabin, the storm howling outside, the woman’s ragged breathing filling the room like a countdown.