Tracy Wolff

“Okay, kid. Here goes nothing!” Philip tells me. Which, by the way, definitely makes the top five things you don’t ever want to hear your pilot say while you’re still in the air.

But Philip just laughs and says, “Textbook landing.”

Maybe if that textbook is a horror novel. One he’s reading upside down and backward.

I’m really about to ride a snowmobile in the near dark through Alaska in weather that is more than twenty degrees below freezing, if the app on my phone can be believed.

All that’s missing is the wicked witch cackling that she’s going to get me and my little dog, too.

this boy is sexy af.

“I think I like my version better.”

“Even though it’s wrong?”

“Especially because it’s wrong.”

The fact that I’m reacting so strongly to him when all he seems to feel for me is contempt is humiliating, so I take one trembling step back. Then I take another. And another.

“I’m not afraid of a three-inch dragon.”

“Yeah, well, you should be.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.” The words come out more strangled than I intend, because he may have taken a step back, but he’s still standing too close. So close that I can feel his breath on my cheek and the warmth radiating from his body. So close that one deep breath will end with my chest pressing against his.

I’m the one who had to go to the morgue. I’m the one who had to identify their bodies. Who had to see them all bruised and bloody and broken before the funeral home had a chance to put them back together again.

you need to listen to me very, very carefully.”

“What do you—?”

“Keep your head down. Don’t look too closely at anyone or anything.” He leans forward, his voice dropping to a low rumble as he finishes. “And always, always watch your back.”

I turn back to confront Mr. Tall, Dark, and Surly, to figure out exactly what it is he thinks I need to be so afraid of—but he’s gone.