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Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

May 2018, Yama Parvat Summit, Nepal

Evelyn hadn’t meant to stay behind. She had played along on the summit, smiling and embracing the Canadian climbers, the closest thing she had to teammates. Lowell had hugged her, and she knew it meant no hard feelings —but lately, all of Evelyn’s feelings had been hard. Then the snow started and everyone rushed to ready themselves for the descent. She decided to let them go, didn’t want to be bumped off the mountain by someone in a hurry. How quickly they had all left her behind. Now that the storm had arrived, they weren’t wasting any time looking over their shoulders.

She had never stood alone on top of the world before. There were always cameras snapping and flags pushed into the snow and elated teammates. Or at least Sophie. Now, her only company was the wind, screaming past her ears at dizzying speed. She felt an acute exhaustion, not just from the physical exertion, but from everything—her final conversation with Sophie and her pathetic attempt at romantic redemption with Lowell. She hadn’t spoken to either of them in the last week, which left her a lot of time to think. Then Phil and Danielle had turned back before reaching the summit. She had failed them, failed to inspire them to push on, failed to instill in them the confidence that the journey’s end was within their reach. She could see their faces, their expressions of defeat and resignation, and Danielle leaning in to ask, Are you sure you want to go on?

Danielle’s question had surprising accuracy, because Evelyn had reached the conclusion that returning to a normal life after this trip was impossible. Her teammates’ failure to summit had reinforced that she was incapable of assisting anyone up a mountain. There was nothing waiting for her back in New York—no career, probably no Miles. She thought again of radical change, of reinventing herself. Her thoughts seemed filtered through a layer of fog, each idea coming to her like a whispered secret. She didn’t have to stay in New York. She didn’t have to win Sophie’s forgiveness. She didn’t have to remain a lawyer. The world unfolded before her in sparkling glory, or maybe it was only the snow and the unending white sky.

Evelyn gazed up and walked in small circles. Already, she felt the lack of oxygen; her movements slow and uncoordinated, as if she were gradually losing control of her body. She observed her physical changes from afar, removed from the sensations. A small part of her brain screamed at her to descend, told her how difficult it would be the longer she waited. But another, louder voice told her that she was on the cusp of understanding her own path. She just needed to hold on.

She heard a sound and stopped, turning slowly to look for the source. It had sounded almost—human? She waited; the sound did not come again. Probably another figment of her overexerted brain. Auditory hallucinations commonly occurred while freezing to death, but she didn’t think her body temperature was low enough.

No—there it was again. The sound. Evelyn brushed snowflakes from her eyelashes and walked away from the summit shelf, toward where the other climbers had descended. She stayed silent, a creature of the snow. Seconds later, a body nearly collided with hers.

“You—Evelyn?”

It took her a moment to register Sophie’s face, which was lobster red. She hadn’t realized the visibility was so poor, that her sister could simply emerge from the snow without warning.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Sophie replied, her tone accusatory, her voice hoarse. “We got separated from the others and I turned around and saw someone up here. I didn’t expect it to be you.”

How? Evelyn wanted to ask. She didn’t understand how Sophie had seen her when Evelyn couldn’t see a few feet in front of her own face. Evelyn glanced from Sophie to Levi, who looked as if he was barely managing to stay upright.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “Hypoxia or altitude sickness. I don’t have time to diagnose him.”

“We need to go,” Evelyn said. In mere seconds, her thoughts had sharpened and crystallized like the snowflakes falling all around them. The future could wait: in the meantime, Sophie had to get Levi down the mountain.

“Come on,” she shouted over her shoulder as she brushed past them both, uncertain if the wind would snatch her words away. After a few more feet she stopped to look back; Sophie and Levi were following, although Sophie paused to steady him every couple of steps.

God , Evelyn thought. At this rate we’ll all die on this mountain. There was no way the two of them were descending without her. While her sister inched forward, Evelyn maneuvered a bottle of oxygen from her backpack and strapped the mask to her face, setting the dial for a low flow. The fresh air helped immensely. Sophie seemed to have gotten Levi moving forward at a better pace, and the trio made its way off the summit. They remained silent, the wind too loud to speak above unless they were inches apart and shouting. Besides, both Levi and Evelyn now wore oxygen masks. Evelyn wondered if she should stop and suggest the same to Sophie, but the force of the storm kept her forging ahead. She took careful steps, moving as quickly as she could, tracing the rock that rose to the right, the route so narrow that one false step could be fatal. She felt the weight of her responsibility—to safely deliver Levi and Sophie into someone else’s hands. It occurred to her that perhaps this was what she had been waiting for, why she’d stayed behind. Some intangible part of her being had sensed Sophie was in trouble. With fresh oxygen drawing down into her lungs, reinvigorating her brain, Evelyn could bring Sophie and Levi to safety. No small task, but in a way one she’d been preparing for her entire life.

The power of the weather on a mountain always astounded Evelyn. How quickly the wind rose and gusted, even in May, when the risk of avalanches should have been higher than the risk of blizzards. But mountains were never predictable. Evelyn estimated that the gusts were close to seventy miles an hour. She had been in similar winds on K2, but tucked safely in a tent beside Sophie. Descending through these conditions was entirely new territory. The oxygen mask did a decent job at shielding her cheeks from the elements, but her eyes were exposed to the full force of the wind and stinging snowflakes. She lifted an arm to shield her face and kept going. At least it wasn’t night. Somewhere far above the clouds, a weak sun did its best to shed light on their path.

Evelyn checked her watch. Almost an hour had passed already, and they had made little progress. The snow relented and then picked up again as the wind screamed like a banshee over the rock wall. Evelyn stopped, blinking against the snow, though it was a futile game. She knew, without seeing, that they had reached the ridge.

She turned around, laying her eyes on Sophie and Levi for the first time since they had begun walking. She had resisted looking back, knowing there was little she could do to save either of them if disaster struck. Either Sophie and Levi would descend the mountain, or they wouldn’t. Somewhere nearby, Yakumo’s body lay in a shallow snow-covered grave. She held her breath until she saw them emerge from the clouds, a few short steps behind her. Levi was weaving, unable to walk straight, but doing his best to keep up with Sophie’s shuffling pace. The line between them was pulled tight.

Evelyn yanked her mask down and moved close to Sophie, shouting to make herself heard. “The ridge. Can he make it down?”

Sophie’s wide hazel eyes stared back at her. She looked so terrified that Evelyn wanted to comfort her, but there was nothing to do or say. Nothing would improve until they reached the relative safety of Camp Four.

“The ridge, Sophie,” she repeated.

Sophie blinked, as if hearing her for the first time. “I don’t know,” she shouted back.

“Should we bivouac?” Evelyn didn’t want to suggest it, but Sophie’s dazed state left her no choice. If her sister wasn’t enthusiastically willing to attempt the ridge, they would have to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass. Bivouacking was risky, but when death lurked around every corner, sometimes staying still was the safest option.

Her suggestion seemed to snap Sophie out of her fog. “No way. He won’t survive. We have to keep going.”

Evelyn gazed at Levi, who stood with his head down, looking like a long sleep would do him wonders. She knew that he was probably exhausted, but Sophie was right—in a weakened state it was all too easy to give up fighting and accept death.

“Okay. But once we’re on the ridge, we can’t stop.”

“I know.”

Evelyn nodded once and slipped the oxygen mask back over her face. She went to Levi and lifted his head, forcing him to look at her. She took off his sunglasses and searched his eyes—for what, she didn’t know, but she saw it, some spark still there, a willingness to survive. She let go of him and stepped back, shoving his sunglasses into her pocket. He had no use for them now. Sophie looked at Evelyn as she passed, her open mouth ready to ask a question, but Evelyn kept moving forward, gesturing for them to follow.

The ridge proved a different beast in bad weather. The storm helped hide the exposure on either side, although if Evelyn looked down, she saw an endless gray abyss below. The wind was the true enemy, gusting relentlessly and doing its best to push them off the rocky ridge. Evelyn squatted low, using her ice axe with each step. She couldn’t remember how long the ridge went on for. Each breath of bottled oxygen burned her sore throat. She was desperate for water.

She heard a cry, followed by the awful sound of an ice axe striking rock. She twisted, gripping the rock for support, and saw nothing. Sophie and Levi were gone.

Evelyn yanked off her oxygen mask and screamed Sophie’s name. It was like she said nothing at all. The wind surged around her, continuing its deathly howl. She inched back in the direction they had come, still shouting, her lungs fighting for every inch of air as she tried to out-scream the wind. Pain bloomed in her chest. She needed oxygen, but she needed her voice even more.

She heard something. Another cry. She stopped and yelled her sister’s name again. Another faint cry in return. She looked down the right side of the ridge and saw something—a spot of color amid the white. She didn’t think twice.

Evelyn quickly secured a rope to one of the small spires of exposed rock. She had no idea if it would hold her weight. She tugged the rope as hard as she could; the rock held. She clipped on and rappelled down the side of the ridge.

Sophie had self-arrested with her ice axe about fifty feet down the ridge. Every muscle in her upper body held on for dear life. Evelyn saw right away why Sophie was unable to pull herself farther up. Levi hung from her sister like deadweight, lying unmoving on his side.

She used her own ice axe to anchor herself and look down at Sophie, her mind racing. They could try to climb back up using the ropes, although it was risky. Her tie had been fast and it wasn’t even a proper rappel system, just the quickest job she’d been able to do. Sophie could make it, maybe, but there was no way Levi would. The other option was down the mountain, into the abyss. Evelyn bit her cheek so hard she tasted blood. She knew what she had to do.

“Don’t panic,” she shouted to Sophie.

Her sister’s eyes filled with alarm. “You can’t leave us here.”

“I’m not going to.”

Evelyn rappelled lower, carefully making her way around Sophie. Her hand shook so hard that she almost lost her grip on the rope. She felt Sophie’s eyes on her as she reached her sister’s waist. She had no time to hesitate, no time to say anything else. She reached over and unclipped Levi.

He cried out as he began to fall. That was the worst part. In the seconds beforehand, Evelyn had convinced herself that he was unconscious already, that he would feel nothing as he fell. But now she realized that he had been awake the whole time. If the fall didn’t kill him, he would freeze to death, injured and alone, somewhere far below on the mountain.

But she couldn’t think about that now. Sophie’s unintelligible screams filled the air, piercing her ears. Evelyn grabbed her instantly, afraid that she would let go of the ice axe. But Sophie’s grip remained tight as she howled, her cries joining the wind in a chorus of unnatural agony.

“Sophie,” Evelyn shouted. “We have to climb back up.”

It felt futile. Sophie wasn’t looking at her. She knew Sophie would run out of oxygen eventually, and so she clung to the rope with one hand and her ice axe with the other, her arm muscles burning in protest, until Sophie’s screams fizzled to choking sobs, and then she was gasping for air.

“Climb. Grab the rope. You’re going ahead of me.”

It was a miracle that Sophie listened. Maybe she was too exhausted to object, or in shock, or maybe a tiny part of her understood why Evelyn had done it. The necessity of ending one life to save another. Whatever the reason, Sophie took hold of the rope, pulled her axe free, and climbed.

It was no easy task to return to the ridge. Every part of Evelyn’s body burned with fatigue by the time they reached the top. A strong gust of wind almost sent her over the other side and she clung to the rock, desperate to reach a part of the mountain where they were shielded from the power of the wind.

Sophie stared down the side of the ridge, where they had come from. Evelyn grabbed her shoulder, afraid that Sophie would plummet down the side if given half a chance.

“Put on an oxygen mask,” Evelyn said, reaching around to grab a bottle from her sister’s pack. Sophie nodded dumbly and strapped the mask to her windburned, puffy face. With horror, Evelyn noticed that Sophie’s nose was turning gray. Frostbite. She hadn’t used any protection on her face for the last several hours, not even a face mask. Evelyn quickly reapplied her own oxygen mask. The surge of fresh air helped to dull the ache in her chest, but only mildly.

The sisters pushed into the wind, each shuffling step forward a new battle. The universe answered, allowing them to progress down the ridge. Sophie had always been the believer, but now Evelyn muttered quiet prayers into the wind—anything to keep her mind focused.

They made it to the end of the ridge. Both sisters collapsed for a moment, hunkering down on their knees to catch their breath and, for a moment, stop fighting the wind, which still swirled around them, pulling at their suits and flinging bits of stinging snow onto exposed skin. Evelyn stared at Sophie, whose eyes were blank. She wanted some sign from her sister, some indication that she still had a will to live, but Sophie gave her none.

Evelyn stood up, a slow, graceless process. She extended a hand to Sophie, who stared at her blankly. She grabbed her sister’s arm and hauled her upward, steadying her as she rose. She didn’t have the energy to remove her mask again to tell Sophie to follow her. Pain radiated from her chest in rhythmic bursts, a constant reminder of overexertion. Evelyn turned away and began walking again. The slope was almost level at this part of the mountain. She had forgotten what the scenery looked like; she used the rock wall to the right to navigate. She knew that the false route was somewhere along the other side of the massive rocks, where two climbers had fallen to their deaths. Each step brought them closer to the ice wall.

Hours passed and still the wind roared. Evelyn couldn’t make sense of the numbers on her watch. It felt like days since the summit. An eternity of leaning into the wind, plowing forward, shielding her eyes from the snow, stealing glances back at Sophie. Her sister plodded on behind her. Evelyn stumbled as she looked forward again, falling to her knees. She was exhausted and could no longer ignore it. Why haven’t we reached the ice wall yet? She squeezed her eyes shut, desperate for relief from the relentless snow. A hand touched her back.

Without looking up, Evelyn pulled down her oxygen mask. “We have to sleep here. I can’t keep going.” Just shouting the words took all her energy.

Sophie stepped in front of Evelyn, forcing her to look, and pointed at the rock wall. Though jagged, it provided some crevices. Evelyn understood Sophie’s intention: they could dig out a small shelter and bivouac. Evelyn thought of sleep, of rest, and managed to push back to her feet. The sisters walked beside each other to the rock wall. Where it curved and rose in jagged spires toward the sky, they found a narrow cranny and began digging, using both hands to shovel the snow away from the rock.

Evelyn heard something. A grunt. Maybe just the wind groaning over the rocks. Then it came again. She stopped and looked skyward, terrified of seeing a serac overhead that they had ignored, a shelf of ice coming loose. But the rock above was either bare or only dusted with snow. She looked at Sophie, who had also stopped digging.

Evelyn reached to pull down her mask, but Sophie had already turned away and was brushing snow from the ground left and right, as if searching for a lost item. Evelyn joined her. It was only a few minutes before her hand struck something solid. A body.

She dug as quickly as her lethargic body would allow, sweeping the snow away to reveal a body wrapped in a black bivy sack. The top of the sack was partially unzipped, a bad sign. Evelyn fumbled with the zipper and revealed the body’s face. Lowell.

Now she did pull down her mask as she placed a gloved hand against his face, which was nearly encased in ice. She hoped the warmth of her hand would melt the ice, but her glove was cold and did little to help. She brushed away the icicles sealing his eyes shut and they fluttered open. He grunted again, an attempt to communicate, and she realized that his lips were frozen shut. She rested her hand over his mouth and blew her breath over his lips, amazed that he was alive, and terrified, too, because it hadn’t occurred to her that perhaps others had not made it to Camp Four. She thought of her teammates, wondered if they had turned around with enough time.

Lowell grunted again and she withdrew her hand. He worked his jaw slowly, as if it caused him great pain. His cheeks and nose were scarred with frostbite.

“Evelyn,” he said weakly.

She moved her face closer to his to hear him above the wind. “What happened?”

He blinked up at her. “The storm.” His dry sense of humor was still intact. “I’m with,” he said, motioning his head the tiniest bit. Evelyn glanced back at Sophie. She had also uncovered a body beneath the snow. “Eddie. We went slow. We made it to the ice wall but the snow kicked up and—” he paused to take several labored breaths “—turned around. Came here, thought we’d sleep until it’s over. Two hours ago, maybe. I don’t know.”

Evelyn made the effort of rolling up her sleeve to check her watch. “It’s just after 3:00.”

“Perfect for a nap.”

“You need oxygen,” Evelyn said. “Do you have any?”

The smallest shake of his head. “No. Gave it all to Eddie. Used my bottle on the way up, gave my second to him. He’s really struggling.”

“Why are you so far apart?”

“Didn’t want to use another man for body heat. Isn’t that funny. He’d rather die.”

“He’s alive.”

Evelyn flinched and glanced over her shoulder. She hadn’t noticed Sophie move closer, but she was just behind Evelyn’s left shoulder, listening in. The first words she had spoken since Levi had died. Since Evelyn had killed him.

“Sophie,” Lowell said. “You’re here too. What about—”

Evelyn shook her head quickly. He couldn’t mention Levi; his name might send Sophie spiraling again.

Something changed in Lowell’s eyes as he seemed to understand.

“I have an extra bottle of O2,” Evelyn said.

“I can’t use it. You’ll run out.”

“And you’ll get hypoxia. Sophie, can you grab it?” She felt Sophie’s hands on her backpack, pulling the cylinder of oxygen free. “Take this.” Evelyn handed it to Lowell. “We’re staying here. None of us are getting down the ice wall.”

Evelyn shrugged off her backpack and forced her numb fingers to undo the buckles and straps. She pulled her bivy sack from the backpack and unrolled it, glancing up occasionally to make sure Sophie was doing the same. Evelyn removed her crampons and slipped inside, shivering, and settled in, checking on her sister once more before making sure to close the zipper completely around her own head. She was encased in darkness and had no idea when the storm would end. The rocks overhead provided little shelter from the snow, and Evelyn soon understood why both Lowell and Eddie had been covered. She flung an arm over her face and squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to go inward, to ignore the prickling, burning sensation in her toes that soon faded to numbness. The afternoon was wearing thin. Perhaps, like yesterday, the storm would end with the onset of night. She could only hope.

Strange things came to her in dreams. Miles, emptying their apartment and painting rivers on the walls before he left. Her father, headless, transparent, walking behind her as she entered the courtroom for a case. He was the accused, but she could not interrogate him; he had no mouth with which to speak. A vision of her mother sitting alone in the dark, crying. Evelyn and Sophie sat at her feet, just children, reaching out for her, calling her name, but she couldn’t hear or see them. Then Evelyn was climbing. She reached up to touch her face and great pieces of skin came away in her hand, rubbery and pale like chicken flesh. She touched her face again and felt bone. She looked back and saw Sophie falling away down the mountain, her mouth open in a silent scream. Someone yanked her hand and pulled her forward. Levi. Had she—

Evelyn woke up breathless. Her oxygen had run out. She couldn’t move her arms and for an agonizing moment she struggled, almost paralyzed by the fallen snow. Finally, she wriggled an arm free and pawed at the mask. Her fingers weren’t working. She couldn’t feel them at all. She managed to push the mask aside and gasped for air. She reached up and managed to wedge a hand between the two zippers and open the top part of the bag.

Evelyn stared straight up at the most impossibly dark sky. The moon had been swallowed by thick clouds. A few snowflakes floated down, melting as soon as they touched Evelyn’s cheeks. She marveled at that—how her frozen body was still warm enough to melt the snow. The wind had stopped almost entirely. She wondered if she should try to stand up, to rouse the others. It might be their only window to descend. But her body felt so heavy. Each breath brought her closer to sleep; she wanted nothing more than to rest. She closed her eyes and drifted again.

Someone was saying her name. The same person held her wrist and pulled her forward. She could only see their back, leading her into the perpetual darkness, across a field of snow. Ahead were mountains, tall and white, fog rolling around the peaks. No. I don’t want to climb again.

She pulled her arm back and opened her eyes. She was still alive—how? Her face felt like a thousand hawks had dug their talons into her skin. It was light out. Someone was looming over her; it took her too long to recognize the face. Sophie. She looked like a child’s drawing come to life, sketched in red and black crayon. She looked like she shouldn’t be alive.

“Evelyn,” Sophie said, and that single word seemed to take all her strength. Her lips were cracked and bleeding.

Evelyn opened her mouth to speak and felt the sharp pain of her own lips splitting, felt the warm blood roll down her chin. Sophie reached forward, slowly, to wipe it away. Evelyn’s throat screamed for water. Every part of her felt dried out and numb. She couldn’t feel her fingers or toes and knew they were probably gone, lost to frostbite. Judging by Sophie’s face, all that awaited them if they made it off the mountain was reconstructive surgery. She pulled her straying thoughts in, wondering if it was the oxygen deprivation that caused her mind to wander. Every moment counted. She didn’t have time to think about the future.

“Eddie’s dead,” Sophie said.

Evelyn absorbed the news silently. Another death on a mountain that had taken so many lives already.

She tried to say “Lowell,” but words failed to escape her raw throat. Her lips bled again and she shut her mouth quickly, moving her left forearm to cover the searing pain. Sophie seemed to understand anyway. She moved around Evelyn and began sweeping the snow away from his face and torso. Summoning all her strength, Evelyn sat up and joined in.

It was a clear morning; the sky overhead was a gentle blue, lit by a generous sun rising in the east. No wind blew. Evelyn was struck by how beautiful the morning was, how quiet, how soft the colors. A breathtaking moment of perpetual winter. She looked at her watch; the screen had gone dark. She pushed at it for a moment, pressing the buttons clumsily, but nothing happened. She judged that it was early, maybe 6:00 a.m. She wondered if anyone would come looking for them and knew they couldn’t wait around to find out.

She uncovered Lowell’s right arm and took his pulse, counting out the seconds in her head and wishing, for the millionth time, that she’d brought a spare battery for her watch.

“Pulse?” Sophie asked. She must have been counting the seconds too.

Evelyn nodded.

“Okay. I’ll try to wake him.” Evelyn didn’t know how Sophie managed to speak. She watched her sister say Lowell’s name and shake him gently. Evelyn swallowed spit, trying to relieve her burning throat, and joined in.

After a long minute, Lowell’s eyes blinked open. He turned his head incrementally, taking in both Evelyn and Sophie. He still wore the oxygen mask; Sophie reached over to gently pull it from his face.

His breath came in a wheeze. Evelyn and Sophie shared a look, and she knew they were both thinking of George. If Lowell was suffering from an embolism, they had no way of getting him down the mountain.

Lowell grunted and sat up, like a bear coming out of hibernation. He looked stronger than she had anticipated. He blinked rapidly in the bright light and looked between the sisters again.

“Eddie didn’t make it,” Sophie said, anticipating the question he would ask.

Lowell drew a sharp breath.

“We have to try,” Evelyn managed to say. She wasn’t sure what she meant, but both Sophie and Lowell seemed to understand. Try to do what the others couldn’t, through luck or circumstance: survive.

A few minutes later, by sheer will and effort, they were all standing, backpacks shouldered, crampons attached to their boots. Evelyn swayed under the weight of the pack but found her balance. They left their bivy sacks behind; it went unspoken that none of them would survive another night in the open. Silently, Evelyn took the first step forward.

The calm weather made the descent significantly easier, but each step tested Evelyn’s willpower. She hadn’t eaten in a day, her brain seemed to work at half-speed, and the numbness had spread into the lower part of her legs, though bursts of pain occasionally radiated up from her feet and ankles. Each excruciating step also brought her closer to safety, and she tried to remember that as they approached the ice wall, pausing to breathe several times between each stride.

The trio stood at the edge, looking down. No ladder, just ropes. It wasn’t an extremely difficult wall to climb—Evelyn had managed fine on the way up—but descending the wall in her current condition was a different game. She assessed for a moment longer and made her decision.

“I’m going to try rappelling,” she managed to say. No one scoffed at her idea. The short sentence left her gasping for breath, and she stood for a moment, imagining the bottles of oxygen that awaited them below. She swung off her pack and tried to open it and dig through for ropes. Her numb fingers made the task nearly impossible. Sophie crouched to help, then Lowell, and together they managed to pull out the ropes.

“This isn’t going to work,” Sophie said, and Evelyn knew she was right.

Evelyn lifted her right hand to her mouth and gripped her glove with her teeth, turning her head to yank it off. The sight made her gag. The fingers were discolored and gnarled, almost like a claw, frozen into shape. Sophie stared at the hand, wide-eyed, probably imagining what her own looked like.

“It has to work.” Evelyn maneuvered her ungloved hand around one of the ropes and lifted it toward her chest harness. It took a few tries, but with Sophie’s help she managed to clip on the carabiner. She looped her backpack back over her shoulders, worried about the extra weight but reluctant to leave all the essential supplies behind. She stood and moved to the edge, holding the other end of the rope in her hand. She clipped onto the fixed rope at the top of the wall on the first try, bracing it against the ice. Sophie and Lowell peered uncertainly over the edge.

“Don’t wait until I’m at the bottom. Start as soon as you can.” At least she could speak again, though it still took more air than seemed worthwhile. Evelyn used her teeth to pull her glove back on. Holding her ice axe in her left hand, she dropped her gaze down and set about descending, carefully feeling for footholds. Finding handholds was out of the question; she used her forearms to press against the ice, relying on her upper-body strength to descend. It worked. By some miracle, she made progress down the wall. When she was about a third of the way down, she looked up to see Sophie clipping on.

Then Evelyn slipped. She felt the ice splinter beneath her boot a split second before she fell. She swung wildly with the ice axe and finally made contact, driving the point deep enough to hold her weight. She kicked with both feet and found footholds. The fall hadn’t been long, but her heart contracted in painful beats and her whole body shook as she looked down. She didn’t have much farther to go. Sophie and Lowell were yelling her name above. She shouted back that she was okay and set about trying to unclip herself from the rope. When the carabiner released, she fell backward again, this time into the snow below. The impact knocked the remaining breath from her body and she lay there for a moment, staring up at the sky and feeling the pain explode through her chest and head, burning white-hot before fizzling out only slightly. Then she stood up.

Sophie and Lowell made their way down. Evelyn paced back and forth, marveling at the cold, at her exhaustion, at the miracle of making it down the wall. They regrouped at the bottom, shoving ropes back into backpacks with uncooperative hands. Another thousand feet until Camp Four. She had no idea if anyone waited for them there.

The descent came and went in fragmented pieces. Evelyn remembered the brilliant white shine of the snow whenever she lifted her sunglasses, and the blue dome of the sky overhead. She remembered the other Himalayan giants scraping the sky like outstretched hands with mangled fingers. Like her own. She remembered the sound of labored breath and the crunch of ice and snow beneath boots. A gorak soared across the sky but Evelyn said nothing, convinced the bird appeared only to her, some premonition from a distant dream. Like after her argument with Sophie. She hadn’t figured out yet if the goraks were an omen of fortune or misery.

Camp Four revealed itself suddenly, the small cluster of tents nestled into the mountain taking them all by surprise. Of course. They’d never seen it from the opposite side before.

Lowell called out for help, his roaring voice echoing off the rocks. No call returned. He tried again as they moved closer, and this time, something stirred. A person emerged from one of the tents and then another, until a quartet approached them. Andrew and several of the guides, Mingma included. He must have returned to Camp Four after descending with Phil and Danielle. Evelyn forced herself to keep walking, although her pace was slow compared to Andrew’s approaching party. Her chest felt like it was on fire.

“Holy shit,” he said as they drew closer. “You’re alive. Good god.”

He pulled each of them into a hug, thumping their backs, as if he were an uncle at a family reunion. Evelyn could only think of sleeping. Her vision began to blur.

Andrew looked between them. “Is Levi—”

Evelyn looked at Sophie. To her surprise, Sophie stared back, and she saw something in her sister’s eyes, a kind of dissolving. She saw through the front Sophie had managed for the last day—shock and trauma had allowed her to forget. Pushing the pain aside was the only way to survive. But she had not really forgotten, and she would certainly never forgive. Evelyn knew that she would have rather died with Levi than done nothing to save him. Despite what she said, Sophie might have, one day, forgiven her for Miles. But Levi’s death was something different. She saw all this, and understood, before Sophie looked back at Andrew.

“Levi is gone.”

The words hung in the air for a long moment before Lowell said, “Eddie too.”

Andrew shook his head. Silence lingered for another moment. “Well, you’re all alive. And thank god for that.”

He said something else, about waiting for them all night, guides coming up from Base Camp to search, how they had looked that morning but not far enough. Something about food and oxygen. Evelyn heard it all as if trapped in a nearby room, listening through the wall. The others all turned their backs and moved away, toward the tents, toward warmth and safety. Evelyn tried to take a step and sank to her knees in the snow. The flame inside her chest grew higher, licking up to her throat, spreading from her heart to her lungs and her shoulders. Burning her alive from the inside. She tried to call out but the ground was there to catch her. She felt the cold snow brush against her cheek, closing her eyes as she returned to the darkness that had always kept her safe. She thought she heard someone saying her name, but she was too tired to open her eyes. She had delivered Sophie safely to Camp Four. There was nothing more to be done. Someone slipped their hand into hers. Without looking she knew it was Sophie. She breathed the thin air, felt it meet the fire in her chest, and went still.

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