A Division of the Cold

The engine ticked like a bomb counting down, a hot, metallic smell fouling the frozen air. He was upside down, held in place by the seatbelt biting into his collarbone, and the only sound besides the engine was the slow, wet drip of his own blood onto the crushed roof.

The steering column had tried to break his legs. It hadn't succeeded, but it had made a serious effort, pinning his left knee against the mangled dashboard in a grip of hot, sharp plastic and sheared metal. He was hanging upside down, the seatbelt a thick, unyielding strap across his chest and shoulder, digging into the soft tissue of his neck. Blood, warm and slick, dripped from his scalp onto the car's headliner, each drop landing with a soft, absorbent patter inches from his face. The world, a smear of white snow and black, skeletal trees through the shattered windshield, was inverted. A low, persistent ringing, the high C of a struck tuning fork, vibrated deep inside his skull.

Breathe. The command was a flicker, not a thought. His lungs obeyed, but the intake of air was shallow, snagging on a broken rib that felt like a hot shard of glass. The air tasted of antifreeze and burnt oil and something coppery that was his own. The engine, somewhere behind and below him, gave a final, shuddering cough, and then the ticking began. A rhythmic, cooling tick-tick-tick that sounded too much like a clock. He closed his eyes against the dizzying wrongness of the hanging trees.

Focus on a thing. Any thing. His father’s voice, a ghost from a riverside twenty years gone. *Don’t look at the whole problem, Saul. Look at the first part of the problem.* The first part of the problem was the seatbelt. He brought his right hand up, the movement slow and heavy, as if dragging it through water. His fingers were numb, clumsy. He fumbled for the release buckle, the plastic square slick with something—he didn't want to know what. He pressed. Nothing. The mechanism was jammed, the pressure of his entire body weight torquing it into place. He pressed again, grunting, putting the force of his shoulder into his thumb. The shard in his chest ground against bone. A black wave rolled behind his eyes, sparkling with tiny, distant lights. He stopped, gasping, letting his arm fall. It smacked against the passenger seat, now hanging above him like a misplaced ceiling.

Okay. Plan B. He twisted, a movement that sent a fresh agony through his knee and ribs, and felt for the knife he kept clipped to his pocket. The pocket was there, but the knife was gone. Of course it was gone. The entire car had become a centrifuge, its contents scattered. He could see his satellite phone, or what was left of it, wedged into the spiderweb cracks of the windshield, its screen a dead, black mirror. Useless.

His left hand. He tried to move it and found it trapped between the side of his seat and the crumpled driver's side door. He pulled. A spike of pain, white-hot and absolute, shot from his wrist up to his elbow. He screamed, a raw, choked sound that was swallowed by the sound-dampening blanket of snow outside. It wasn't just trapped. It was broken. He could feel the loose grate of bone. He stopped pulling, panting, the smell of his own sweat now sharp in the enclosed space. The ringing in his ears pitched higher. Don't look at the whole problem. The buckle. Just the buckle.

He tried again with his right hand, this time using his index and middle fingers to brace against the side of the buckle while his thumb mashed the release button. He pushed until he felt the tendons in his forearm scream. A click. Not a full release, but a shift. A giving of tension. He slumped back in relief, the movement sending another jolt through his ribs. He took three shallow, careful breaths, then pushed again. This time, the buckle sprang open with a loud, metallic crack. Gravity, sudden and brutal, took hold. He fell, not far, but hard, his head and shoulder slamming into the crushed roof of the SUV. The world went from black with bright sparks to just black.

Consciousness returned not as a light, but as a cold. A deep, penetrating cold that had sunk into his bones. It was the first thing he felt. The second was the sticky, half-frozen mat of his own blood in his hair. He was lying on his side, curled against the concave surface of the roof. The driver's side window was gone, a jagged frame opening onto the snow. Cold air poured in, a physical presence. It was getting dark. The flat, gray light of a winter afternoon was fading into a bruised purple.

He pushed himself up with his good arm, hissing as his body protested every movement. The pain was no longer a collection of sharp points, but a single, full-body ache with specific, excruciating centers of focus: his head, his ribs, his left knee, his left wrist. The wrist was swelling, the skin tight and shiny over the distended joint. He crawled toward the broken window, dragging his trapped leg. The steering column still had it, but the angle was different now. He could almost get it free. He braced his right foot against the center console and pushed. The plastic groaned. The metal edge that had him pinned bit deeper into his shin. He gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw bunching into knots. He smelled his own fear, a sour, animal scent.

He remembered the impact. Not the details, but the feeling. The sickening lurch as the back wheels lost their grip on the ice-slicked asphalt. The split-second of weightlessness as the SUV left the road. He’d been watching the rearview mirror, watching for the black sedan that had been tailing him since he left the city. He’d seen it crest the last hill, a dark, predatory shape against the snow. He’d stomped on the accelerator, a stupid, panicked move on a road like this. And then the world had become a chaotic blur of white and green and the deafening shriek of tortured metal.

Are they coming? The thought was a jolt of pure adrenaline. They must have seen him go off the road. They would be methodical. They would stop, get out, walk to the edge of the embankment, and look down. They wouldn't assume the crash had done the job. Their instructions, he knew, would be to confirm. He had to get out of the car. He had to get out now.

He gave another desperate shove with his good leg. A piece of the dashboard snapped, and his trapped knee came free with a wet, tearing sound from the fabric of his pants. He tumbled forward, his face landing inches from the broken window. Freedom. He sucked in a lungful of frigid air. It felt like swallowing ice. He could see the snowbank where the SUV had come to rest, a deep drift against a thicket of pine. The trees stood silent, their branches heavy with snow. There was no sound of another car, no voices, no crunch of boots on the road above.

Maybe they didn't see. Maybe he’d gained enough distance that they’d rounded the curve and just kept going, thinking he was still ahead. It was a thin hope, but it was all he had. He began the awkward, painful process of wriggling his way out of the car. He pushed his shoulders through the window frame first, the remaining shards of glass tearing at the fabric of his coat. Then he hooked his right arm over the bottom of the doorframe—now the top—and pulled. His broken rib screamed, and for a moment, the world swam again. He hung there, half in, half out, his body a dead weight. The cold was leaching the strength from him.

Move. The word was a fire in his gut. He kicked with his good leg, finding purchase on the headrest of the passenger seat, and propelled himself outward. He fell clumsily into the snow, landing on his injured side. The impact drove the air from his lungs in a pained whoosh. He lay there, face down in the snow, the frozen crystals stinging the cuts on his forehead. The silence of the forest was absolute. It pressed in on him, a heavy, indifferent weight. It was a silence he knew. He’d grown up in a quiet like this, but this wasn't the peaceful quiet of home. This was the empty, waiting quiet of a place that didn't care if you lived or died.

He needed to take stock. He rolled onto his back, a monumental effort, and stared up at the darkening sky. A few pale stars were beginning to appear. His coat, a thin city jacket meant for the walk from the car to the office, was already soaked through on one side. His pants were torn at the knee, the skin beneath raw and bleeding. The blood was freezing into a dark crust. His left wrist was a useless, throbbing appendage. He needed to get back in the car. He needed the emergency kit from the back.

The irony was a bitter taste in his mouth. The kit had been a gift from his sister, Lena. “For your ridiculous road trips to nowhere,” she’d said, pressing the bright orange pack into his hands. “It’s got a thermal blanket and everything. For when you finally get yourself properly lost.” He’d laughed and tossed it in the back, where it had remained for two years. Now it might be the only thing that could keep him alive.

Getting to his feet was a clumsy, agonizing ordeal. He used his good hand to push himself into a sitting position, then onto his knees. His head swam with vertigo. He stayed there for a long moment, breathing shallowly, his head bowed. The snow was deep, fine-grained, and incredibly cold. When he finally pushed himself upright, his left leg almost buckled. The knee was shot. It would hold his weight, but barely, and every movement sent a grinding protest through the joint.

He limped around the wreck. The SUV was a mangled ruin, accordioned against the trunk of a massive spruce. The rear of the vehicle was crushed, the tailgate bent into a warped smile. He pulled on the handle. It was jammed shut. He pulled harder, his boot slipping in the snow, and fell against the cold metal. He swore, the word a plume of white vapor in the air. He peered through the shattered back window. He could see the orange corner of the emergency kit, pinned under a collapsed section of the roof.

There was no getting to it. Not without tools he didn't have. Not without strength he didn't possess. Defeat felt like a physical blow. He slid down the back of the vehicle and sat heavily in the snow, the cold seeping instantly through his pants. What else? What was in the front? He’d had a half-eaten bag of beef jerky and a bottle of water on the passenger seat. He crawled back to the broken driver’s side window and painfully hoisted himself up to look inside. The interior was a disaster zone of scattered papers, loose change, and the remains of his morning coffee, which had painted a brown stain across the headliner.

The water bottle was there, wedged under the seat. He reached in, his fingers brushing against it. The water was frozen solid. The jerky was gone, probably on the floor somewhere, buried under the debris. He swept his hand across the gritty floor mats. His fingers closed around something small and cylindrical. A lighter. He pulled it out. A cheap, plastic thing he kept for emergencies. He flicked it with his thumb. A weak spark. He tried again. And again. On the fifth try, a tiny, brave flame bloomed, a fragile bubble of warmth in the vast cold. It held for a second, then died.

He sagged with relief. Fire. Fire was possible. He needed to get away from the road. Away from the wreck. If they came back, the car was the first place they would look. It was a beacon. He needed to be invisible. He looked around at the forest. It was dense, unwelcoming. Douglas fir and spruce, their lower branches weighed down with snow, creating dark, cave-like spaces. It was his only option.

Before he left, he did one last, desperate search of the car's interior. He found a single granola bar, crushed but edible, under the driver's seat. He shoved it into his coat pocket. He also found a road atlas on the floor, its pages warped and damp. He ripped out the page for this sector. Useless for navigating in the dark, but it was paper. It was kindling. He looked at the wreck one last time. It was a tomb. His tomb, if he stayed.

He turned his back on it and began to walk, pushing his way into the trees. His plan was simple and suicidal: put distance between himself and the road. Find shelter. Make a fire. Wait for morning. He didn't let himself think past that. Each step was a negotiation with pain. His bad knee screamed, his ribs burned, and his head throbbed in time with his frantic pulse. The snow was deeper in the woods, sometimes coming up to his thighs, and progress was brutally slow. He fell twice in the first fifty yards, each time having to use a tree trunk to haul his protesting body upright.

The sun was gone. The only light came from the reflection of the moon and stars off the snow, a pale, ghostly luminescence that turned the world into a landscape of silver and black. Every shadow looked like a crouching figure. Every snap of a twig under his boot sounded like a footstep behind him. Paranoia was a cold sweat on his back. He kept glancing over his shoulder, but there was nothing. Just the dark, silent trees and the trail of his own stumbling passage. A trail a child could follow.

He pushed on, driven by a primal fear that was stronger than the pain. He remembered what Davies had told him, his face pale under the fluorescent lights of the underground garage. “They don't leave loose ends, Saul. They don't have trials. They have a protocol. It's clean. It's final.” He had handed Saul the data key. “This proves everything. The illegal leases, the Ministry kickbacks, the whole rotten mess. It’ll burn them to the ground. But if they catch you with it… just run. Don’t try to be a hero. Just run and don't stop.”

The key. His hand flew to the inner pocket of his coat. It was still there, a small, cold rectangle against his chest. Everything. The reason he was here, bleeding and freezing in the middle of nowhere. For a second, he thought about throwing it away, hurling it deep into the forest where it would never be found. If he didn't have it, would they leave him alone? He knew the answer. It wasn't about the key anymore. It was about what he knew. He was the loose end.

He found a shallow overhang where a massive, ancient fir had been partially uprooted, its root ball creating a wall of earth and wood. It offered a meager break from the wind, which was beginning to pick up, whispering through the high branches. He collapsed into the space, his legs giving out completely. He lay there, panting, the cold air rasping in his throat. He was exhausted. An exhaustion so profound it felt like dying. It would be so easy to close his eyes. Just for a minute.

No. Sleep was death. He knew that. He fumbled in his pocket for the lighter and the map page. His fingers were stiff, wooden. He could barely feel them. He tore the paper into strips, his movements clumsy. He gathered a small handful of dry needles and twigs from the underside of the root ball, where the snow hadn't reached. He arranged them into a small pile, his hands shaking so violently he could barely control them. He shielded the pile with his body and brought the lighter close.

Flick. Spark. Nothing. Flick. Spark. Nothing. His thumb was numb, slipping on the small serrated wheel. The cold was a living thing, crawling under his skin, slowing his blood. He cursed, his voice a hoarse croak. He tucked the lighter under his armpit, trying to warm it, trying to warm his hand. He held it there for five minutes, counting the seconds, fighting the tremors that wracked his body. He tried again. He positioned the lighter, took a deep, steadying breath that hurt his ribs, and flicked. A flame. It caught on a corner of the paper. The paper blackened, curled, and a tiny orange line of fire began to eat its way along the edge.

He held his breath, gently feeding the small strips of paper into the nascent flame. The fire caught on the pine needles. A puff of fragrant smoke. Then a twig caught. And another. A small, hungry fire began to grow, casting a flickering, dancing light on the snow. Warmth. Not much, but it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He huddled over it, extending his frozen hands, the feeling returning to them as a wave of prickling agony. He didn't care. It was feeling. He was still alive.

He broke off small, dead branches from the underside of the fallen tree and fed them to the fire, one by one. The task gave him focus, a purpose beyond just enduring the pain. Keep the fire alive. He unwrapped the crushed granola bar. It was frozen solid. He laid it on a rock near the fire to thaw. The quiet settled around him again, but it was different now. The fire pushed the deepest shadows back, creating a small circle of light and life in the immense darkness. He could hear the wind in the trees and the soft hiss and crackle of the burning wood.

He allowed himself to think about the road. How far was it to the next town? He’d seen a sign maybe twenty miles back. Jasper Creek. Population 300. Not a place you could hide for long. But it had phones. It had people. If he could walk. In the morning, if he was still alive, he would have to decide. Follow the road, or risk the wilderness? The road was faster, but it was where they would be looking. The wilderness was slower, harder, but it offered concealment.

A sound. Not the wind. A low, mechanical hum. Distant, but growing steadily louder. He froze, every muscle tensed. It was a vehicle, moving slowly, methodically. It wasn't on the road he'd crashed on. It was somewhere else. Somewhere behind him, deeper in the woods. An access road? A logging trail? The sound grew, the distinct diesel growl of a heavy-duty truck, its gears grinding as it climbed a grade. And then he saw it. A beam of light, impossibly bright, sweeping across the treetops a quarter-mile away. A searchlight. It sliced through the darkness, illuminating the falling snow, turning the forest into a stark, high-contrast nightmare of black and white. It wasn't the police. It wasn't a search and rescue team. It was them. They hadn’t just come back to check the wreck. They were hunting him.

He moved without thinking, scrambling away from the fire, kicking snow over the flames with his good foot. The fire hissed and died, plunging him back into the cold and the dark. The searchlight swept past his position, the beam cutting a brilliant white path through the trees just yards from where he’d been moments before. He pressed himself flat against the frozen earth behind the root ball, his heart hammering against his broken ribs. The truck was getting closer. He could hear the crunch of its tires on the snow-covered track. They knew. They knew he wasn't in the car. They knew he was out here. And they had come prepared.