Below Zero (The STEMinist Novellas #3) by Ali Hazelwood

            The second he says the word trek, my stupid brain decides to attempt to rotate my ankle. Which leads to me biting my chapped, frozen lips to swallow a whimper. A terrible idea, as it turns out. “Ian, nothing of what you just said makes sense.”

            “Really?” He sounds amused. How? Why? “Nothing?”

            “How do you even know where I am?”

            “GPS tracker. On your Iridium phone.”

            “It’s impossible. AMASE said they couldn’t activate the tracker. The sensors aren’t working.”

            “AMASE isn’t within range, and the coming storm was probably interfering.” A strong gust of wind lifts, and for a painfully gelid moment it’s everywhere: whooshing around me, piercing inside my lungs, making its way into my ears. I try to curl my body away, but it does nothing to stop the freezing air. I dig myself only deeper into the snow and jostle my stupid ankle.

            Fuck.

            “AMASE is over three hours from my creva—location. If you really do get here in thirty minutes, we’re not going to make it there in time to avoid the storm. You are not going to make it back in time, and I’m not going to let something terrible happen to you just because I—”

            “I’m not coming from AMASE,” he says. “And that’s not where we’re going.”

            “But how did you even access my GPS tracker if you’re not at AMASE?”

            A pause. “I’m good with computers.”

            “You’re— Are you saying you hacked your way into—”

            “They mentioned you’re injured. How bad is it?”

            I glance at my boots. Ice crystals have begun to crust around the soles. “Just a few scrapes. And a sprain. I think I could maybe walk, but—I don’t know about sixty minutes.” I don’t know about sixty seconds. “And on this terrain—”

            “You won’t have to walk at all.”

            I frown, even though my brow is almost frozen. “How will I get to wherever we’re going if—”

            “Do you have ascenders?”

            “Yes. But again, I don’t know if I can climb . . .”

            “No problem. I’ll just haul you out.”

            “You . . . It’s too dangerous. The terrain around the edge might collapse and you’d fall in, too.” I let out a choppy breath. “Ian, I cannot let you.”

            “Don’t worry, I’m not in the habit of falling inside crevasses.”

            “Neither am I.”

            “You sure about that?”

            Okay. Fine. I walked right into this one. “Ian, I cannot let you do this. If it’s . . .” I take a shuddering, frigid breath. “If it’s because you feel responsible for this. If you’re risking your life because you think it’s somehow your fault I ended up here, then you really shouldn’t. You know that I have no one to blame but me, and—”

            “I am about to start climbing,” he interrupts distractedly, like I wasn’t in the dead middle of an impassioned speech.

            “Climbing? What are you climbing?”

            “I’ll put away my phone, but get in touch if anything happens.”

            “Ian, I really don’t think you should—”

            “Hannah.”

            The shock of hearing my name—in Ian’s voice, cocooned by the whistle of the wind, and through the metallic line of my satphone, no less—has me instantly shutting up. Until he continues.

            “Just relax and think of Mars, okay? I’ll be there soon.”





Chapter 4


            Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

            One year ago

            It’s not that I’m shocked to see him.