Introduction

Thanksgiving weekend was just around the corner, and as an intern ranger, I was preparing for what my supervisor, Mark Thorne, called a "mandatory exploratory survey" to Devil's Gulch.

But this seemingly routine assignment was a meticulously planned death trap, set by the man I worked for and the sister I loved.

The rock bit into my back, a sharp pain, then nothing as my climbing rope went slack, sabotaged, as I plummeted into the cold darkness of the crevasse.

Mark's chilling, empty smile was the last thing I saw above me on the narrow ledge, my sister Emily looking away, silent, complicit, as I fought for air.

Killed.

By my own supervisor and the only family I had left, betrayed for reasons I couldn't comprehend as my life vanished in an instant.

Then I jolted awake, not in a freezing abyss, but in my familiar bunk, the comforting scent of pine from my cheap park-issued mattress filling the air.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I touched my face, my arms, realizing there were no broken bones, no blood.

The calendar on the wall screamed at me: three days before that fateful Thanksgiving trip to Devil's Gulch.

I was alive.

It was a memory, vivid, terrifying, but now it was also a warning.

A second chance.

This time, I wouldn't be the naive one; I would protect myself first, and if I could, protect my sister from him and from herself.

I could still stop this.

And I would.