Chapter Four

The wind picked up, blowing snowflakes that looked much bigger than they had been directly into my face. I hunched and made my way—carefully—down the porch steps and across the now-white yard to my car, where the windshield was covered over and even the hood, previously too warm, was gathering snow. But thankfully, she started right up, and I got the defrost on and the windshield wipers going.

Probably best to give it a few minutes for the engine to heat, considering I'd need the windows to stay unfogged as I drove. Southwest from here, then hard south all the way home, where whatever else happened, there would be no snow. What a very comforting thought.

It sure was coming down in Bakers freaking Mine, though. Damn. Checking my phone only told me I was officially out of range at the moment, which, after all the trouble the map's GPS had given me, wasn't a surprise. At least I knew how to get back to Route 4 and turn left. After that I ought to be fine.

I eyed the—was it getting heavier?—snow. I'd take it slowly, that's all. It wasn't enough snow to make things really dangerous yet. I didn't think. Not that I knew much about inclement weather. Was this inclement weather? Now that I thought about it, I wasn't actually sure what "inclement" even meant.

Any hope I had of the snow going away disappeared. It was falling thickly enough to affect visibility; the trees along the driveway started out tall and dark but quickly faded into mere shadow figures stretching into the gray sky. Time to go.

Easy now, I told myself, and put the car into reverse. I'd need to get out of the driveway, and I didn't fancy backing all the way back to Route 4, which meant somehow turning around. I let off the gas, and for a second I thought everything was going to be just fine. Rolling, slowly, backward. I cranked the wheel but still wasn't quite far enough from the garage for comfort, so I hit it into drive to move forward just to buy some additional space. Then all I had to do was reverse one more time, and it would be a straight shot down the drive.

The tires spun for a second, caught, then spun again. I hit the gas, feeling slightly panicked, then the brake, wary of sliding off the gravel into the snow-covered mud.

The car slid to a suspiciously thumpy stop. Fine. Totally fine. My heart was pounding. One more leg of this and I'd be free. As long as I could get under the trees, where the snow was only a dusting, I thought I'd have the traction to get all the way back to the highway. Everything was fine. Highways were plowed or whatever, right? That was a thing?

I put her in reverse again, eased off the brake, and ... a sort of brief rock, but no motion. Okay. I touched the gas.

The front tires spun.

Suddenly a figure loomed beside my window. I jumped and yelped, but it was only Orion, not, like, Sasquatch or something.

He waved his hands. "You're stuck!"

"No, I'm not!" I did not roll down the window to invite more commentary. It was just, like, physics. I'd go a little forward, give myself some room to gain momentum, and then reverse again. Over the hump. If that's what it was. Once my tires hit the actual driveway, they'd be fine.

Not that I'd ever taken physics, but it seemed like it should work. The car crunched over a foot or so of snowy mush, I braked, Orion called something else discouraging, and I took a deep breath.

Here we go. I put her in reverse and hit the gas. Yes! Or no, almost yes, just about yes; I hit the gas harder and jumped back onto the driveway! Off the gas, onto the brakes, which didn't catch immediately, but in a second everything would be fine. I had it, I was going to get the hell out of here, take that, hotshot soccer guy, I totally wasn't stuck— cruuuuuunch .

The sound came simultaneously with the sickening jolt, but my brain registered the sound first, alongside the panic at the brakes not working, and the terrible impact only after that. Ow.

I was shaking slightly until I made myself relax enough to move. That had not been a good sound. Or a good feeling. I risked looking out the window, where the wipers kept running, showing me a very annoyed Orion Broderick.

The garage. I'd run into his garage. At a weird angle, so the back driver's side of my car was now sorta wedged into the door I'd very definitely broken. I couldn't see much from inside, but I also didn't want to get out. Shit, shit, shit.

Back into drive. The transmission, at least, was fine. I tapped the gas.

Front tires spun again.

I tapped it harder.

They spun more.

"Stop it! You're just digging yourself—"

I lay all the way on the gas, and the engine roared its disapproval, but there wasn't even a hint of the tires catching on the gravel below, and it wasn't like I could use the Get some space, take advantage of momentum trick again, since I was literally wedged inside the wooden garage door.

Orion jogged the few steps over and yanked the door open. "Quit it! It's not working, can't you see that?"

"But I have to get out of here." It was, in immediate retrospect, a real dumbass thing to say.

He shook his head in disgust and rounded my door, which was letting snow in, to bend over and peer at the front tires. "Let me see if I can find a few boards to get you out of this rut."

What followed was a lot of me sitting in my car, hunched over, feeling useless, and Orion doing various things around and in front of my tires—which included a shovel and pieces of wood—and directing me gruffly when I should lightly now give her a little gas. Aside from shooting bits of wood back under the car and stirring up mud, we didn't get very far.

"I think," he said, in a low, measured, vaguely scary tone, "that you are stuck. Again."

"I wasn't stuck last time, as I demonstrated by getting unstuck."

He shot me a look. "And how's that working out for you right now?"

"Well." I couldn't think of anything clever to say, so I defaulted to arguing with the universe. "It hasn't even been snowing that long," I said plaintively. "How can I be stuck?"

"That's just how weather works." You jackass was left unsaid, but I heard it anyway.

"But . . ."

"We can probably still get chains on. At least. Maybe." His dubious glance at the back half of my car, possibly now permanently living in his garage, didn't give me a lot of hope, but it was a fruitless idea anyway.

"I, um, don't have any."

"You don't have chains? You're driving in the mountains during a storm ."

"I didn't know it was going to storm!" I said hotly. "I'm not from here—how would I know it was going to storm?"

"What, you didn't check the internet? That's how we get the weather report here, flatlander."

"I—I didn't—it's April ! I didn't even think to check since it's almost freaking summer!"

Stalemate. We stared at each other in vicious silent judgment. Of me. Both of us were clearly judging the me of early this morning, who'd cavalierly driven up into the mountains without even thinking about snow.

"I'm, uh, sorry about your garage. Or shed. Whatever. I'll pay for it, obviously." I swallowed, thinking about just how much money I had in my "emergency" fund. More than a hundred bucks ... less than two hundred. I really needed to take that thing more seriously. "Um. So. Is there ... any way you can give me a ride back into town? I'm assuming your, uh, four-wheel drive can handle this, even without snow studs?"

He sighed. In the muted softness of falling snow his sigh sounded like an angry gust of wind. "It could. Except Princess is in there." A jab at the building behind me. The one I'd, y'know, impaled with my car.

I blinked. And craned around in my seat. A twinge in my neck shot down my upper back, but I ignored it and focused on ... too much snow and condensation to see through the windows.

Fine. I left the engine running and gingerly stepped out of the car. My Converse sank into a wet mass of snow and mud, kicked up by the tires spinning. Drat, they were my custom rainbow ones, too, which I'd worn to signify ... solidarity? Good luck? I'd even agonized over them a little—did I look like a corporate stooge or like a guy who liked Converse enough to give them my money even if they were a cog in the capitalist machine? But I'd gone with them anyway because, corporate or not, I really frigging loved them.

But they were really not meant for this kind of weather. I stood in my open door with one foot in the sludge and the other on the threshold of the door, staring back at ... yeah. My car. A quarter of which was stuck inside the garage. From this angle I realized I was probably lucky the rear window itself hadn't broken. "Um. So. What do we do now?"

"Well. We could try pushing. Except the back of the car isn't really accessible." He surveyed the situation with a frown. "I guess I'll try from the passenger side, and you try from here, and we'll see if we can at least get you free enough to edge the truck out. I think we've definitely seen why you shouldn't be driving in this."

"Okay," I said, not totally sure what all that meant and chagrined by the critique, but glad Orion had apparently gone into a problem-solving mode that didn't require him being more pissed at me.

He trudged around—boots, of course—to the other side of my car and opened the door. I copied his stance: door open, shoulder braced on the inside frame, bent over for leverage.

"One, two, three—"

I pushed as hard as I could, my rainbow Converse slipping and sliding on the snow.

The car didn't move. Like at all. Didn't budge. Didn't even have the decency to rock a little bit.

I looked up to see Orion watching me over the roof of the car as I kept trying to push, my legs not quite running-slash-sliding in place like I was on the world's messiest treadmill, mud now spattered on my jeans, the chilly sensation of snow catching on my socks, then melting.

"Sorry," I huffed, giving up. "I'm not very strong." I keep meaning to go to the gym, but then I get intimidated by the muscle bears and not knowing how to use the equipment, and anyway it's not like I'm chopping down trees or something. Could Orion chop down a tree? I gulped and lowered my eyes.

"It's a lost cause, anyway. Maybe if I'd been here all my life I'd know how to get your car out, but I haven't, and I don't." He looked up at the sky. "And there's a storm warning until tomorrow evening, so I don't think we can rely on things clearing up either."

Which left ... what? I bit down on my lip so as not to whine.

"I'll go see if I can call into town, get Mario out here to tow you in." He trudged back around the car and toward the house.

He did not, note, invite me to go with him. To my relief? Mostly my relief. I pulled my ruined shoes back into the car and closed the door, holding my freezing hands up to the heater vents. I'd just filled up my tank, so I could spend a few more minutes with the engine on, long enough to thaw me out.

I couldn't help myself. I tried one more time to get my car out of its rut. Nothing but the rev of the engine and the impotent spin of the tires. My head fell against the steering wheel, and I fervently wished I could hit Retry Mission on this whole stupid day.