The abandoned cable car station looks like a broken tooth biting into the mountain—jagged, rotting, impossible to ignore once you see it. The wind screams through the rusted beams like it’s still angry about what happened here. Or maybe it’s just angry at us for coming back.
“This is where he died,” I say, my voice thin, brittle. “Don’t lie to me again, Kai. If you’re innocent—prove it.”
Kai’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t argue. That scares me more than if he did.
The yellow police tape still flaps between posts, faded by snow and time. Someone tried to forget this place. The mountain refused.
Tyler’s accident, they called it. A slip. Bad visibility. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s what my father signed off on. That’s what Bianca’s father toasted to at his fundraiser dinners. That’s what everyone agreed to swallow.
Everyone except me.
Kai steps past the tape like it’s nothing, like rules stopped mattering to him a long time ago. I follow, my boots crunching on old ice, my heart pounding so hard I swear the mountain can hear it.
“Before you say anything,” I tell him, “know this—if you lie again, I’m done. Completely.”
He turns to me, eyes dark, exhausted. “I know.”
For a second, I almost reach for his hand. Almost.
Instead, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out something small and black. A GoPro.
My breath catches. “You had that this whole time?”
“No,” he says quietly. “Tyler did.”
The name hits like a punch to the chest. My throat burns.
“He hid it under the platform,” Kai continues, pointing toward the shadowed underside of the station. “He said if anything happened to him, this would tell the truth.”
He plugs the camera into his phone. The screen flickers, then steadies.
The footage is shaky—Tyler’s voice, breathless, laughing nervously. If this works, Chloe’s dad can’t ignore it anymore. The camera pans to the mountainside. Trees falling. Heavy machinery cutting into the slope like it’s soft flesh.
Illegal logging.
My stomach twists. “That’s… that’s the expansion zone.”
“I know,” Kai says. “The report your dad signed off on? The one that said it was safe?”
I swallow. “It was fake.”
The video jumps. Tyler whispers, Someone’s coming. Footsteps crunch in snow.
Then a shape moves into frame.
My heart stops.
It’s not Kai.
It’s Bianca’s father.
I feel dizzy. “No. No, that’s—”
The footage cuts abruptly to black.
“That’s it?” I demand. “That’s all?”
Kai doesn’t look at me. “That’s all that’s left.”
Something inside me snaps. “What do you mean, ‘left’?”
He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for months. “Your father came to me after the accident. He said the footage would destroy everyone. He offered me a deal.”
Cold spreads through my veins. “What deal?”
“He’d drop the lawsuit against my mom. The one that would’ve taken our house.” Kai finally meets my eyes. “If I deleted the rest.”
The mountain feels like it’s tilting. “So you chose yourself.”
“I chose survival,” he says, voice cracking. “And I hate myself for it every day.”
I want to scream. I want to hit him. I want to fall apart.
Instead, slow clapping echoes behind us.
“Well,” Bianca’s voice cuts through the air, sharp and trembling. “This is intimate.”
I spin around. She stands a few feet away, phone raised, eyes shining with something dangerous.
“How long have you been there?” I ask.
“Long enough,” she says. “And long enough to know you didn’t delete everything, Kai.”
His face drains of color. “What are you talking about?”
She lifts her phone. “Cloud backup. You missed one.”
My heart slams as she hits play.
The footage resumes—same angle, same trees. Bianca’s father grabs Tyler’s jacket. They struggle. Tyler slips, scrambling for footing.
Then—Kai rushes into frame.
“Tyler!” he shouts.
Kai grabs his arm. For a second—a single, terrible second—it looks like Tyler might live.
Then a hand shoves Kai aside.
Bianca’s father.
He stands there. Watching.
Watching Tyler fall.
A scream rips out of my chest. “Oh my God.”
The video ends.
Silence crashes down, heavy and suffocating.
Bianca drops her phone, hands shaking. Tears streak down her face. “I always knew,” she whispers. “I heard them arguing that night. My mom told me to forget it. Said the truth would destroy us.”
She looks at me. “But watching you… refusing to look away… I couldn’t do it anymore.”
I step toward her, anger and grief tangled so tightly I can’t tell them apart. “People died,” I say. “Seven workers. Tyler. All because your father wanted more money.”
“I know,” she sobs. “And I’m done protecting him.”
Kai wipes his face, shame carved into every line of his body. “I’ll testify. I’ll say everything.”
For the first time since Tyler died, something like hope flickers in my chest.
Then—
The distant whine of an engine slices through the air.
Snowmobile.
Not one. Two. Maybe three.
Bianca’s eyes widen. “He followed me.”
The mountain answers with a roar.
And suddenly, the truth feels more dangerous than any lie we’ve ever told.