Chapter Text
It was snowing too hard for the windshield wipers to keep up.
Fat flakes slapped the glass in a fast, rhythmic stutter, piling up in white ridges at the corners of the windshield. The highway had thinned to a two-lane stretch of gray, choked in mist and snowfall. Everything outside looked bleached—blurry trees, headlight halos, snowbanks swallowing the guardrails. The world was going silent, buried inch by inch.
Cady sat in the back seat, still in her puffy winter coat, boots unlaced. She was curled against the door, forehead resting on the cold glass, her breath fogging a circle over and over. She watched the snow chase the car as it moved—each flake vanishing on impact as if they’d never existed.
In her lap sat the toy her Aunt Gemma had mailed her for Christmas.
Gemma was her mother’s sister—ten years younger, brilliant and awkward in a way that made her hard to understand. Cady remembered how her mother’s voice would tighten whenever she mentioned Gemma, as if they were both tangled up in memories too complicated to unravel.
“She’s a genius,” her mother had admitted once, but the words didn’t sound proud. “Gifted, sure. But you can’t count on her the way you should.”
Other times, the tone was sharper, edged with old wounds. “She’s always been better with machines than people. Maybe she thinks she’s better than us, too.”
Cady had tried to understand. Sometimes she thought Gemma was just different; other times, she wondered if there was something unspoken between the sisters—a past fight, or years of distance—that neither of them wanted to talk about.
Tonight, Gemma wasn’t here. And the toy was the closest thing to her Cady had.
It was some kind of new prototype—early release, probably, knowing Gemma. A glossy humanoid robot doll, all smooth plastic and glowing sensors, with a speaker in its chest and stiff little arms that bent at the elbows. Its eyes blinked blue. Then red. Then blue again.
“Hi there!” the toy chirped, voice high and sugary. “I’m your new best friend!”
Her mom jumped in the front seat. “Cady, sweetheart, turn that thing down.”
“It doesn’t turn down,” Cady muttered. “It’s stuck like this.”
“Well, can you… turn it off ?”
“No.”
Her dad, hunched over the wheel, sighed hard through his nose. “Can’t believe your sister sent her a damn speaker with limbs instead of just visiting like a normal person.”
“She always sends tech instead of herself,” her mom muttered, voice low. “Every year, a new gadget. She thinks a toy can make up for missing the real thing.”
Cady kept quiet, watching the blurred snow outside.
“She was supposed to come this year,” her mother continued, almost to herself. “She promised. Said she’d be here. But then work, work, work. Like always.”
“She said she was busy,” Cady offered softly.
“She’s always busy. Maybe too busy for family.”
Her mom’s voice cracked just a little. “Sometimes I think she’d rather build machines than be part of the family.”
The car hit a bump. The toy bounced in her lap, one arm jerking up like it was waving.
“Let’s party!”
Cady almost laughed, but didn’t. The toy wasn’t funny tonight. It was loud. Too loud for the quiet she needed.
In the front seat, the arguing resumed—muffled at first, low and tense, like a storm building behind a closed door.
“—you said we’d leave early ,” her mom was saying. “Now we’re stuck in this storm, we’ve still got two hours to go, and I haven’t eaten since lunch —”
“I said we’d be fine. And we are fine,” her dad snapped.
“You’re going fifty in the middle of a blizzard.”
“It’s not a blizzard—”
“You can’t see the road , Ryan.”
“I can see it.”
“You missed the turnoff twenty minutes ago!”
“I did not. ”
“You did. I told you—”
“Oh boy!” the toy interrupted cheerfully. “Looks like someone’s frustrated! Want to do a calming exercise together?”
Her mother made a noise as if she were planning to tear the toy’s head off. “Turn that off, Cady. Now.”
“I told you it doesn’t turn off,” Cady snapped, voice sharper than she meant it to be. Her fingers gripped the toy harder. “Gemma said it didn’t have a power switch yet.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” her dad muttered. “God forbid she finish something before she sends it out.”
“She was supposed to be there ,” her mom added. “Gemma promised she’d come this year.”
Cady didn’t answer.
She remembered the phone call—weeks ago, short and rushed. Gemma’s voice had been crackly and distracted, saying something about deadlines and chaos. “You know I’d be there if I could,” she’d said, not sounding very sorry. “I’m mailing you something special, though, okay? Custom. Just for you.”
She had called it a gift. Cady hadn’t known what to say.
The toy beeped again. “I’m here to help you feel better!”
The voice was too loud. Too bright. Too happy. Cady reached up and covered its face with her mittened hand, muffling it.
She didn’t want to hear it anymore.
The car was quiet again, but only for a second.
“I just don’t get it,” her mother muttered. “Why even say she wants to be involved if she never shows up? It’s like she wants credit for being a good sister without doing the actual work.”
“I don’t care,” her dad said flatly. “We’ll get there, we’ll do Christmas with my parents and brother, and we’ll leave. You can hash out your sibling rivalry another time”
Cady pressed her forehead against the window harder. The cold seeped into her skin.
The toy beeped. Its chest light pulsed once, red. Then blue.
Outside, the snow was falling sideways now. Wind pressed against the car like a hand trying to shove them off the road.
The air inside the cabin felt tight.
—-----
They didn’t see the turn in time.
It came sudden—camouflaged under a thick drift. The car hit a patch of ice, tires shrieking in protest as they skidded sideways. Her mother screamed. Her father swore. The car spun. Metal screamed.
Another set of headlights appeared—closer than they should’ve been.
There wasn’t time to think. Not for them. Not for Cady.
She closed her eyes.
And then—
Impact.
The sound was violent. Shattering. The crunch of glass, the tearing of steel, the sudden silence of snow swallowing everything.
The toy’s voice was the last thing to cut through the chaos:
“I’ll protect you—”
Then nothing.
It was still snowing when the wreckage stopped moving.
The car lay crumpled at the base of a shallow ravine, the front end smashed against a pine tree that had split the hood in half. One headlight flickered. The other was gone. Doors hung open, airbags deflated, steam rising into the cold.
A streak of color lay several yards away, half buried in snow.
The toy.
Its face was cracked. One eye blinked blue. Then red. Then black. Its recorded voice hiccuped once—garbled static and a single, broken syllable—before going still.