Chapter 4

I clamped my hands on the fabric.

Selene came in to help him, pinning me down.

They got my outer jacket off in seconds.

Caleb wanted more. He went for my thermal vest too.

No. That was my last layer. If that went, I'd die.

I clutched the fabric and fixed my bloodshot eyes on Selene.

She didn't flinch. She reached to help Caleb rip it off me.

"Let go! You're built strong, you can handle it!"

"Caleb's fragile. He can't afford to catch a chill!"

Hearing that, something in me finally broke. I let go and waited to die.

Just as Selene was about to tear off my last inner layer, the roar of a helicopter cut through the air in the distance.

The helicopter had "Moon Chronicle Emergency Rescue" stamped on its side. It was Marcus.

He'd come himself.

"Everyone below! Stop what you're doing immediately!"

A loudspeaker voice cut through the snow. The rotors kicked up clouds of powder.

Rescue crew fast-roped down. Professional gear, cold-steady presence. The whole scene fell silent.

Marcus took one look at me, half-stripped, collapsed in the snow, and his face went black.

"Medical team! Emergency protocol! Severe altitude sickness, severe hypothermia! Prep the hyperbaric chamber and warmed IVs!"

Medics rushed over. They wrapped me tight in thermal blankets, fitted a mask, hooked me to a portable high-pressure oxygen line.

"Consciousness impaired, core temp low, pulse weak! Lucky we got here in time — ten more minutes and we'd be looking at irreversible brain damage and organ failure!"

Selene was shouting, trying to explain.

"Marcus! It's a misunderstanding! He was just being moody! We were taking care of him—"

Caleb rushed in with a fake smile.

"Yes, editor, Ethan was joking with us, he tore his own clothes, we were talking him down—"

Marcus gave them a glance. His eyes were ice.

"Shut up! I got the distress signal from his satellite phone and the live audio feed from the GoPro. Save it for the debrief!"

He gestured to a small recording device on one of the crew.

The rotors were still going. The chopper vibrated under the wind.

The hyperbaric oxygen was already taking the edge off my headache and nausea. But the cold was still deep in me, bone-deep.

The thermal blanket warmed the outside. It couldn't touch the burn where my skin had been exposed to the real cold.

"Ethan? Can you hear me?" Marcus's voice came in beside me. There was something worried under it.

He crouched by the stretcher. His pro climbing suit still had ice crystals on it.

He was holding a tablet. A video was playing on the screen.

I could just make out Caleb crouched in front of me.

"How are you feeling? Can you talk?"

I tried to nod. My throat was raw. Every motion scraped like sandpaper.

The rescue medic handed over a warm electrolyte pouch and ran a line into my arm.

"Don't push it. Severe altitude sickness and hypothermia are hell on the throat. Talking now will damage the lining. Save your strength."

Warm fluid spread through my veins and pushed back a little of the cold inside me.

I blinked and looked at the tablet, my lips trembling. I forced out a few words.

"Them..."

"My crew's watching them. Same helicopter. Separated for transport."

Marcus's face hardened. He tapped the screen.

"Your sat phone has an emergency recording function. The moment the distress signal goes out, it auto-captures and transmits the last few minutes of audio. And Caleb's collar GoPro — he kept it running for behind-the-scenes footage. Audio and video, crystal clear."

I stared at the freeze-frame of Caleb — the face that looked concerned and was vicious underneath. My chest felt like an ice pick had gone through it.

The innocent act in front of Selene. The bared teeth in front of me.

The oxygen swap, the torn jacket, the taunting — every step planned, and he recorded it himself.

The medic beside us was logging vitals, tapping into a tablet chart.

"Blood oxygen coming up. Core temp's still under 33. Hypothermia is bad. We need to get him to base, into the chamber, full rewarm protocol."

"Severe altitude sickness plus severe hypothermia. Ten more minutes and even if we saved him, there'd be permanent nerve and extremity damage."

"What about the sponsor? The studio?" I remembered Selene's father was the main sponsor. My voice was still wrecked. "Will they..."

"Don't worry. Moon Chronicle has already opened an internal investigation. All evidence is locked down. Whoever is involved — if it's malicious harm, endangering life, or fabricating evidence — it gets investigated to the end."

Marcus cut in before I could finish, his voice unyielding.

"This shoot is tied to the magazine's reputation and the ethics of exploration. No one gets to treat a photographer's life as a joke, and no one gets to use it as a chip for knocking out rivals."

The chopper set down smooth at the Pack Medical Base at the foot of Silverfang. The door opened and the cold rushed in, but I was bundled tight.

The medical crew rolled a stretcher over, transferred me fast, and pushed me toward the hyperbaric chamber.

Through the connecting corridor, I caught a glimpse of the other side. Selene and Caleb were under guard, being led to separate interview rooms.