Forty Five Wounds in the Ice

Three years ago, I was a leading scientist in the National Science Foundation's polar program.

But just outside McMurdo Station in Antarctica, I was brutally murdered by Amber Reed, my fiancé Spencer Grant's college sweetheart.

She destroyed my GPS locator, slashed my face with an ice axe, and pushed me, still breathing, into a bottomless ice crevasse.

I was pregnant with my second child with Spencer when I died.

She was the sole survivor, but in front of the rescue team, she twisted the truth, framing me for stealing research data and defecting.

Spencer believed her. He personally signed the report that revoked all my academic honors and erased me from the polar program.

From then on, the name Willow Hayes became a disgrace in the scientific community, a pariah to all who knew it.

Until three years later, when climate change caused the glaciers to shift, and my frozen body finally resurfaced.

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1

I hovered in mid-air, staring blankly at the corpse on the autopsy table.

It could hardly be called a person anymore. The flesh was torn and mangled, covered in a thin layer of frost.

Even I couldn't recognize that it had once been my body.

"Spencer," my former assistant, Ben, said, looking up as he entered. "You're here."

"The expedition team found this in Antarctica. Since it was discovered in that year's research zone, they sent it straight to us."

"The condition is gruesome. Her face was mutilated by a sharp object, anything that could prove her identity was removed, and her fingerprints are gone—frostbite necrosis. We're certain it's foul play."

At the mention of "Antarctica," Spencer froze for a moment before emotionlessly pulling on a pair of sterile gloves.

I floated in the air, my gaze fixed on the man before me.

Three years. I had been dead for three whole years.

After my death, my soul remained trapped in that sunless ice crevasse, endlessly whipped by the polar winds.

Until someone found me and brought me back to San Francisco.

But I never expected Spencer would be the one to autopsy me.

Seeing my unrecognizable face, even a seasoned medical examiner like Spencer recoiled slightly, his brow furrowed.

Spencer hesitated, the scalpel hovering over my body. Instead, he turned and asked his assistant in a low voice, "Does Amber know about this?"

The assistant shook his head, adjusting the recording equipment. "Amber's back home preparing for the wedding. She probably doesn't know yet."

Spencer nodded, his expression softening with a tenderness I had never seen before. "Then tell the expedition team not to mention it to her."

"She's sensitive. I don't want to frighten her." As he spoke, his features relaxed into a gentle look.

I stared at Spencer in a daze.

He never searched for me. And now, he was about to marry the very woman who had smashed my skull with an ice axe.

My fiancé was going to marry the monster who murdered me. The irony was a blade in itself.

Floating in mid-air, I looked down at my own broken body.

"Let's begin." Spencer's voice returned to its usual coldness.

Even though I could no longer feel pain, I still shuddered with every cut Spencer made.

"Forty-five wounds to the face, consistent with an ice axe."

"One fatal wound to the neck from a sharp instrument, and a ligature mark from a rope. It seems she was first strangled unconscious and then killed."

The assistant beside him drew a sharp breath. "God, what kind of hatred is this? It's savage."

His tone was clinical, but his hands moved with methodical precision.

Next was my lower abdomen, covered in a dense pattern of stab wounds left by Amber's frantic attack while I was still conscious.

"Thirteen stab wounds to the abdomen."

He paused for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. "Preliminary assessment: all wounds were inflicted pre-mortem."

He cut open my uterus. Spencer's voice caught in his throat.

"A developed fetus was found in the uterus, approximately three months old."

That was our child, who never had a chance to see the world before being frozen forever with his mother at the end of the earth.