I forced my husband to take our allergic daughter to the hospital. Because of that, his best friend, Chloe, a single mom, claimed she and her child got into the wrong cab and were brutally murdered. My husband, Ethan, was consumed by guilt. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I suggested a trip to a nearby national park to clear our heads. But when a massive mudslide hit, he grabbed the urn containing the ashes of Chloe and her daughter and ran, leaving me and our daughter, Lily, trapped in the most dangerous part of the ravine. I called him 99 times. He declined every single one. Finally, he sent one text message. “A year ago, your petty jealousy got Chloe and her daughter killed. Now you can’t even let their ashes rest in peace?” Trapped for ten days, Lily and I were severely dehydrated and fading fast. Ethan, who was the captain of the local Search and Rescue volunteer team, kept leading his squad in circles around the outer perimeter. And Chloe—the woman who was supposed to have died a year ago—showed up at the command center, accompanied by my own parents. “Ethan, maybe you should just tell them the actual coordinates where Maya and Lily got trapped. I’m worried they might not make it…” She was cut off by Ethan and my parents, who all let out cold, mocking laughs. “It’s barely been a week and a half,” my mom sneered. “When you and your daughter had to fake your deaths and hide for a whole year because of her psychotic jealousy, how much did you suffer?” “You couldn’t even leave the house, and your poor little girl couldn’t even go to her favorite amusement park out in the open.” Ethan’s voice was like ice. “I just want her to taste exactly what it feels like to wait to die. Once she feels that, she’ll never dare target you again.” As the second wave of the mudslide roared toward us, I held my daughter’s already cold, lifeless body tightly and closed my eyes. Ethan. Mom. Dad. You got your wish. Lily and I will stay in this valley forever. You don’t have to be conflicted anymore. No one will ever compete with Chloe again. … “But Maya and the baby have been trapped for ten days!” “I read that the golden window for mudslide rescue is 72 hours. If we keep dragging this out, I’m genuinely terrified something terrible is going to happen to them.” Chloe’s voice was thick with manufactured anxiety, but my parents just scoffed dismissively. “Relax,” my dad said. “Maya has always been unkillable. How is she going to die that easily?” “When you guys were six, you both fell into the river. We grabbed you out immediately, but you still caught a terrible fever.” “Maya was stuck in that freezing water all night, and she still managed to crawl up the bank and walk home perfectly fine.” My mom chimed in, “When you were twelve, some guys cornered you two in an alley. You fainted on the spot. Maya got her leg broken and still managed to drag herself home to get help.” “It’s only been ten days, not ten months. She’s fine.” Even Ethan added to the chorus. “Your parents are right. She’s not that fragile.” “I’m just making her suffer a little bit. It’s not like I’m actually letting her die.” “She needs to be trapped long enough to truly understand how hard it was for you that night—standing alone on the side of the road with a baby, begging for a ride. Only then will she finally stop making life difficult for you and your daughter.” Chloe opened her mouth to argue, but a sudden gust of mountain wind hit her. She let out a single, delicate cough. Instantly, all three of them went into full panic mode. My dad rushed forward, wrapping a heavy fleece blanket around her shoulders. My mom unscrewed a thermos, frantically pouring her hot water. And Ethan, the Search and Rescue captain, immediately halted the entire operation, ordering a full retreat down the mountain. Chloe tried to stop him. “I just coughed once, it’s nothing! Please, we have to rescue Maya and the baby first.” But Ethan was adamant. “Your health is the absolute priority.” “People can survive up to 21 days in mudslide conditions. We have plenty of time to rescue her later.” Surrounded and protected by my parents and my husband, Chloe was escorted down the mountain. Ethan used his authority to order his entire rescue squad to accompany them, claiming they needed to “escort a medical liability.” Lily and I were trapped in a rock crevice less than thirty feet away from where they were standing. Hearing their entire conversation, my daughter—who hadn’t had a drop of water in ten days—looked up at me, her voice impossibly weak. “Mommy… do Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa hate Lily? Is that why they won’t let the rescue men come get us?” Chapter 2 I hugged her freezing body as tightly as I could. “No, baby. No. They just didn’t hear us calling for help.” Desperate to save my daughter, I grabbed a jagged piece of shale and began violently striking it against the rock wall of our narrow prison. Clack. Clack. Clack. The next second, the entire rescue squad halted their descent. “Captain Sterling! Wait! I think I just heard someone tapping for help!” “What tapping? You must be hearing things,” Chloe interjected immediately. Realizing how suspicious she sounded, she quickly backpedaled. “I just mean, you guys have to be absolutely sure. Rescue resources are so limited, we can’t afford wild goose chases.” But the squad member who spoke up pointed directly toward the exact coordinate where Lily and I were buried. “The sound came from right over there.” The rescue workers instinctively moved toward our position. Seeing this, Chloe let out a sudden, sharp cry and dramatically crumpled to the ground, grabbing her ankle. My parents swarmed her instantly. “Chloe, sweetie, are you okay?!” Chloe winced, claiming she was fine, but ‘failed’ to stand up after three theatrical attempts. Ethan immediately crouched down in front of her. “Get on my back. I’ll carry you down.” Chloe refused, shaking her head. “The trail is washed out, and you have that old knee injury. If you carry me all the way down, you’ll ruin your knee!” My parents chimed in, “She’s right, Ethan. It’s much safer to have the rescue team carry her down on a stretcher.” But Ethan’s specialized rescue unit only had four guys. If two guys were carrying a stretcher, the remaining two wouldn’t be enough to safely navigate complex rescue terrain. The entire squad would have to retreat. One of the guys hesitated. “Captain, maybe we should just go verify the noise first? If there’s no one there, then we retreat.” “If it actually is your wife and daughter in there, and we leave them… we’re going to regret it forever.” Chloe clutched her ankle—which wasn’t red or swollen in the slightest—and let out a pathetic whimper of pain. Looking down at her furrowed, distressed brow, Ethan shut the suggestion down without a second of hesitation. “You heard wrong. There’s no one calling for help.” The squad member argued back. “But Captain, I literally heard rhythmic tapping against the rock face!” Ethan dismissed him completely. “It was just loose rocks settling.” “The mudslide happened ten days ago. The geological structure is highly unstable. Falling rocks hitting the canyon walls is completely normal.” I had been trapped in the dark for ten days. My limbs were completely numb from severe hypothermia. But hearing him say those words… I felt a sharp, agonizing stab directly in my chest. Chloe’s parents had died years ago in a house fire, saving my parents. Because of that blood debt, my parents had always shown extreme, blatant favoritism toward Chloe. I understood that. I accepted it. But Ethan was different. He was the one who saw my parents treating me like a second-class citizen, stepped in, and told them they were wrong. He fought for me. He was the one who promised me that he would protect me, that he would never let anyone make me feel unloved or marginalized ever again. But now… just for Chloe’s sake… he was actively looking his own squad in the eye and lying, swearing he didn’t hear me begging for my life. I didn’t have the luxury of dissecting exactly when he had changed. The tiny arms wrapped around my neck were slowly losing their grip. “Mommy… I’m so sleepy…” Feeling her impossibly cold little hands, I gently slapped her cheeks, begging her not to fall asleep. At the same time, risking a secondary collapse that would bury us alive, I grabbed the rock and slammed it against the wall again. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. “Captain! Listen! That’s not our imagination, that is a deliberate sound!” “It’s a rhythmic pattern! It sounds exactly like the international standard SOS knock code!” “I remember Maya took an elective course on wilderness survival in college! That has to be her and Lily!” The squad member yelled excitedly. But Chloe muttered dismissively from the stretcher. “Maya graduated years ago. You really think she remembers some random class she took?” “And is it really that much of a coincidence? We searched for ten days and found nothing, and the exact second we’re leaving, we hear a noise?” “Honestly… that sounds more like the mountain groaning right before a secondary landslide hits…” Chapter 3 Chloe just casually dropped the suggestion, but Ethan reacted as if he had just heard a bomb threat. Without conducting even a basic safety assessment, he issued a hard command. “Chloe is right! That is a high-probability indicator of an imminent secondary mudslide! Immediate retreat, right now!” His squad members were deeply unsettled. “But Captain, we absolutely heard a distress signal. Retreating without conducting a preliminary sweep is a direct violation of search and rescue protocol.” Ethan glared at them. “If we stay, and a secondary slide hits, and we suffer casualties on my team… are you taking responsibility for that?!” “RETREAT!” As the rescue team moved away, the vibrations caused a massive, suspended boulder above our heads to shift and crash down, slamming directly onto my back. I was crushed down onto my hands and knees. The already suffocatingly small pocket of air I was maintaining for Lily was compressed even further. She was instantly starved of oxygen, her little face turning a terrifying shade of blue. I violently arched my back, taking the crushing weight of the boulder to give her an extra inch of space, forcing myself to take shallow, agonizing breaths to conserve the oxygen. With trembling fingers, I reached for the glowing star bracelet on my daughter’s wrist. I found the small, raised button on the inside of the band and pressed it hard. It was an emergency GPS beacon my parents had custom-ordered for her the day she was born, right after a nurse almost handed her to the wrong family in the maternity ward. The interface was foolproof. You push the hidden button, and the microchip instantly blasts an SOS text and live GPS coordinates to all emergency contacts. Simultaneously, the local police dispatch receives a high-priority 911 alert. My parents received the SOS text. But they didn’t even bother to read it. They just powered their phones completely off. A minute later, the local police dispatch called Ethan’s satellite phone. “Captain Sterling, we just received an automated SOS beacon from your daughter’s device. The coordinates essentially match your team’s current grid location. Have you located the victims?” Ethan frowned deeply. Chloe immediately reached into her designer bag and pulled out a nearly identical, though significantly more expensive-looking, star bracelet. “Oh no, Lily texted me right before the storm hit. She said she was worried about me being alone, so she snuck her favorite bracelet into my purse for good luck.” “It must have gotten bumped in my bag and accidentally triggered the SOS.” “Ethan, I’m so sorry… did I cause another problem for you guys?” Ethan shot her a deeply reassuring look, entirely validating her lie, and spoke into the phone. “Dispatch, we have not located Maya or Lily Sterling.” “However, my team has determined that the grid is unstable, and we are initiating an immediate retreat.” The dispatcher sounded alarmed. “Captain, your wife and daughter have been missing for ten days. Their probability of survival is already critically low.” “If you pull out now, you are essentially abandoning the search.” Ethan’s voice rang with absolute, righteous authority. “I am not just Maya’s husband and Lily’s father. I am the captain of this rescue squad!” “My family is important, but the lives of my volunteers are equally important! A secondary mudslide is imminent, and I will absolutely not risk the lives of my men on a suicide mission!” “Furthermore, Maya has formal wilderness survival training. I have absolute faith that she will hold on until the storm passes!” The dispatcher tried to argue, but Ethan hung up on him. He ordered his men to pick up Chloe’s stretcher and double-time it down the mountain. His squad was incredibly conflicted. “Captain, I really feel like we need to do a quick sweep.” “I have the thermal life-detector right here. It’ll take sixty seconds.” A few of the guys grabbed the equipment and started moving toward the rock pile where Lily and I were buried. But my parents sprinted forward, violently ripping the scanner out of the volunteer’s hands and slamming it onto the rocks. “Sweep what?! Are you blind?! Can’t you see Chloe’s ankle is swollen?!” “She is a professional ballet dancer! If you delay her medical treatment and ruin her career, are you going to pay for it?!” The squad hesitated. “But Maya and Lily haven’t been found… the Captain said a secondary slide is coming. What if…” Chapter 4 Ethan cut them off immediately. “Because a secondary slide is coming, we have to evacuate immediately.” “As for Maya and Lily… they’ve already survived ten days. I have absolute faith they can hold on a little longer.” “Initiate immediate retreat! Anyone who disobeys is permanently kicked off the squad!” With no other options, the volunteers reluctantly began their descent. Down in the dark, my daughter’s breathing completely stopped. No matter how hard I patted her cheek, no matter how desperately I called her name, she didn’t respond. I tried to lean down to give her CPR, but the massive boulder had shifted again. Silt and mud poured down, completely burying her face, packing into her nose and mouth. Within seconds, the mud buried me as well. My phone, wedged near my hip, vibrated. It was a text from Ethan. [Now you finally get to experience exactly how Chloe felt that night. You faked Lily having an allergic reaction to force me to take you to the ER, while Chloe was left standing on the street corner alone with a baby, begging for a ride in the middle of the night. Do you understand how helpless she felt now?] [Don’t worry, I’m not actually leaving you and Lily out there. As soon as I get Chloe safely to the base camp, I’ll come back up and get you both out.] It’s a shame that the mud was already filling my throat, suffocating my absolute last, desperate cry for help before it could even leave my mouth. An hour later, heavily guarded by the rescue squad, my parents, and Ethan, Chloe safely reached the disaster relief tents at the base of the mountain. The sky was a heavy, suffocating gray. The air smelled strongly of ozone and damp earth. Someone muttered nervously. “It looks like the sky is going to open up again. If it pours, it’s definitely going to trigger a secondary landslide.” “I heard there are still missing people up there. If another slide hits, they’re completely doomed.” “Bro, be realistic. The initial slide hit ten days ago. Even if there isn’t a secondary slide, anyone trapped up there is already dead.” Hearing that, a sudden, inexplicable spike of anxiety pierced Ethan’s chest. He walked into the medical tent. Chloe was sitting on a cot, barking orders at a volunteer who was spraying an excessive amount of lidocaine onto her perfectly normal, uninjured ankle. “Are you absolutely certain you received a text from Maya yesterday?” Ethan asked, his voice tight. “You’re sure she said she and Lily were fine, had food and water, and were just waiting out a sprained ankle in a cave?” Chloe assumed Ethan had come in to check on her. Hearing him aggressively interrogate her about me and my daughter, her mood instantly soured. But she maintained her flawlessly crafted, gentle smile, answering sweetly: “I already showed you the text message. How could it be fake?” Ethan was still unsettled. He pressed harder. “What about the weather reports? What did the NOAA dispatch say? Is there any actual risk of a severe storm or a secondary landslide?” Chloe’s face dropped instantly. “The weather service updates the radar every hour! The forecast for the entire week is completely clear, and the data syncs directly to your command tablet!” “If you don’t believe me, go check it yourself! Why are you interrogating me?!” “Or what? Are you regretting the fact that you intentionally left Maya and Lily on the mountain for my sake?” Ethan frowned defensively. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just worried about their safety…” Chloe’s eyes instantly welled with tears. “Oh, so my safety doesn’t matter?!” “A year ago, I was standing on the side of the highway at midnight, completely alone with my baby. Every single Uber canceled on me. Every cab refused to pick me up.” “When I finally got through to your phone, you told me you were too busy taking Maya and her kid to the ER.” “Ethan, my baby is your child too! How could you treat her like that?!” My parents immediately jumped in to reprimand Ethan. “Chloe lost her parents when she was a little girl. She’s been with you for three years with no official title, no ring, and she even gave you a child! She has suffered enough!” “How dare you accuse her of lying?!” Unable to defend himself against the onslaught, Ethan could only apologize profusely. Chloe turned her back to him, giving him the silent treatment. Until her phone suddenly rang. It was her neighbor.
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