Chapter 2

Sophie's POV

The moment the dam broke, I held my one-month-old son with everything I had.

I kicked the rooftop door open with the last of my strength.

My newborn's little face had gone blue from the cold. His cries were so faint they barely existed.

I pressed the call button and reached out to my husband. "The baby and I are trapped. The water keeps rising. Bring the boat around and grab a can of formula on your way. Please. Save our son."

Nothing came through the radio but static.

I bent my head and pressed my cheek against his cold little face, trying to warm him with what little heat I had left. This was our child. One month old. Ethan hadn't even held him once.

"Ethan, it's me. Sophie." I ran my thumb desperately over the ridges of the radio, tears and rainwater streaming together. "The baby's with me. He's so cold. Please, just say something."

The channel went quiet for half a second.

Then came the sound of low, urgent breathing.

Ethan.

I nearly cried out with relief. I knew that breathing anywhere.

Five years ago, after the old dam collapse, Ethan had dug me out of the rubble with his bare hands, gasping just like that.

That day, he had clasped this GPS bracelet around my wrist himself and looked me in the eye. "This frequency is yours alone. Even if the whole city loses power. Even if the sky falls. I will dig you out from whatever has buried you."

"Ethan, you can hear me, right..."

Before I could finish, a sharp voice cut through the channel, shrill and trembling, wet with tears, drowning me out completely.

"Ethan! I'm so scared! The water is at the window. I'm really scared!"

Mandy. The girl Ethan always kept close, his so-called "goddaughter," though they shared no blood.

Every drop of warmth left in my body turned to ice.

I didn't even get the chance to speak. Through the radio came Ethan's voice, steady and gentle."Don't be scared, Mandy. I'm almost there."

I opened my mouth. Cold rain poured down my throat, and the pain choked off every sound.

A sharp beep.

The green light on the private channel, the one meant only for me, blinked out and went gray.

I hammered the reconnect button. Failed. Again. Still nothing.

Ethan had cut my signal.

While our baby was freezing to death, my husband had severed my only lifeline to go save another woman.

"Ethan!" I raised the radio into the downpour and screamed until my throat tore. "Ethan, our baby is up here!"

The dead gray screen didn't move.

Then I heard it, the sound of a motorboat in the distance.

I snapped my head up. A blinding searchlight swept past a half-collapsed billboard and cut straight toward the rooftop edge where I was standing.

That was Ethan's rescue boat.

I lurched to my feet, wading through waist-deep floodwater, waving both arms at the beam of light. "Over here! Ethan! We're over here!"

The cold light swept across my face.

Then moved on without a second's pause.

The boat carved a clean arc through the water, spun around, and sped toward the far bank where Mandy was waiting.

My arm froze in midair.

A wave of brown water slammed into my lower back. I stumbled and went down, and the baby let out a sound so faint it barely registered.

I clapped my hand over the back of his head, pulling him close. But the last of his warmth inside the wrappings was draining away fast.

I pressed the radio hard against my lips and hit the emergency backup channel for the last time. My voice came out in shreds:

"Ethan... I'm not asking you to save me first. Just take the baby. Please. He's only a month old. He's never even seen his dad."

The only answer was the engine fading into the distance, and the dead silence of a radio that would never connect again.

I let my head fall.

On my wrist, the GPS bracelet I'd worn for five years blinked blue. Still sending. Still doing its job.

But the person on the other end had blocked me.

I unzipped my rescue jacket and lashed the baby's wrappings against my chest.

My fingers were so frozen I couldn't grip. I bent my head and used my teeth to pull the cloth strips tight, biting down until they held.

When it was done, I lifted my wrist and put the bracelet's clasp in my mouth.

A hard click.

The clasp cut into my lip. I tasted blood, but it gave way.

The bracelet, the one that was supposed to mean I will always find you, slipped off the wrist it had circled for five years.

I closed my fingers around the cracked screen and held on.

I pressed my back against the rooftop exhaust pipe, pulled my son against my chest, and slid slowly down into the water.

The cold rose inch by inch past my knees. Over my chest.

I lowered my chin until it rested on the still bundle wrapped against me.

I had nothing left to shout.