First, she had to help Ford.
Beside him, she unzipped the first aid kit with difficulty, since her stupid glove kept getting in the way, then dumped the contents. Bandages—good. WoundSeal. Yes. Yes, that would work.
Next, she pulled out clothes until she found a couple pairs of her own clean underwear—the only cotton they had—and a few nylon base-layer items. Then she turned to him.
Oh God. Had his chest stopped moving?
“Live, dammit.Please. Live. Live, Ford. Live.” She said the words like a mantra, sang them like an anthem, over and over. “You’re mine now. You hear? So, live. Freaking live.”
Wadded-up clothes pressed to the gunshot wound, high at the cusp of his shoulder and chest, which, when she lifted him, appeared to have gone straight through. Shit. Or, no. Was that good? Two wounds to heal, but out was good, right, instead of having to look for a bullet inside? And it didn’t appear to be bleeding much, although who could tell when blood immediately froze solid. “Live, live, live.”
Shit, he’d freeze if she opened up his coat. But maybe not. The air felt hot now. Was it her? Was she immune to the cold?Ha!Maybe by destroying the evil killer, she’d unlocked the cold resistance achievement. Sure. And Ford was gonna stand up and walk to Volkov like this.
She unzipped him, quickly threw clothes onto his chest to warm him, then put the sleeping bag over top, fighting to pull his arm from his coat. It weighed a ton.
Every move was an effort: ripping open the WoundSeal powder, sprinkling it on, turning him, doing the same on the other side, wadding up the cotton cloth, pressing hard.
“Live, live, live, live.”
She unrolled the bandage, lifted Ford’s heavy arm away from his body, grunting, wrapped, pressed.
Finally, she zipped him up, and considered collapsing, but if she did that, she’d die here, with him, surrounded by the scattered bodies of the men who’d done this.
Quickly, she sucked down four ibuprofen, stuck the water bottle into her coat, and looked at the bloody labyrinth around them. Before letting herself acknowledge the real problem: How the hell was she going to get them up?
Chapter 44
She bent to zip Ford into the second sleeping bag. “Don’t you leave me. Don’t die. Don’t you dare. Because I love you. I love you, you jerk.”
At some point, the mantra had changed and Angel couldn’t change it back. Didn’t matter if he heard or cared or knew how deeply she felt for him. All she wanted was to keep him alive. She figured tough love was just about Ford’s speed.
She couldn’t lift him, had no idea how to build a pulley, and couldn’t climb out of here anyway.
Which left her with one option—they needed a ramp.
She eyed the massive columns of ice above and around her, some wide and long, others thin and fragile-looking.
She’d done it once. She could do it again.
As far as she could see, the ice chunks rose up, intimidating and regal, smooth in places, bumpy in others, looking like they’d sprouted from the earth. She moved away from Ford to a solid-looking rectangle adjacent to an exterior wall. After a fortifying inhale, she shoved it with all her might.
It didn’t budge.
Of course it didn’t. The thing was massive, much bigger than the one she’d pushed before.
Come on. Come on. I can’t—
Her eye landed on a corpse, flicked immediately away and then, with purpose, looked at it again. Their axe stuck out from the man’s head.
“Oh, hell no,” she complained, even as she moved toward it. She wrapped her fingers around the handle, braced herself with the shovel…and yanked it out.
She waited for the dry-heaves to pass, working hard to forget all thoughts of meat and cleavers. After a cleansing breath, she went back to the tall column of ice and, because there wasn’t any time to lose, let the axe fly, chopping at the base until, with a suddenness that made her fall back on her ass, it collapsed.
There. She smiled to no one. A ramp.
Triumphant, she rushed back to Ford, every movement an awkward fight against her own body. “Okay. How do I do this?”
She’d emptied the sled of everything, piled their sleeping mats on top, and with great difficulty, worked to shift Ford onto it, one leaden body part at a time.
