Shit, shit, shit, shit.

You slam the butt of your palm against the fuel gauge, as if you can scare it into jumping up and away from that foreboding “E”. Of course, your efforts are in vain, the engine sputtering its dying breaths.

Serves you right for getting the old Piper Cub; hell of an impulse buy, but you’d needed it. You’d needed to be in a plane again, feeling the rush of adrenaline that could only come from flying free through the air. Once, that had come from being a pilot for the Coast Guard, leading rescue missions in tense situations. You thrived in the stress, in the pressure of knowing lives depended on your competence.

A few months ago, you’d been sent out on a deployment, heading to a soon-to-be war zone to quell tensions. The mission had gone awry, though, your plane gunned down and you and your men captured. Your memories of the place you were held are still foggy, blocked out by trauma and pain. You were eventually rescued, but not unscathed. The base psychologist diagnosed you with severe PTSD, and though you tried to brush it off, to be stronger than your mind, that place had done a number on you. You weren’t as dependable as you once were, not as steady-minded, and your commander had no choice to honorably discharge you.

Was heading to Alaska to buy a vintage plane off of someone the most responsible idea? Maybe not. But it had only taken you a few weeks of being grounded to get impossibly antsy, aching for the life-giving air of high altitude. You just had to get the little yellow Cub to the Anchorage airport, and you could handle it from there. But the seller had apparently failed to disclose the faulty fuel gauge, the needle having dropped from full to empty in a heartbeat.

You scan the wilderness below — nothing but dense taiga forest and frozen over water. You’d done an ice landing before, but it was scarily late in the spring to risk that. The thaw has already started, and there’s no doubt the weight of your plane would create a chain reaction of dangerous breakage.

The engine sputters once more, then stops completely. No other choice now. It’s all damage control as you try to use what controls you have left to ease the aircraft down towards a river. If you’re careful, maybe you can manage.

You ease the plane down, every instinct as a pilot kicking in. But as cautious as you are, the plane slams into the ice with dangerous force, too uncontrollable without proper fuel. Your head slams to the side, the taste of copper in your mouth and icy water soaking your clothes the only sensation you experience before blacking out.

When you wake up, it’s in front of a hearth radiating heat, wrapped in what feels like — animal fur? Your head is pounding, a dozen times worse than a hangover, and your body feels weaker than you’re used to. You look around yourself in confusion, unsure how you’re not dead in the bottom of the river, when your eyes land on a huge bear of a man watching you intently, a husky dog curled up at his feet.