Sloane's POV
‘Caution, caution, caution, with this snake here,’ Zia warns me as I approach the area Judy wanted to meet me at. Only two figures broke the vast emptiness, jogging far off in the distance. The isolated lake stretching out like frozen obsidian, bordered by brittle, frosted reeds as winter crept deeper into the tree line. The air bites with a sharp, icy edge, turning every breath into a plume of white mist.
And, I stand near the edge, arms crossed over my chest, watching Judy as she approaches, irritation already on the rise inside me.
She looks small, shivering, or pretending to. Stripped of the venomous smirk and the calculated swagger she usually wears around campus, her shoulders are hunched, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow against the cold.
When she stops a few feet aw
