It was the third week of October in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, situated on a dirt spur off Route 105 north of Island Pond. Here, the cell signal disappeared long before the pavement did. The maples had already turned, leaving the woods rust-colored and bare. The air carried the first serious bite of northern cold, mixed with wood smoke, wet leaves, and the hard mineral smell that meant winter was closing in fast.

Nadine Frost was sixteen years old. Most people called her Deenie—it was the last thing her mother had ever called her.

She had been an orphan for eight months. In the spring, black ice had sent her parents' truck off Route 114 near the Nulhegan River. With no close family willing or able to take her in, the county had reluctantly allowed Nadine to stay on her family's land through the school year under the loose supervision of a caseworker. The alternative was a group home two hours south.

Nadine lived alone. She split her own wood, walked two miles to the county road every morning to catch the school bus, and kept the stove burning the way a person keeps the last ember of something alive. Her entire existence was reduced to a harsh set of metrics:

• $211: The total cash she had hidden in a coffee can.

• $940: The property tax bill coming due in December.

• One: The single woodpile she had left, which certainly would not survive February.

• Forty: The acres of stone, spruce, and rough pasture she called home.

And there was one more number: a single neighbor further down the spur named Merrick Sloan. Sloan had made it abundantly clear that he would happily take those forty acres off her hands for a fraction of their value the moment the county stopped protecting her.

Nadine was sixteen, broke, and in danger of losing everything. Because nobody else was there to carry her burdens, she had learned to carry heavy things herself.

That was why, when she heard the crash, she ran toward it.

She heard the motorcycle first. It was a deep, rolling engine note coming off Route 105, climbing the dirt spur far too fast for such a rough road.

Then, the engine stopped. A sharp impact echoed through the trees, followed by the long, agonizing scrape of metal against dirt and stone.

After that, silence.

Crows rose from the canopy in a flurry of black wings. Nadine dropped her backpack and sprinted. She found the wreckage around the next bend, near a washed-out culvert. A massive black touring bike lay on its side thirty feet from the road, its front wheel crushed and oil bleeding into the dead leaves.

The rider was crumpled in the ditch. He had gone over the handlebars and landed hard. There was serious bleeding from high on his left leg, and another dark stain spreading along his scalp. Even broken in the dirt, he was enormous—at least six-foot-four and 260 pounds. His leather vest had ridden up across his broad back, displaying a distinct set of patches:

His eyes were half-open, staring blankly at the canopy. He was trying to speak, but only a wet rasp escaped his lips. Nadine dropped to her knees in the cold leaves. She remembered the Red Cross first-aid course her mother had forced her to take when she was fourteen.

“Stop the bleeding first,” the instructor’s voice echoed in her memory.

She pressed both hands against the severe wound on his thigh and leaned her entire weight into it. The bleeding slowed, but not enough. Nadine pulled out her phone with a trembling, blood-slicked hand.