Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO RECOGNIZED ME
Ethan stepped into the room.
For a moment, everything around me disappeared.
The music.
The conversations.
The laughter.
All of it faded.
Because I remembered the storm.
Three years earlier, a military transport had gone down during a blizzard in the mountains.
Visibility had dropped to almost nothing.
Temperatures had fallen below zero.
A small rescue team had been dispatched.
I was Whiteout One.
Our orders were simple:
Find the survivors.
Bring them home.
We found the aircraft nearly buried beneath the snow.
There were five survivors.
One of them was a young Navy officer.
His leg was badly injured.
His oxygen was running out.
His name was Ethan Cole.
I remembered carrying him through the snow.
I remembered him barely conscious.
I remembered him grabbing my sleeve and whispering:
“Don’t leave me.”
I hadn’t.
I carried him nearly half a mile through the storm until the extraction team reached us.
He survived.
But he never saw my face.
My helmet had been covered.
My goggles were iced over.
My identity had been classified.
And now he was standing ten feet away from me.
Three years later.
At my sister’s engagement party.
Brianna walked toward him with a smile.
“Ethan, meet my sister Lauren.”
He turned.
Our eyes met.
His smile disappeared.
The champagne glass slipped from his hand.
It shattered against the floor.
Everyone went silent.
Ethan stared at me.
Then he whispered:
“Dear God…”
I didn’t move.
His face had gone pale.
“You’re Whiteout One.”
The room erupted in whispers.
Brianna looked confused.
“What?”
Ethan didn’t hear her.
He stepped closer.
“You saved my life.”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
He looked at Brianna.
Then back at me.
“You never told me.”
May you like
I gave him a small smile.
“You never asked.”
