Spiral (The Salzburg Saga Book One) by D. U. Okonkwo Page A

you to. We have to help ourselves now, and we have to hurry . None of us know where going, or where we are. I don’t’ have a compass or map with me, so we have to stick together and do our best to survive. Come on.”
    “ Help ourselves how ?” she cried shrilly. “No one knows we’re here or that we’re stranded. How, Jake? How?”
    “We can’t debate it here. Let’s move,” he said. Shoving the rucksack onto his back he all but started dragging Emily along with him. “The rest of us are lucky to be alive. We have to honor that and try to survive. Come on.” He nodded in approval to Neil and Shayna who had already started to walk up ahead. “Let’s follow them.”
    Nina grimaced with every step through the snow. They were all hobbling, she saw, especially Parker, but they were moving, and now she had to. She only hoped she could.
    Justin supported a babbling Hugh to his side, his body almost bent double under the weight.
    Hugh’s complexion was waxy and drawn; his face damp with sweat, and Nina saw he was struggling with one of his legs. “Looks as if he might have caught a fever,” Justin shouted to them over the howl of the avalanche.
    Disgusted, Nina looked away.
    “Not our problem,” Jake shouted back. “Either dump him or carry him. Your choice.” Even as Justin’s face stiffened, Jake had already dismissed him. “Keep your hand over your nose and mouth.” He demonstrated with his free hand. “It’ll make breathing easier.”
    Nina tried to block out the pain of stiffened limbs and aching ribs as she limped away from the rolling tide of the avalanche and toward, what she hoped, was safety.
    The wind howled around them, a groaning that permeated her ears and made her teeth continually chatter. She had wrapped her scarf around her neck when she’d changed into her ski gear but wisps of cold air still sneaked underneath it, irritating her.
    For every step they took, the wind forced them back two steps. She fell down several times, and Angela had helped her back to her feet.
    She wasn’t sure when the avalanche ceased; it might have been an hour or ten minutes. Emily drew their attention to it, her gloved hand shaking in the air as she pointed her finger to the suddenly quiet mountains, that tranquility settling over the area after so much natural destruction. They took the moment to stop and express their relief and take a much-needed break.
    Not so much as a bird flew overhead and snow began falling in thick flat flakes, making visibility difficult.
    Her sister Hazel’s face flashed into Nina’s mind then, and it was all Nina could do not to weep as fear clawed her throat. Hazel was expecting her to be smooching with Parker’s client and making contacts for their law firm. Heck, her sister expected her to have access to a Jacuzzi.
    The current reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
    She always called Hazel when she went on a business trip. As Hazel, the only one of her three other siblings currently in London, they always informed the other if they’d be away for any extended period of time. How would she make the call now, when Justin had said earlier that there was no signal?
    How on earth had they gone from joking in the VIP area of Gatwick to be battered, bruised, and deserted in the middle of nowhere?
    Then with one thought she had her answer: Hugh Drayton.
    Was it wrong that she wished him dead? That she’d envisioned, as she’d fallen and stumbled in the thick snow, herself with her hands around his neck, drawing out every last breath he had? If it was wrong to feel this way, she didn’t feel it. If anything, it buoyed by the vision. How could he still be alive and Jake and Emily’s friend, Ben, dead?
    Neil and Jake seemed to know where they to head, for which she’d be eternally grateful. She hated to think it, but she wasn’t sure what they would have done if both pilots hadn’t survived the crash.
    Realizing that Neil and Parker had