---- Chapter 3 No.3 The cold seeped into her bones. Clare wrapped her arms around herself, the thin fabric of her coat useless against the mountain air. She had no phone. No wallet. Just the clothes on her back and the burgeoning life inside her that had just condemned her. Panic rose in her throat, hot and acidic. She choked it down. Panicking was a luxury she couldn't afford. She thought about her parents. How they'd called her dream of being a model "silly." How, a year ago, when she'd called them, lonely and overwhelmed, her mother had told her they'd turned her bedroom into a sewing room. We needed the space, she'd said, her voice distant. They had erased her long before Chase ever could. There was no one. No one but Chase. And he had left her here to die. A new feeling began to crystalize in the pit of her stomach, pushing past the fear. It was cold and hard and sharp. Rage. ---- How dare he? How dare he play God with her life, her body, her future? He thought he could break her. He thought he could leave her on a mountain to teach her a lesson, and she would come crawling back, grateful for any scrap of affection he threw her way. Maybe she had been that weak. But the woman who had loved Chase Strong was freezing to death on this mountain. A new one was being forged in the ice. Hours passed. The moon rose, casting long, menacing shadows. Every snap of a twig in the woods sent a jolt of fear through her. She was prey. She thought about the baby. His baby. A child conceived under a lie, a chain meant to bind her to her jailer. The thought made her physically sick. She would not let this child be another link in that chain. The decision settled in her heart, not with grief, but with a grim, resolute calm. It was an act of mercy for a life that hadn't yet begun, and an act of liberation for her own. Just before dawn, when the sky was a pale, bruised purple, she heard the sound of an engine. Headlights cut through the darkness. It was his car. ---- He pulled up, rolling down the passenger window. He looked tired, but his expression was confident. Smug. He expected to see her broken, crying, begging. He saw a statue carved from ice. She didn't move. She just stared at him, her eyes empty of the adoration he was so used to seeing. "Have you had enough time to think?" he asked, his voice laced with patronizing gentleness. She said nothing. He sighed, a theatrical display of disappointment. "Clare, don't be difficult. Get in the car. We'll go home, have a warm bath, and forget this ever happened." She walked to the driver's side window. She leaned down, her face close to his. She saw a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He wasn't used to her being this close without his permission. "The wedding is off," she said. Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion. His face tightened. "Don't be ridiculous." "I'm leaving you, Chase." "You have nowhere to go," he sneered. "You have nothing without me." ---- "\'d rather have nothing than have you," she said. She looked at her hands, the ruined skin a testament to his cruelty. Then she looked back at him. "And I'm getting rid of the baby." The color drained from his face. This, finally, was a move he hadn't anticipated. It was a variable he couldn't control. The baby was his legacy, his property. 1 "You wouldn't dare," he hissed. "Watch me," she said. She turned and started walking down the mountain. She didn't look back. The sun was rising, and for the first time in years, she felt like she was walking toward the light, not away from it.