Chapter 1: The Emergency They Downgraded

When I was nine, my little sister Lily fell off the training wall and broke her arm.

My parents decided it was my fault. I hadn't been watching her closely enough.

After that, they made a new family rule: the one who was weak, the one who needed help, always came first.

But when my state first-aid competition fell on the same day as Lily's promotional photo shoot, she was the one who needed help.

When I was burning with a 104-degree fever that happened to overlap with Lily's fan meet-and-greet, she was still the one who needed help.

My father always said I was stronger than my sister and should learn to handle things on my own.

Until nine years later, when a snapped steel cable slashed my leg open in a rainstorm—leaving me bleeding, hypothermic, and trapped on the North Ridge in Colorado.

I called for rescue over the radio.

My father, holding the keys to the company's only support vehicle, downgraded my emergency himself.

Because Lily had a mild case of altitude sickness, and she was in the middle of a sponsored livestream that couldn't be interrupted.

Through my headset, I heard my mother's voice, soft and soothing, telling Lily not to be afraid.

Then my father cut my channel.

Forty-seven minutes later, a park ranger found me in the rain, barely conscious.

The moment he saw my leg, his expression hardened.

"Did your company receive your locator signal?"

"Yes."

"Then where are they?"

I gave a bitter laugh.

"They had a higher-priority task."

When I woke again, I was in an observation room at the town hospital.

Thirteen stitches in my calf, a strained ligament in my right shoulder, and mild hypothermia and dehydration.

A nurse handed me my phone and told me no one from my family had answered the hospital's calls.

There was an unread email on the screen.

The University of Edinburgh's program in Geographic Information and Mountain Safety was offering me a full scholarship.

Three months ago, the faculty advisor had invited me to join their summer mapping project early.

I had been planning to turn it down.

My father said the company couldn't function without me organizing route data and accident records.

My mother said Lily's channel was about to expand and needed me to vet every route for her.

I had always thought staying was the price of being part of the family.

Now I opened the email and typed two words.

I accept.