Hannah grimaced and slowed her pace to a walk. It was the second time she’d felt a twinge in her left foot that week. She wasn’t worried—twinges and soreness and pains came with training for a long-distance running race—but it still annoyed her. She didn’t need anything getting in her way now. Not when she was a week away from her race, and doing her “taper” runs.

She was ready. She knew she was. She had her crew lined up, her gear picked out, and her food and hydration planned. Every one of those twenty-six hours—or thirty if absolutely necessary—was planned in the minutest detail. Now, her job was to rest, run a little to keep the parts oiled, and get ready for the big show.

It was said that you run the first half of a 100-mile race with your legs and the second half with your mind. The first half was all physical, the second mental. The longest Hannah had run was sixty miles, during a race earlier that year. Because the second fifty could be so grueling, High Peaks allowed runners to take on a pacer after Mile 50, someone who could run with you, carry your water, keep you motivated, and, when fatigue took over, keep you on the trail instead of getting lost in the dark wilderness. But Hannah didn’t want a pacer. She wanted to do this herself, without help.

When Hannah got back home, she felt drained and wiped out. She fumbled with her front door lock, getting impatient with it. Inside, her phone rang. Teagan.

“Hey, Teagan.”

“Hey. I got all your documents and instructions. The only thing I don’t have is contact info for Summer. I want to coordinate with her directly so you can focus on resting up.”

Hannah sighed. “Shit. I didn’t even include her contact info? Hold on. I’ll send it to you now before I forget.” Hannah sent Teagan an email.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m ready.”

“Good. I can’t wait. I’m so glad to be part of this.”

“I’m glad you’re coming. What time do I need to pick you up at the airport?” Hannah said, collapsing on her couch.

“You aren’t picking me up. I’m renting a car.”

“Oh come on, Teagan,” Hannah snapped. “I told you I’d loan you mine!”

There was a pause. “What’s wrong, Hannah? You sound edgy.”

Hannah bit her lip. “Shit. I’m sorry I snapped like that. It’s not you at all. I’m just tired and irritable. It can happen in the late stages of training.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m coming and I’m going to help and we’re going to have a blast.”

Hannah smiled, relieved. “Thanks, T.”

And then the day came. Race day. Hannah was up at 4:00 a.m. in their hotel room, eating and drinking coffee and preparing herself for what would be the adventure of her life, at least so far. She didn’t sleep well at all, but that was normal. She’d gotten plenty of sleep before last night, and that’s what mattered.

Teagan and Summer got ready too, checked everything twice, and drove Hannah to the start of the race. The sun was already coming up, but it was still cold out, as it always was at that hour in the mountains. The weather forecast looked decent—no freak snowstorms or heat waves. Other runners milled around, pinning their bib numbers on themselves, waiting in line for the portable restrooms, and doing any pre-race rituals that worked for them.

Hannah, decked out in her trusty Athena gear and her blonde hair braided, went to the restroom one last time. Her stomach fluttered and her hands shook. Holy shit. Was she really going to do this? Was she really going to run one hundred miles at high altitude, over mountains and into the darkness tonight?

“How’s my girl?” Summer asked her.

“Nervous as hell,” Hannah admitted, rubbing her arms to warm herself.

“If you weren’t, I’d be worried,” Summer said.

“Me too,” Teagan added.

Hannah looked at her two friends, her unsentimental heart feeling a sudden swell of love. “Thank you both so much for being here. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

Teagan smiled. “It’s just an excuse to watch you suffer while we sit here and drink beer.”

“Yeah,” Summer chimed in.

Hannah laughed. She put an arm around each friend and pulled them close. They extended their arms around her waist and she held her friends for a moment.

Then it was time. She said goodbye to her friends, knowing she would see them in a few hours at the aid station that allowed cars, where support crews would set up temporary camp and wait for their runners to arrive. At 6:00 a.m., the gun went off… and Hannah and her fellow crazies took off.

Hannah grimaced.

There it was again. The pain in her left foot. It was Mile 41, and so far so good. She was fed and hydrated. She was energetic—as energetic as one could be after running forty miles at high altitude, knowing there were sixty more to go. Seeing Teagan and Summer had boosted her confidence far more than she thought it would. She’d accepted their help as a just-in-case, and because seasoned ultra-runners told her she should. But now she was beginning to see that their smiling faces and words of support might be more important than she realized.

She shouldn’t need that kind of support, should she? Not if she were a true warrior of the trails, running for herself and her personal goals.

But the pain. Fortunately, at that stage in the race, she and the others had to ascend Spruce Pass, which reached well over 12,000 feet in elevation. That meant she could “power hike” and give her foot a rest. To run up a trail that steep and at that elevation would be a waste of energy, and all but the elite racers opted to hike.

She’d had a good race so far. She’d run on flat dirt roads, on single-track trails, through fields and forests, up hills and down hills, and up the steep mountain pass she hiked now, the one that would lead her down to the aid station at Mile 50. There, she would eat, drink, see her friends… and then turn her ass around and do the same trail all the way back to the start.

Hannah didn’t remember much of the race. She kept her eyes on the trail in front of her, and on her watch, making sure she was on pace and pushing herself to make her twenty-six-hour goal.

She’d passed some other racers. Some had passed her. It was a long game of leap frog, everyone speeding up when they felt good, slowing down when they didn’t, stopping to pee (or otherwise) wherever they could. She’d already seen a little carnage—skinned knees, injury, vomiting or other stomach troubles for those who were undertrained or having difficulty with the altitude. They’d survived the intense high-altitude sun, a thunderstorm that chilled their tired bodies, and a few winds. It was all part of the journey.

At the top of Spruce Pass, Hannah took a brief breather and accepted a snack provided by those who’d set up a small aid station. Aid stations would be increasingly important from here on out, as the racers began to feel the effects of the distance and the altitude. But so far, other than her irritating foot pain, her fatigue, and a good dose of nausea, Hannah felt decent. She would make it to the halfway point at about 7:00 p.m.

She was right on schedule.

At 8:10 p.m., the sun gone but light still in the sky, Hannah pulled into the aid station at Mile 50. Teagan and Summer were waiting for her.

“You’re grimacing,” Summer said, eyeing her. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve got a little pain in my left foot,” Hannah admitted. “It nagged me a little before, and it got worse on the descent from Spruce Pass. I had to walk a little. That’s why I’m late.” She shook her head. “If I don’t speed it up, I won’t make my twenty-six-hour goal.”

“Your goal is to finish,” Summer said, Teagan nodding along with her. “Don’t sweat over one lost hour. Tell me about your foot.”

Hannah shook her head. “It’s fine. I just need to rest a minute and put on my other shoes.”

She hugged her friends, no longer caring how sweaty or salty she was, or how much she stank. She didn’t have the energy to care. Summer went to get Hannah a change of shoes and a light jacket to help her stay warm as nighttime set in, while Teagan replenished her hydration and energy supplements.

“You look pretty good otherwise,” Summer said. “Are you having fun?”

Hannah thought about it. Was she? “I… sure. Yeah. I’m glad to be here.”

“You sure you don’t want a pacer for the second half?” Teagan said. “I heard some people volunteering…”

Hannah shook her head and sat down to change. God, it felt like heaven to sit for a minute.

Why was she doing this? Oh yeah. She had a goal. She reminded herself of that goal and what it meant to her. She would finish this, no matter what.

After quickly changing, Hannah stood up to go. Time sitting was time wasted. She paused, looking at her friends. “It means a lot that you’re both here.”

Yeah, it was sappy. But she was too tired to care.

“We’re happy to be here,” Teagan said.

“Go murder that second half,” Summer said. “You got this.”

Hannah hugged them again, went through the checkpoint where they weighed her to ensure she wasn’t too dehydrated, and took off into the dusk.

“Fuck,” Hannah growled as she limped to a walk once more.

She was at Mile 71. It was pitch-ass dark. It was cold. And she was alone. Other than the occasional tiny light ahead, from the headlamp of a fellow racer trudging through the wilderness, she was alone. She was dragging, wanting more than anything to pull up a tree stump and sit her ass down. Her stomach grumbled, but the thought of food made her want to vomit. And she felt a little freaked out, not knowing how much of that was fatigue and how much was because she was alone in the dark wilderness after running over seventy miles.

She didn’t know anything. She couldn’t even think straight.

And her foot hurt. Since Mile 50, it had gotten worse and worse. She’d taken more meds to dull the pain, at one point almost vomiting them up. But now her foot hurt so much that she could only run-walk, at best. Her twenty-six-hour goal was long gone. Then she realized that, at this pace, she’d be lucky to finish at all.

“Just get to mile eighty,” she told herself. “You’ll feel better when you get better meds. The docs will be there and they’ll wrap your foot.”

Yeah, she was talking to herself. Out loud.

Hannah trudged along the trail, alternating walking with running, trying her damnedest to ignore the pain, to ignore everything but the path ahead, illuminated by her headlamp, keeping her from wandering off into the forest.

“Just get to mile eighty,” she said. She repeated that mantra out loud to herself again and again and again.

By Mile 78, the light of dawn had reached the sky. The pain in her foot was so intense that she could barely walk, and running had become a thing of the past. Every step, every moment she put even a tiny bit of her weight on that foot, meant a sharp searing pain that made her grunt aloud and brought tears to her eyes. But she kept going, putting as little weight as possible on it, until she finally arrived at the Mile 80 aid station.

Hannah and Teagan wouldn’t be there. That aid station didn’t have enough room for support crew, so her friends would be waiting at Mile 87. She barely remembered seeing them at the last one. What had they talked about? Her nausea? Her foot? She remembered Summer and Teagan giggling, probably because she’d been babbling and a little delirious. Exhaustion could do that.

She stumbled into the medical tent. There were already a couple of people there, both hooked up to IVs and one vomiting into a bucket. Both looked like death.

A young man with a shirt that said “volunteer” approached her. “What can we do for you?”

“My foot’s killing me,” she said, looking around for somewhere to sit. “Is there anything you can do to get me to the finish?”

The volunteer sat her down on one of the makeshift beds. She let out a giant sigh. Nothing in the world felt better than this. He asked about her symptoms, and Hannah tried to answer clearly, knowing she was tripping over her words. The volunteer removed her shoe.

“Doc,” he called out to a man in a white coat, tending to one of the ill. “We’ve got an injury here. Says her foot is injured.”

Hannah heard big, heavy steps heading her way. The doctor kneeled down and faced her. He hesitated for a moment, staring at her, probably trying to assess what sort of condition she was in. Finally, he spoke.

“Can you run on it?”

She shook her head. “I can barely walk on it.”

He picked up her foot, pressing on the bottom of her foot in a few places. “That hurt?”

She shook her head. He then probed the top of it, pressing here and there until she felt a stab of pain. “Right there,” she said with a grimace.

“You’ve probably got a stress fracture,” he said, looking at her with big brown eyes that somehow seemed familiar to Hannah’s exhausted mind.

“What can I do to get rid of the pain, just enough to finish?”

“Have you tried ibuprofen and the usual stuff?”

She nodded. “More than I care to admit.”

“There’s nothing I can give you that’s any better.” He glanced at his watch. “And if you can’t walk at a good pace, you won’t make the cutoff. Which means your race is over.”

Hannah shook her head, finding her sweaty, bloody sock and putting it on again. “No. I’ll make it. I won’t DNF.”

DNF stood for Did Not Finish. And Hannah didn’t DNF.

She grimaced again as she stuffed her swollen, blistered foot back into its shoe prison.

“Your foot is in bad shape,” the doctor insisted, brown eyes boring into hers. “You won’t make the finish. And even if you could, you’ll do far worse damage to your foot by walking on it.”

Hannah stood up, squelching the instinct to grimace again.

“If that foot fails on you,” he went on, more forcefully this time, “you’ll be stuck out there alone.”

Hannah ignored him and left, following the signs to the trail.

But it was only a matter of minutes before the pain was so bad that Hannah couldn’t put any weight on it. She stopped, staring at her watch, her exhausted mind attempting to calculate how long it would take to cover those last twenty miles if she walked, stumbled, or even crawled. She could crawl, right? What mattered is that she finished, not how. Crawling to the finish line only meant that she’d run hard enough earlier in the race to buy her crawling time later. But even in her addled, pained, and desperate state, she knew.

The blunt doctor was right, the mean bastard. She wouldn’t make it.

She would have to drop out of the race.

A giant heave of grief threatened to flatten her like a tsunami. But she shoved it away with all the strength she had left.

“Fuck!” she shouted as loud as her parched throat and tired body could manage.

She turned and headed back to the aid station, limping the whole way.

And there, the doctor with the big brown eyes greeted her, his expression unsurprised at seeing her again, and so soon. She waited for his “I told you so,” but it never came. Instead, she got a look that was part self-satisfied and part sympathetic.

“Glad you came to your senses, Grace Kelly.”

Hannah froze. Grace Kelly?

She took a closer look at him. And even in her foggy, just-about-to-come-unglued state, she saw it.

The doctor who stood before her, the Dream Killer who’d told her she probably had a stress fracture and would have to DNF, was none other than Grizzly the Mountain Man.