Chapter 1

Hazel Sinclair

The cold bit deeper than the wind as I forced my boots through the snow that clung to everything.....my coat, my gloves, the ends of my hair where it had frozen solid after three days of walking that left my hands raw and my lungs burning.

But the shelter’s steel door was finally in front of me, so I slammed both palms against it.

“Please! Open the door! It’s me!”

There was no answer at first, only the howling wind that seemed determined to freeze the last bit of hope out of me.

My heart sank and I almost turned to leave when I heard footsteps, soft and measured, like whoever was coming had all the time in the world in the middle of a freezing crisis.

My breath fogged the small glass window the second I saw who it was.

“M…Mom!”

Her face appeared behind the glass with pink cheeks and neat hair, looking warm and rested in the thick winter coat I had bought her only two weeks before everything fell apart. The heat from inside practically radiated through the pane while I stood there shaking.

I pressed closer, palms flat against the cold glass. “Mom, please. I made it. I’m here.”

She didn’t say a word. She just turned her head slightly, and someone stepped into view beside her.

“Daniel?" I murmured.

The sight of him hit harder than the cold ever could. My fingers curled against the glass until they ached.

“Daniel… please.”

He looked at me the way a man looks at a problem he hoped would just disappear on its own...no relief, no rush to unlock the door, just a tight jaw and eyes that slid away too quickly. “You’re too late, Hazel.”

I blinked, certain I had misheard him. “What?”

My mother answered instead, already half-turned away like the conversation was finished. “We can’t let you in.”

“Mom...” I slapped the glass again, hard enough that the metal rang under my hands. “I’m your daughter. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You should have gotten here sooner.”

The words were quiet and final, the kind that leave no room for argument.

My gaze flicked past them into the common room where people sat around tables with bottled water stacked against the walls, canned food in open boxes, and heat lamps glowing like some twisted postcard of comfort. They had enough. They simply didn’t want me.

“Daniel.” My voice shook despite how hard I tried to steady it. “You told me you would never leave me.”

His jaw flexed. “I know what I said.”

A figure moved behind him then, and Samantha stepped into the light with a thick blanket draped over her shoulders and her hair still damp from a recent wash. Daniel turned toward her at once, the shift so smooth it almost looked practiced.

“Are you cold baby?” His voice softened the way it used to for me, and the sound of it made something in my chest twist.

Samantha gave a small nod. “A little.”

He shrugged out of his coat without hesitation and settled it around her, his hands lingering at the collar as he adjusted the fabric against her neck.

She pulled it tighter and leaned into him like she belonged there.

Something cold and sharp slid into place behind my ribs. Late-night calls. The way Samantha always knew where Daniel was. My mother’s quiet defenses every time I asked questions.

I had explained it all away once. Standing out here with the wind cutting through me, I couldn’t anymore.

“Samantha.”

Our eyes met. Guilt flickered across her face for half a second before it vanished completely. She slipped her arm through Daniel’s like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“We should go back inside,” she murmured. “It’s too cold near the door.”

Daniel nodded and started to turn, already done with me.

“Sam.....please.” My palms slid down the glass. “You know me. Just ask them. I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

She looked at me for a long moment, then shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Hazel.”

The apology was soft, almost kind, and it cut deeper than silence ever could.

Daniel’s arm settled around her shoulders. That was the answer.

I stepped back, snow crunching under my boots. “Daniel… after everything I did for you.....”

He didn’t even look at me. “I never asked you to do those things.”

A bitter laugh escaped before I could stop it. “No. You didn’t have to. I loved you.”

His expression hardened. “You need to go.”

“Where?” I threw my arms out at the empty street, the buried cars, the dark that stretched on forever. “Where exactly am I supposed to go?”

No one answered.

I looked at my mother one last time. “Mom?”

Her lips trembled, but she still wouldn’t meet my eyes. That was when the last thread snapped.

I turned away from the door. The wind hit me full in the face, sharp as broken glass, and I wrapped my arms around myself and started walking.

Snow rose past my knees in places, every step dragging like the ground itself wanted to keep me there.

My body screamed for rest, but the ache in my chest was worse. I kept seeing their faces..

I had worked extra shifts when Daniel lost his job, emptied my savings when Samantha needed tuition, spent months nursing my mother through the worst of the fever. I had believed they were my people.

I had believed the end of the world would bind us tighter.

Instead they locked the door and watched me freeze.

My legs gave out somewhere past the last streetlight.

I sank into the snow and stayed there, staring up at the black sky while flakes landed on my lashes and melted against my skin. I tried to push myself up. My arms refused.

A strange calm settled over me as the cold worked deeper. Right now, it was just me lying alone while the people I had spent my life protecting stayed warm behind steel and glass.

I closed my eyes.

“Daniel…” The name left my lips more as breath than sound,“ Sammy...Mom...“

A bitter smile touched my frozen mouth. I had spent years believing love meant giving until there was nothing left. Now I knew the truth: some people would watch you destroy yourself if it meant they got to stay comfortable.

My breathing slowed. The ache in my fingers faded. I could no longer feel the snow beneath me or the wind above.

My last thought was not about the cold.

It was about regret.

If I had another chance, I would never again beg anyone to love me. I would never again sacrifice myself for people who would not lift a finger in return. And I would never forgive the three of them for leaving me here.

My eyes closed.

The world went quiet.