Clare Peterson is rich, confident and beautiful, but even she knows money can't rescue her from her loneliness. As an unremarkable year draws to an end, she is shipped off to a ski trip in the company of strangers; her father's idea of love, but tor...
Brandon knew that it would have to be him; he nodded his head and sighed. "I guess it will have to be me." He couldn't help but notice the relief that washed over her. I'm a sacrificial lamb, he thought to himself.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"How long do you think it'll take?" Matt asked anxiously.
"The food?" Brandon asked. "Not too long."
"No," Matt said, shaking his head. "I mean the whole thing, till we get up there."
"Depends on how much we take up and how good you two are at climbing," Brandon replied.
"Us two?" Jack echoed in shock.
"Yeah," Brandon said. "I can't climb with a busted arm."
"Oh," Jack lowered his gaze.
Clare eyed the body of John Wilbur. "What about him?"
"I'm sorry, Clare," Brandon quietly said. "We can't take him."
"But ..." she protested.
"I'm sorry, I know what you're thinking, but we can't possibly take his body."
"But, we're only going up to the road," she said. "Aren't we?"
He looked straight into her eyes. "We may have to make a move, or maybe not; besides, our plan is not to take everything and everyone." He looked at all of them. "Otherwise we'll have to take all of them."
He sombrely looked at the wreckage. "We're not leaving them here forever. We're finding help and bringing it back here," he said.
"But we knew the guy," Matt added quietly.
"Yes, we did," was all Brandon could say. He knew they couldn't afford to lose any more time. They had already wasted two whole days waiting for help which hadn't arrived.
"I guess you're right," Clare finally said, then stood up. "So what are we waiting for? Let's get the hell out of here. Let go find some help."
"That's more like it," Brandon said.
Clare stepped slightly away from him. His oddly cool remark frightened her.
Having sensed the change in her body language, he smiled. "I meant your spirit ... we need it." He turned to Jack. "Let's go check out the contents of those bags."
"So where do we start?" she heard Jack ask as the three hovered above the pile of bags.
"Take one each and see what we find." Brandon's deep voice floated back.
"Need any help?" she asked, approaching. She addressed Brandon. "We'll deal with these, how about you go get that bag you talked about?" Nodding, he turned on his heel and walked away without a word.
As he drew closer to the bus, chills ran down his back. Unease slid down and settled somewhere in his legs. For a moment he hesitated. He could feel three pairs of eyes upon him. "Let's get this over and done with," he whispered, mentally shaking himself in an attempt to thwart the spiders churning up his insides.
