Page 12 of Mountain Summons

“How did you find me?”

“The note you left your father. We split up to look for you.” He shrugged. “And then you used the whistle. That was smart.”

Right. The whistle. She remembered pulling it from her pocket. Lena swallowed hard. She wanted to thank him, but the words wouldn’t come. She was too cold, her body wracked with deep, rolling tremors. The shaking was relentless now, her muscles seizing in protest. Hypothermia. The thought sent another wave of fear skittering through her already exhausted mind.

Tristan must have noticed, because his hands were suddenly moving against her, rubbing her arms, her back. “You need to warm up,” he said.

She wanted to tell him to stop fussing, but she didn’t have the energy to push him away. And maybe, selfishly, she didn’t want to.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Where’s the helicopter?”

He huffed out a sound—part laughter, part frustration. “Not close enough. We’re going to need to wait for my team to get here.”

“Is my father … is he part of the team?”

Tristan shook his wild hair. “Beau—my boss—convinced him to stay back. He will have called him already.”

“Good,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment. She didn’t want her father worrying. “He’s going to kill me, you know?” she sighed. “For getting lost in the mountains. Talk about bad PR.”

Tristan shook his head. “I very much doubt that.”

“We’ll see—“ She lost track of what she was going to say when she saw something glinting in the rock wall beside her. “What is that?”

“Huh?”

“Help me,” Lena said. For an instant, she forgot about the cold, the pain, everything. “I need my camera.”

“Hey. Don’t move. I’ll get it for you.” Tristan reached for her camera, his movements quick but careful as he unzipped his backpack and pulled it free. His eyes flicked back to her, assessing, but she barely noticed. She pointed toward the spot where she’d seen it—something glinting in the rock, partially obscured by shadows.

Her heart pounded, and this time it had nothing to do with her ankle.

Tristan followed her gaze, his headlamp illuminating something pale, something smooth—something unmistakably organic—on the rock wall.

Bone.

Lena’s breath hitched. A human skull. Half-exposed, embedded in the rock.

Beside her, Tristan went still.

“Shit,” he muttered, exhaling sharply. “The landslide probably uncovered it.”

Lena adjusted the camera in her hands. The flash popped, briefly lighting up the space in stark, artificial white, highlighting the skull and, beneath it, the skeletal remains partially encased in the stone. The bones looked weathered, ancient, like they had been there for decades—maybe longer.

“This is…” she trailed off, tilting the camera to inspect the shot. It was real. Not a trick of the light. A million questions burned through her. How had someone ended up trapped out here? How long ago?

“What do we do?” she finally asked.

But Tristan’s eyes had moved beyond her. He seemed to be listening to something behind them.

7

Lena

Something was wrong. Something beyond the obvious. Something that had nothing to do with the discovery of an old skeleton.

“What’s going on, Tristan?”

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