He’s perfect.
He’s a god.
Evander’s dead, too, I guess.
Maybe he’s the angel that swooped down to save me and sent me soaring.
CHAPTER 17
Evander
Once I’m stripped down, I take my phone from the zipper pocket of my parka and turn on the flashlight.
“Be right back,” I tell Phoebe.
I run toward a back room and throw open an ancient floor chest.I’ve hit the motherlode.
I carry the pile of blankets to the rag rug.By the light of my phone, I drop to my knees and quickly build a pallet.I’m working as fast as I can.I look up to find Phoebe staring with huge, bewildered eyes.
“Your turn.”I spin around to kneel at the side of the couch.
I unwrap the emergency blanket from her body and set it aside.I pull my sweater from under her and cover the front of her body.Next, I remove the wet shirt from around her head.
Her skin is a deathly gray and covered in goosebumps.Her lips are tinged blue and trembling.She’s shaking violently from head to toe.
I finally get her boots off, but dealing with the wet, tangled laces has eaten up critical seconds.Her socks go next.I grab the bottom half of her sopping-wet coveralls and pull them down past her hips, her thighs, her legs, her feet.
I hook my fingers inside the waistband of her no-nonsense panties and pull those off, too.
I’m doing my best not to stare.Or even notice how beautiful she is.Because this is about keeping her alive.
It’s probably a good thing that the lighting in here is piss poor.
“Let’s do this,” I say.
I slide my arms under her back and legs and lift her.I spin around again on my knees, and gently lay her down on the blankets.I crawl on the floor and stretch out on my back next to her, then reach around and pull her on top of me, arranging her so that she’s in contact with my bare skin from collarbone to toes.
The sweater gets wrapped over her back.
I find the edges of the old, mothball-scented wool blankets and pull them up and over her.And then I roll twice, until we’re wrapped together as tight as a burrito.I squeeze my hand out and snatch the space blanket, then throw it over both of us, head to toe.
I shove my hand back inside the blanket, then wiggle around until I can get both arms around her.I clutch her tight.I lay perfectly still beneath her.She’s shuddering, freezing, damp, and I can feel the irregular pound of her heart.
I focus, picturing myself as a human sponge, sucking all the cold out of her body and absorbing it into mine.
I can take it.I can take anything.
Except Phoebe dying.
“Relax into me.Come on.”I try to press her cheek against my chest.It’s a challenge, since we’re packed like sardines in here.But eventually, she does so.In the process, I get a mouthful of wet hair.
The good news: she hasn’t become unresponsive.She hasn’t gone into flat-out convulsions.The trembling means her body is attempting to regulate its temperature.
The bad news: she’s definitely in shock.And a long way from out of the woods.
I close my eyes.The wind is blasting the living hell out of this rickety shack.I hope it can withstand the assault.I take comfort in knowing that this thing’s got to be at least a hundred years old.It’s been through a lot.So as long as this isn’t one of those events the weathermen like to call “the storm of the century,” then we should be good.
It isn’tthatbad, is it?
