The conference grounds had stopped pretending to be civilized.
What had once been elegant tents and polite applause had exploded into chaos—flashing emergency lights slicing through the night, voices shouting over one another, radios crackling like they were arguing with themselves. Sirens screamed somewhere down the mountain, sharp and relentless, tearing through the crisp alpine air.
Rafael Vexley's world was coming apart at the seams.
James pushed his wheelchair with urgent precision toward the waiting vehicle that would take them to the eastern trail, where the terrain dropped off into a treacherous ditch. The air smelled of pine sap and wet earth, heavy and metallic, as if the mountain itself was holding its breath. Around them, search teams swarmed the grounds, moving with frantic purpose—organized chaos, the worst kind.
