It’s total guerrilla warfare out here—fast and brutal and winner takes all. It’s also the most fun I’ve had since my parents died, and probably even longer than that.

We exhaust our supply of snowballs pretty quickly, and then we’re just like everyone else, running through the trees, trying to find cover as we fling snow at whoever’s within reach.

I laugh like a hyena the whole time. Macy and Flint look bemused at first, but soon they’re laughing with me—especially when one or the other of us gets hit.

It’s after an ambush that leads to Macy getting her fourth hit and Flint and me getting our third ones that we decide to get serious. We find the biggest two trees we can to hide behind, and we drop to our knees, packing snowballs as quickly as possible. After we’ve got about thirty made, Flint yanks off his hat and scarf and starts piling them inside.

“What are you doing?” I demand. “You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

“I’m fine,” he tells me as he turns his scarf into a kind of carrying pack. “This is our chance to win.”

“How?” I ask. There’s chaos all around us, and though the others haven’t found our hiding spot yet, it’s only a matter of time—probably a minute or two—before they do. And while we’ve got ammunition, there’s also a lot fewer of us than there is of them.

“By climbing the trees,” Macy tells me.

Before I can express my utter incredulity at the thought of climbing one of the gigantic, leafless aspens—the lowest branches are more than fifteen feet off the ground—she runs straight at the trunk of the closest tree, then jumps and kicks out hard enough to send herself soaring up several feet at an angle, arms extended, to grab the branch of a neighboring tree. She hangs there for a few seconds, swinging back and forth to gain momentum, then thrusts herself up and onto a nearby branch.

The whole thing takes about ten seconds.

“Did she just do parkour against that tree?” I ask Flint before turning to Macy. “Did you just parkour that tree?”

“I did,” she says with a laugh, then reaches down to catch the hat full of snowballs Flint sends flying her way.

“That’s freaking awesome. But if you guys expect me to be able to do that, I think we’re all going to be disappointed.”

“Don’t worry, Grace,” Flint tells me as he thrusts his snowball-packed scarf into my arms. “Just hold on to these for me, will you?”

“Of course. What are you going to—?” I let out a screech as he grabs onto me and throws me over his shoulder.

“Quiet down or you’re going to give away our hiding place,” he tells me as he starts climbing the tree like some Alaskan version of Spider-Man, hands and feet practically sticking to the tree’s bark as he carries me up the gigantic trunk. “And don’t drop the snowballs.”

“You should have thought of that before you decided to hang me upside down,” I snark at him. But I tighten my grip on the scarf.

I don’t know how he’s doing it, and I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t witnessing—or should I say experiencing—it for myself. But thirty seconds later, I’m straddling a tree branch, snowballs in hand, as I wait to ambush the first people who come by.

Flint’s on a branch several feet above mine. It’s high enough off the ground to make me whimper just looking up at him, but he’s standing there with a huge grin on his face, like balancing on a snow-packed tree branch is the easiest thing in the world.

Which, to be clear, it definitely is not. And I know that because I’m sitting on one and I still feel like I could slip off at any second.

“Someone’s coming!” Macy hisses from one tree over.

I glance down at the ground and realize she’s right—Quinn, Marc, and two other guys are heading our way. They’re moving stealthily instead of quickly, almost like they know we’re here. And maybe they do—it’s not like I was exactly quiet while Flint hauled me up this tree.

Either way, it doesn’t matter, because all we need is for them to get a few steps closer and—

Bam. Flint sends a snowball soaring straight into the leader’s chest. Macy follows up with a one-two shot to the guy in the back. Which leaves Marc and Quinn. Which I’m definitely not going to complain about. I send a volley of snowballs straight at them, one after another. I hit Marc twice and Quinn at least four times, which—if their curse-laden complaints are anything to go by—knocks them completely out of the game. Something I’m also not going to complain about.

Flint is all but crowing in triumph as he dispatches a second group that made the mistake of coming this way, and Macy takes care of a couple of loners trying to sneak in from behind us. I restock from the thick snow on the branches and wait for whoever comes next.

Turns out it’s a couple of girls dressed in teal and navy outerwear, who look like they’re having about as much fun as I do at the dentist.

I think about pulling my punches—no reason to make them even more miserable—but I figure it’s only putting off the inevitable. The faster I knock them out of the game, the faster they can head back to the castle. And the faster we can win this thing.

I reach for my last three snowballs and am just waiting for them to come within range when a powerful wind comes up and knocks me off balance. I make a grab for the tree trunk and manage to hold on while the wind shakes the whole tree.

Flint curses and makes a grab for the trunk, too. Then calls to me, “Hold on, Grace! I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Just stay there,” I call back. “I’m fine.”

Then I turn to look for Macy, worried my cousin might be in worse shape than I am. But just as I turn my head to look behind me, another gust of wind hits the tree, hard. It’s an eerie sound, and as the trunk starts to sway under the wind’s assault, I get more nervous. Especially when another gust comes through and hits me hard enough to threaten my grip on the tree.

Above me, Flint curses again, and Macy yells, “Hold on, Grace! Flint, go get her!”

“Wait!” I shout back to be heard over the wind. “Don’t!”

But then Macy screams, and I whirl around, terrified I’m going to see her plunging to her death. And that’s when the worst gust of wind yet hits, and I lose my grip on the tree completely.

I scramble to grab on to something—anything—but the wind is too strong. The branch I’m sitting on issues an ominous crack.

And then I’m falling.

20

There’s Never

a Parachute Around

When You Need One

For one second, I have perfect clarity—I can hear Macy screaming, Flint calling my name, the wind roaring like a freight train—and then it’s all drowned out in the panicked beat of my heart as terror races through me.

I brace myself for bone-crunching impact, but before I hit, Flint is grabbing me, pulling me against him, spinning us in midair. He hits the ground, back first, and I land on him, my face buried in the curve of his neck.

We hit hard enough that the breath is knocked out of me. For one second, two, three, I can’t do anything but lay there on top of him, trying desperately to drag a breath into my abused lungs.

Flint’s not moving either, and panic is a wild animal inside me as I struggle to get my weight off him. His eyes are closed, and I’m terrified that he’s hurt—or worse. He took the brunt of the fall, deliberately spinning us so that he slammed into the hard, snow-packed ground while all I slammed into was him.

It’s as I push up into a sitting position, knees on either side of his thighs, that I finally manage to pull in a huge gulp of air. It’s also at that moment that all hell breaks loose.

Macy is screaming my name as she scrambles down her tree, and people swarm us from all directions. I’m too busy shaking Flint and slapping at his cheeks—trying to get him to respond—to pay any attention to what anyone else is doing.

At least until he opens his eyes and drawls, “I’m beginning to think I should have let you fall.”

“Oh my God! You’re okay!” I scramble off him. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” He sits up with a little groan. “You’re heavier than you look.”

“You shouldn’t move!” I try to shove him back down, but he just laughs.

“The snow broke my fall, Grace. I’m good.” To prove it, he jackknifes to his feet in one lithe movement.

It’s as he stands up that I realize he’s telling the truth. There’s a Flint-shaped indention in the snow from where he hit. For the first time since moving to this state, I’m grateful for its ridiculous climate. After all, when you’re falling twenty feet, snow is so much softer than ground.

Still, if that’s the case… “Why did you jump after me? You could have been hurt.”

He doesn’t answer, just kind of stands there watching me, a weird look in his eyes. It’s not concern or annoyance or pride or any of the other expressions I’d expect him to be wearing right now. Instead, it looks an awful lot like…shame.

But that doesn’t make sense. He just saved me from a concussion or a couple of broken bones—at least. What does he have to be ashamed of?

“What was the alternative?” Macy demands, voice shaking like she just got back the power of speech. “Let you be hurt?”

“You mean it’s better for Flint to get hurt?” I ask bewildered.

“But he didn’t, did he? And neither did you.” She turns to him with a grateful look. “Thank you so much, Flint.”

Her words make me realize that I’ve been too busy worrying about—and yelling at—Flint to do what I should have right away. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

The words sound awkward after all my admonishments, but they are nothing compared to the look on Flint’s face as he stares over my shoulder into the crowd. It alternates between looking like he’s going to throw a punch and like he’s dying to run away.