Ease forward.
Pretend it’s air.
She put her head down and kicked, easy as pie, in the direction the ice was moving. Another kick got her sliding along beneath it, her lungs full, close to bursting now.
One more kick and something gripped her collar. Not something—someone. Elias. He yanked her to the surface, pulled her to him for a few gasping seconds, during which he said things she couldn’t understand.Thank God. Thank God. Thank God, it sounded like, though that could’ve been the beating of her heart.
And then they were moving. Slowly, slogging through the slush to a shore that he swore was there, through the fog, past the next hunk of ice, just there.
Not easy when she didn’t have a body. Or a brain. Just breath entering and leaving her…and a strange heat.
Something hit her foot and she stumbled, nearly plunging again until her other numb foot encountered the bottom, and she rose, faced with a mountain of ice chunks.
Her attempt to say Elias’s name produced nothing but a hacking cough.
She spun in a full circle. Wait. When had she lost him?
From the center of the lake, ice pushed toward her, rushing her like a logjam. As fast as she could, she hefted her bag, pulled her arm back, and threw it onto the shore with all her might. It slapped down about a foot from where she stood, waterlogged and shivering like a damn jackhammer.
She turned and reached into the water, her hands so numb she wasn’t sure she’d even know it if she bumped him.
“Elias!” she called, her voice hoarse, no more than a whisper.
Something appeared from behind a hunk of ice. She squinted, attempting to make it out.
Oh, holy crap.
It was him, forging through the ice-jammed water like something from a postapocalyptic painting, or straight from Norse mythology, something not even human. His pack was on his head and… Jesus, that wasn’t the freaking dog under his arm, was it?
He rose, a majestic creature emerging from the deep, a waterfall sluicing off him.
“No!” he bellowed when she struggled to her feet and started toward him. It went against her grain to turn her back on a teammate.Twoteammates. “To shore! Get dry!”
He was right. With her body’s uncontrollable shivering, she’d be no help at all. The best she could do was to get out and get warm. Lead-heavy from her waterlogged clothes, she fought to climb over a pile of geometric ice pieces, then slogged the rest of the way to land as the sun she’d so fervently wished for finally broke through the clouds in a late, flamboyant entrance.
The earth was a soggy, boot-sucking mess. Which didn’t stop Leo from dropping to her knees and, from there, her front, finally rolling to her back to stare at the brattily beautiful sunset, shuddering so hard she worried she might knock herself out.
Poof, the storm was gone. Just like that. A disappearing act, complete with fog and a light show, ending with a dark bank of clouds settling to the southwest.
Eyes slamming shut, she breathed through a long, deep convulsion, wondering if she’d ever feel anything again. Or move.
“Got…to…” Elias dragged himself up the bank, slow as a swamp monster, and landed in a soggy heap beside her. Bo followed, low to the ground.
When neither human moved, the dog stood and shook herself, spraying them with water. Not that Leo could feel the difference. Whining now, Bo nudged Elias, who didn’t respond.
“Elias.”
Nothing. No sound but the frighteningly mechanical shuddering of his body on the beach. Beach, ha! Beaches were hot sand, slowly crashing waves, the easy lap of water on happy toes. Cocktails.
Caught in the fantasy, she rolled right into Elias.
This is where I die.
The dog growled. Leo opened her eyes.
“Elias, up.” She could produce the staccato syllables, she just couldn’t seem to act on them.
Together, their teeth chattered in a creepy percussion.
