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Authors: Jennifer Estep

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Daphne didn't know that I hadn't talked to Metis about the Reaper. Instead, I'd told my friend that the professor was looking into things. The vague answer had seemed to satisfy the Valkyrie. Plus, I hadn't said anything else to her about the Fenrir wolf that I'd seen in the trees yesterday and how I thought the creature wasn't just a wild wolf hanging around the mountain resort.
I shrugged. “Nothing's happened since we got here yesterday. Maybe he didn't make the trip to the resort. Or maybe he's having too good a time to want to kill me today.”
I laughed at my lame joke, but Daphne didn't smile. She just looked at me, worry filling her face. She was right, though. I hadn't forgotten about the Reaper. In fact, that was one reason why I'd decided not to play any of the carnival games—so I could spy on the crowd instead.
I'd looked at everyone we'd passed today, all the other kids we'd talked to, all the profs manning the booths, all the hotel staff members making cotton candy and caramel apples. I'd even taken my gloves off and accidentally-on-purpose touched a few of them, just to see what kind of flashes I might get, just to see if I could figure out who the Reaper was. But I hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. Everyone was focused on the carnival, all the games they wanted to play, and all the prizes they wanted to win.
“I'll take the chair lift and go straight down to the hotel,” I said, crossing my heart with my finger. “Promise. I'll be fine. You'll see.”
Daphne still hesitated. “Well, if you're sure ...”
I gave her a little push. “I'm sure. Now, go take that hammer away from Carson before he hurts himself with it.”
“Yeah,” Daphne sighed. “He's not very good with it, is he? But luckily he more than makes up for it in other ways.”
She gave me a knowing smirk, and I just rolled my eyes.
“So Carson's a great kisser. Whatever,” I said, then grinned. “Although maybe if I'm lucky, I'll discover Preston has some similar talents after lunch.”
 
I left Daphne and Carson at the carnival and headed back over to the chair lift. To my surprise, it wasn't operating, and the chairs dangled like wind chimes strung on the thick, black cables. A grizzled guy with a beard that reached down to his waist crouched by one of the steel stations that jutted up out of the snow. A hatch was open on the bottom of the station, and the guy clipped and twisted the wires inside, working on the electric circuits or whatever controlled the lift.
“Uh, excuse me, but why isn't the chair lift working right now?” I asked.
The guy pulled his head back out of the box and stared at me. His bushy white beard made him look like Santa Claus. “We've been having some electrical problems. Thought I'd take care of it while all you kids were busy playing your carnival games.”
“Okay, so when are you going to be done? In a few minutes, maybe?”
The guy shook his head. “Nope. I've got at least another half hour's worth of work here. Probably closer to an hour.”
Frustration filled me. I knew it wasn't the guy's fault he was doing his maintenance right now, it was just my bad luck.
“Well, how am I supposed to get back down to the hotel? I'm meeting someone for lunch.”
He shrugged again. “I guess you'll have to walk down the slopes. That's what the other kids are doing.”
He pointed, and sure enough, I saw a few figures at the very bottom of the mountain, walking through the alpine village and heading for the hotel. Tracks crisscrossed the snow where the other kids had wound their way down the steep slope.
“Thanks,” I said.
The guy nodded, stuck his head back into the box, and started fiddling with all the wires inside again.
I should have headed toward the hotel immediately, but instead, I hesitated, my eyes scanning the snowy landscape, looking for the Fenrir wolf. I hadn't seen the monster since yesterday, but that didn't mean that it wasn't still lurking around the resort somewhere, waiting to pounce on me the second it got the chance.
My phone vibrated again, cutting into my thoughts, and I pulled it out of my pocket and read the message.
Here already. Waiting 4 U. P.
I bit my lip and put my phone back into my pocket. I didn't want to stand up Preston, and I didn't want to text him some lame excuse about not wanting to walk down the mountain by myself, because there might be a mythological monster after me. He'd think I was crazy. Besides, there were tons of people on the mountain today making tons of noise. Surely, those things would be enough to make the wolf stay hidden wherever it was.
So I stepped into the tracks the other kids had made and set off down the mountain. Despite the fact the other students had plowed a path, the snow was still deep, coming up to midthigh on me in places. I floundered through it, doggedly going down the slope one slippery step at a time.
I moved as fast as I could, but it was slow going, and I was just debating whether or not I should text Preston to let him know I'd be late when I heard the sound I'd been dreading—the low, throaty growl of the Fenrir wolf.
The ominous sound slithered across the snow to me, and I froze, wondering where it had come from. I'd trudged about halfway down the mountain by this point, and the chair lift and the Winter Carnival were up and off to my left. Happy shrieks of laughter mixed with the loud calliope music on that side of the slope.
Okay, the wolf definitely wasn't over there. That only left one other option.
I slowly turned my head to the right, and there the creature was—crouched down in the snow just inside the tree line, like it had been yesterday when I'd first spotted it next to the bunny slope. I'd been so focused on meeting Preston and getting down the slope as fast as I could that I hadn't been paying attention to where I was going, just blindly following the tracks, and I'd drifted over toward the thicket of pine trees that covered this side of the mountain—and the Fenrir wolf.
It looked the same as I remembered—a big, powerful body covered with shaggy, ash-colored fur and burning crimson eyes that seemed to glow with a particular hatred for me. The wolf's lips drew back, exposing its many, many teeth, and it licked its lips with its long, red tongue before its chops drew back in something that looked like a supremely satisfied smile—just like the smile the drawing in my myth-history book had given me back at the academy.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, Gwen!
I cursed myself. How could I have been so freaking
stupid?
I knew I had to stay away from the trees, but I'd been so distracted by the thought of having lunch with a cute guy that I'd practically wandered over and given the wolf a pat on the head. Here you go, puppy dog. Here's a tasty treat just for
you
.
Before I could worry too much about the wolf and whether or not it was going to leap out of the trees and tear me into bite-size pieces, a tremendous roar ripped through the air, and the ground shook, like the mountain was the epicenter of a violent earthquake.
I fell on my ass in the snow and just sat there, stunned, while the ground bucked and heaved beneath me. Above my head, the chairs on the lift swung back and forth at sharp, crazy angles,
creak-creak-creak
ing with every tremor until I thought they might snap off the cables and come crashing down right on top of my head.
As suddenly as it had started, the intense shaking stopped, and I shook off my shock and scrambled to my feet. I shielded my eyes against the dazzling glare and looked up. Something must have exploded on top of the mountain, because I could see bright orange flames up there, licking at the sky like they wanted to burn all of the blue out of it.
I let out a tense breath. Whatever was going on, it was happening at the top of the mountain and not down here where I was at....
That's when the rumbling started. This deep, violent, intense rumbling that rippled through the whole mountain, the roar of it drowning out everything else. I half expected the snow to split open under my feet and for me to start falling down, down, down into the middle of the earth.
And there was ... there was ... there was
something
coming down the mountain now. I squinted, trying to see exactly what it was....
My breath caught in my throat, and I realized what the rumbling was.
The explosion that rocked the mountaintop hadn't just started a fire—it had also dislodged the snow. Thousands and thousands of tons of it, all barreling toward me, until the towering, white, shadowy wave of it blotted out the sun.
An avalanche was tearing down the mountain—and I was right in the middle of its path.
Chapter 13
It took my brain maybe half a second to realize what was going on. That, yes, there was an avalanche on the mountain, that the snow was crashing down on itself with tremendous, unstoppable force—and that it was getting closer and closer with every breath I took.
I might not be the outdoorsy type, but I'd seen enough nature programs on television to realize I had two choices: stay where I was, get swept away by the avalanche, and die or make a run for the tree line and hope that the gnarled, knotty pines would shield me from the snow. Of course, the only problem with option number two was that the Fenrir wolf was waiting in the trees to rip me into bloody bits. Not much of a chance of me surviving either way, but the odds were slightly better with the wolf. People survived getting attacked by grizzly bears. A Fenrir wolf couldn't be much worse than that—right?
I was going to find out.
I picked up my feet and raced across the snow, running as fast as I could through the powder and heading straight for the tree line. The roar of the avalanche grew louder and louder until it drowned out everything else, even my own desperate, panicked breaths and the erratic
thump-thump-thump
of my heart. The air felt dense and heavy with snow, and I couldn't get enough oxygen into my lungs, but I kept running. I knew that if I stopped, even for a second, the avalanche would catch me and carry me away.
And then there was the wolf. It paced back and forth inside the thicket of trees, looking at me and then up at the snow that was probably going to bury us both.
I didn't have time to tiptoe around the creature or keep it from attacking me, so I threw myself into the trees and scrambled forward, trying to get into the very middle of the thicket. The wolf stayed where it was, watching me with its burning red eyes. They grew brighter and brighter as the snow rushed toward us and the landscape darkened.
I plopped down on my ass in front of the thickest, strongest tree I saw, ripped off my silver ski jacket, wrapped it around my waist, and used the sleeves to tie myself to the trunk. Then I curled my arms and legs around the sturdy trunk, ignoring the sharp, sticky needles that scratched my face and the pinecones that snagged in my hair. I anchored myself to the tree as best I could.
I was two feet away from the Fenrir wolf—well within killing distance. All it would have to do would be to lean forward and snap its jaws around my neck, and I'd be dead.
Instead of leaping on top of me, the wolf watched me all the while, its pointed ears laid back flat against its enormous head. It had hunkered down in the snow just like I had. The wolf's mouth was open, and it was probably growling at me, although I couldn't hear it above the roar of the avalanche.
“This is not my fault, so don't kill me, okay?” I yelled to the creature, even though it was useless.
The wolf's red, narrowed eyes were the last thing I saw before the snow hit me, and the world went white.
 
Everything was just—
violent
. Roars and crashes and forces pulling me every which way, threatening to rip my arms and legs from around the tree trunk, threatening to sweep me away and bury me deep, deep down in the snow where no one would ever, ever find me.
I tightened my grip and held on.
I couldn't see, and I could barely breathe. There was just noise and pressure and stinging slaps of snow. I don't know how long I huddled there, my face mashed against the rough bark, my whole body pressed against the trunk, my arms aching from the effort of hanging onto the pine tree. My lungs burned from trying to suck down enough oxygen to stay conscious, and ice crystals pricked my face like thousands of tiny daggers. All the while, the snow slammed into me, a cold undertow trying to pull me down, down, down the mountain with it.
And then it stopped.
The roars, crashes, and forces slowed, sputtered, and then slid away all together. It had stopped—the avalanche had finally stopped.
I opened my aching eyes, but the world was still white. Why? Why would everything still be white? My brain just did not want to work, and it took me a second to realize I was buried up to my neck in the snow, my face still digging into the trunk of the tree I'd tied myself to. For a moment I panicked, wondering how I was going to get out of here—and how long it would take before I froze to death.
I made myself think of my mom. She'd always told me to stop a second and take some deep breaths whenever I was panicked, scared, or upset. Yeah, I was definitely all of those things right now. But Mom had always said that no matter how bad things got, no matter how much trouble I was in, the worst thing to do was to panic on top of it. So I made myself focus on my memories of her and fixed the image of her face in my mind. Long, brown hair; warm violet eyes; a beautiful, wise smile.
Mom
.
I kept on breathing and thinking about her. The panic didn't completely fade away, since I was in some pretty serious trouble here, but it wasn't overwhelming me now either. I could manage it now. Slowly, reluctantly, I let go of my mom's image and let her face fade from my mind, feeling the sharp ache of her loss once more. Then I opened my eyes and started to move my arms and legs. Everything was still attached, even though I felt bruised, battered, and sore from head to toe.
The jacket I'd used to tie myself to the tree was long gone, ripped away by the snow. So were my cell phone and the gloves that I'd put in my pockets. I don't know how I'd held on to the trunk for as long as I had. Maybe because I'd known I simply had to in order to survive.
I clawed and pushed and heaved and pulled my way out of the snowbank, wriggling away from the tree that had saved my life. It was twisted and bent now, the needles long gone and the branches sheared off into broken, spearlike pieces. All the other pines in the thicket looked the same, like they'd all been scalped. Once I was free, I lay there in the snow, panting, just grateful I was still alive....
A soft, almost whimpering sound whispered through the crushed trees.
The wolf!
I'd completely forgotten about it in the roaring confusion of the avalanche. My head snapped around, looking for the creature, waiting for it to leap out of a snowbank and claw me to death.
I spotted it lying on its side about ten feet away from me—with blood on the snow all around it. I looked closer and realized that a long, jagged branch stuck out of one of the wolf's legs, like an arrow. The force of the avalanche must have thrown the monster against a tree and shoved the branch through its leg, although I didn't know how the snow hadn't carried the wolf away completely. I supposed that was just a monster for you—surviving no matter what.
The wolf saw me staring at it and let out another low, pitiful, pain-filled whimper. It looked at me with its red, red eyes and twitched its injured leg in my direction, almost like it wanted me to somehow ... help it.
I bit my lip, wondering if this was some sort of trick. Despite Metis's lecture in myth-history class, I didn't know much about Fenrir wolves. Well, okay, I knew this particular wolf would have killed me if the avalanche hadn't caught us both. That it had been ordered to kill me by its Reaper master.
The smart thing to do would have been to crawl away from it as quick as I could, to get to my feet, stumble out of the crushed thicket, and hope there was someone on the way to rescue me. But I couldn't just leave the wolf here like that. Not all wounded, bloody, broken-looking, and crying like a puppy who'd just lost its mother. My mom would have tried to help it, even if it was a monster, even if it had been sent to kill her. That was just the kind of person she'd been—and it was the kind of person I wanted to be, too.
“Nike,” I whispered. “If you're watching me right now, I would really, really appreciate it if you would keep that thing from eating me.”
There was no answer, of course. According to everything that Metis had told us in myth-history class, the gods rarely appeared to mortals—and even when they did, it was strictly on their terms. After the end of the Chaos War, the gods had made a pact not to interfere in mortal affairs, so they wouldn't destroy the world with their magic and meddling, and they stuck to the agreement for the most part, letting their Champions do their dirty work for them. But asking Nike for help made me feel a little better, even if I knew that she wouldn't magically pop into view and solve all my problems.
Crazy—what I was about to do was absolutely crazy.
But I did it anyway.
I drew in a breath and crawled across the snow to the Fenrir wolf. The creature watched me with its red eyes, although its gaze was now dark and dull with pain. I stopped about a foot away from it, looking at the wound. The branch wasn't all that big, but it had to hurt, stuck through the wolf's leg that like, just the way it had hurt when I'd accidentally rammed a needle through my finger while trying to sew a button on a shirt once.
Hands shaking, I reached forward and grabbed hold of the branch. I didn't get much of a vibe off the broken piece—it was just wood, after all—but the wolf let out a low, warning growl. For a second, I thought it was going to reach up with its other paw and rip my throat open with its sharp, black claws. Instead, the creature put its head back down, burying its muzzle in the snow, and closed its eyes, bracing itself for what it knew I was going to do.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered.
I shoved the branch through the wolf's leg. It took all the strength and bravery I had to force the wood through the creature's muscle and out the other side, but I did it. Then I grabbed the bloody stick and threw it as far away as I could. The broken branch hit one of the flattened trees and fluttered to the snow.
The Fenrir wolf let out a horrible, horrible howl, and before I could blink, I was on my back in the snow, with the monster on top of me, its paws as heavy as lead weights on my chest. I froze, staring up into its bloodred eyes. The wolf leaned closer, its breath hot, heavy, and sour on my face. I tensed, waiting for it to sink its teeth into me... .
The wolf leaned forward and licked my cold cheek.
Its tongue was wet, heavy, and as rough as sandpaper against my skin, but the wolf's touch was gentle enough. My psychometry kicked in the second it licked me, and I got a series of flashes off it, mostly of the avalanche and all the snow slamming into its body just like it had mine. But there was also a warmer, softer feeling in the mix, a sense that the wolf was actually ... grateful to me for getting the branch out of its leg. For helping it when I could have just crawled away and left it here alone and injured in the snow.
The wolf stared down at me, paws still on my chest, its shaggy tail thumping from side to side and spraying us both with snow. It seemed like ... it expected me to
do
something. Maybe my mind was completely gone, because there was only one thing I could think of right now that might satisfy it. I reached up and awkwardly patted the side of its head, since that was all I could reach.
“Nice puppy,” I whispered, and passed out.

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