Angel:Medical freezer. Sub basement.
The medical freezer. Of course she'd hide there—it's the last place cops check because it requires a key code and it's fucking freezing. Problem is, it's also a death trap if you can't get out.
I make it to the sub-basement, avoiding two uniforms who are more interested in their conversation about overtime than actually searching. The freezer door is cracked open—she's smart enough not to lock herself in completely.
"Angel?" I whisper.
"Diablo?"
I slip inside, and there she is—red dress like I asked, but paired with a jacket that's doing nothing against the sub-zero temperature. Her lips are already turning blue.
"Hi," she says, teeth chattering.
"Hi."
The freezer door clicks shut behind me. We both lunge for it, but it's too late. The emergency release was disabled months ago—safety violation we never fixed because who the fuck expects to be locked in here?
"Shit," she breathes, and her breath fogs in the frozen air.
"How long have you been in here?"
"Twenty minutes? Thirty? I can't feel my fingers."
I pull out my phone. No signal. We're in a concrete and steel box designed to keep things frozen. Things like us, apparently.
"How long before someone finds us?" she asks, already shivering violently.
"Could be hours. Cops'll clear out, then someone will come check." I do the math. "Three, maybe four hours."
"I'll be dead by then."
She's not wrong. She's smaller than me, less body mass, already hypothermic. That red dress might as well be tissue paper.
"Take off your clothes," I say.
"What?"
"Skin to skin contact. Share body heat. It's that or you die."
She stares at me. "This isn't how I imagined you getting me naked."
"Me either. But we need to do this now, before you can't."
Her hands are shaking too hard to work the zipper. "I c-can't—"
"Let me."
I step closer, and for the first time since that night at the diner, we're touching. My hands find her zipper, pull it down, and she's wearing nothing but black lace underneath because of course she is.
"This is so fucked," she whispers.
"Completely."
I strip down to my boxers, trying not to think about how this is the exact opposite of how I wanted this to go. Then I pull her against me, skin to skin, and Christ, she's ice cold.
"Is this okay?" I ask, wrapping us both in our discarded clothes as makeshift blankets.
"Just hold me," she whispers against my chest. "Talk to me. Keep me awake."
