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Jessica was cold and damp. Her head felt as if it were full of broken glass. Her temple throbbed.

At first it felt as if she might be in a boxing ring. She’d been knocked down a few times in sparring, and the first sensation had always been one of falling. Not to the canvas—through space. Then the pain.

She was not in the ring. It was too cold.

She opened her eyes, felt the ground around her. Wet earth, pine needles, leaves. She sat up, a little too quickly. The world spun out of balance. She lowered herself onto an elbow. After a minute or so, she looked around.

She was in the forest. There was even an inch or so of snow that had accumulated upon her.

How long have I been out here? How did I get here?

She looked around. There were no footprints. The heavy snow had blanketed everything. Jessica gave herself a quick once over. Nothing broken, nothing seemed fractured.

The temperature was dropping; the snow was falling harder.

Jessica stood up, steadied herself against a tree, did a quick accounting.

No cell phone. No weapon. No partner.

Nicci.

AT SIX-THIRTY IT stopped snowing. But it had gotten fully dark, and Jessica had no way of knowing direction. She was far from an outdoor expert to begin with, but what little she knew she could not use.

The forest was dense. Every so often she clicked on her dying Maglite, hoping to gain some sort of bearing. She didn’t want to use up what little battery life she had. She didn’t know how long she would be out here.

She lost her footing a few times on icy rocks hidden beneath the snow, repeatedly tumbling to the ground. She decided to walk from barren tree to barren tree, holding on to low branches. It made her progress slower, but she did not need to twist an ankle or worse.

After something like thirty minutes, Jessica stopped. She thought she heard … a stream? Yes, it was the sound of water trickling. But where was it coming from? She determined that it was coming from over a slight rise to her right. She slowly negotiated the incline, saw it. A narrow brook snaked its way through the woods. She was no expert on waterways, but the fact that it was moving meant something. Didn’t it?

She would follow it. She didn’t know if it was leading her deeper into the forest, or closer to civilization. Either way, she was certain of one thing. She had to move. If she stayed in one place, dressed as she was, she would not survive the night. She flashed on the image of Kristina Jakos’s frozen skin.

She pulled her coat close to her body, and followed the stream.