“Miranda, I’m sorry,” Rik says. His deep voice is very quiet, he’s trying to keep this between the two of them, but it’s impossible, with the rest of us just feet away. “I don’t want to go—but we can’t stay here and get picked off one by one like this. I think Topher’s right. We have to get to the police.”

“But not with him.” She’s whispering, but the acoustics in this room are excellent. I can hear her, so I’m pretty sure Topher can. “Please, please, I’m begging you. Don’t go with him. I’m frightened you won’t come back.”

“Mir—”

“We’ll go together. I’ll get my skis on—”

“You’re not a strong enough skier,” he whispers back. “Please, darling, believe me, I would if I could, but it’s just too—”

“I won’t stay here without you!”

“Oi, what about the other chalet?” We all turn to see Carl, standing in the living room doorway, his hands in his pockets. Miranda frowns, thrown off course.

“What other chalet?”

“That chef, Danny, wasn’t he going to hike out to some chalet earlier? Before all this started.”

I nod.

“He was,” I say. “Chalet Haut Montagne. It’s a big-chain chalet and much more likely to be occupied than the two closer ones, but it’s a trek—a good three or four miles up the valley. That’s why he left it until last.”

“See?” Carl says triumphantly. “Three or four miles, that’s nothing. You could walk that in a morning.”

“I wouldn’t call it nothing,” I say cautiously. “For a start, you wouldn’t be walking it, you’d have to snowshoe, and that’s a really different skill. What with the avalanche, not to mention almost a week of uncleared snow… I’d say you’d be looking at a good three hours snowshoeing. Maybe more if you’d never done it.”

“I reckon it’s a better bet than the resort,” Carl says flatly. “I mean, what’s that, fifteen miles? And steep as fuck. You lose a ski on that boulder field, you’re fucked.”

“I’m not going to lose a ski,” Topher snarls. “For a start, I’m a boarder, not a skier. Second, I’m halfway competent. And anyway—what happens if we get to the chalet and it’s shut up? We’re back to square fucking one. At least we know the resort has people who can help us. No, I’ve made my choice, and I’m sticking to it.”

His irritation doesn’t rub off on Carl, who just gives a shrug.

“Maybe it’s not a choice.”

There’s a long puzzled silence.

“What are you saying?” Rik asks at last.

“I’m saying, it’s not an either-or situation. Look, the strong skiers, that’s you, Toph, and Tiger, try to make it to the village and raise the alarm there. The rest of us’ll try for the chalet. Whoever makes it through, we’ll send a party to rescue the other lot.”

It’s… it’s actually not a bad plan. I can see Topher and Rik looking at each other, thinking it over, coming to the same conclusion. At last Topher nods, like Carl was asking him for permission, though I don’t think he was. We are long past the point where Topher has that kind of authority.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, a little sulkily, acceding to the inevitable.

“Miranda?” Rik says, and she gives an unhappy shrug.

“I—I guess. If you won’t take me with you, it’s better than sitting here.”

“Liz?” Carl says. “How about it?”

For a second, Liz just blinks, like she is startled to be referred to by name. For a moment she does nothing at all—like a frightened animal frozen in the headlamp beam of Carl’s attention.

Then she cracks the tiniest smile and gives a shaky, uncertain nod.

For the first time in a few days, I feel a flare of hope inside my chest.

Maybe it will be okay.

Maybe it will really all be okay.

LIZ

Snoop ID: ANON101

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 0

Snoopscribers: 1

After so many days reacting to events, it feels good to have a plan. Up in my room I struggle into my faded blue jumpsuit and pull on ski socks and gloves. My helmet and goggles are down in the locker room. I will put those on when we are ready to go outside. One glance out of the window tells me that sunglasses won’t be needed. It’s midday, but almost dark. The sun is barely filtering through the clouds, and the wind is howling like something trying to get in.

When I am dressed, I feel, for the first time in a couple of days, hot and puffed out. It is strange to feel too warm again, after the growing chill of the chalet. I let myself sink to the bed and catch my breath for a few moments.

Now that it is almost over, I can look back on the living nightmare of the last few days. How has it come to this. How? Of all the ways I was expecting this week to go, I never imagined this unfolding horror.

In my mind I tick them off, a macabre school roll call.

Eva—dead.

Elliot—dead.

Inigo—gone, and goodness knows what has happened to him. Did he make it to St. Antoine? Or is he lying frozen with hypothermia in some isolated shack, far from the piste?

Ani—dead.

There’s just six of us left. Me, Rik, Miranda, Carl, Tiger, and Topher.

Topher. It always comes back to him somehow. Because it is true what Miranda said—however much people try to ignore the fact, Topher has a very strong motive for Eva’s death. In fact he has the best motive out of everyone here.

The thought should make my heart hurt. Topher—who hired me out of a pool of slick, skinny graduates and gave me my first chance. Topher—who stood up for me, stood by me, made sure I got those shares that have hung around my neck like an albatross ever since. Topher—the reason I am here.

And maybe it’s because of that last one—but my heart doesn’t hurt. I feel nothing—nothing at all.

Because Topher is the reason I have been dragged into this, into something I never wanted and never asked for. Topher and Eva between them, pushing me, pulling me, manipulating me like a chess piece in their battle for control of Snoop.

I know what Topher thought when he gave me those shares. He thought that he was handing over two percent of the company to someone he could control. I was his insurance policy, in case Eva and Rik ever ganged up on him. A way to tip the balance in his favor.

Topher thought I would be like putty in his hands. Soft. Malleable. Pliant. He thought that because of the kind of person he saw—someone meek and quiet, dressed in bad clothes, who never said boo to a goose.

In Topher’s world, people are hard, polished shells, their shiny exteriors hiding the inadequacies and anxieties inside.

But Topher made a mistake. He didn’t understand that some people are the other way around. But Eva… I think Eva did understand that. And perhaps it’s what killed her in the end.

ERIN

Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 5

Snoopscribers: 10

It is one o’clock. Everyone apart from Liz is gathered in the lobby wearing their ski gear. Topher’s party is holding snowboards, skis, and poles. Miranda and Carl are equipped with a pair of snow shoes each. And my heart is thumping. Thumping because… maybe this is it. Maybe this long nightmare is finally over. Surely one group will be successful?