Page 141 of My Undead Love Life

We were only being driven toward another disaster.

We had left the city behind two hours ago, but the storm made it feel like we had barely covered any distance. Every step was slow, and every breath burned going in and out. Snow packed under our boots. The world beyond the city had become a blur of white fields, black trees, broken fence lines, and abandoned roads half-buried beneath drifts. It wouldn’t have taken this long if it wasn’t so fucking cold.

At this rate, we weren’t going to make it. My legs felt like lead. My fingers had long since gone numb inside my gloves, which scared me more than pain would have. My lashes were frozen together at the corners.

“This isn’t working,” Luck muttered. He stumbled slightly before catching himself with the shovel, the metal blade sinking into the snow.

Mad turned immediately. “What’s up with your leg?”

Luck straightened too fast. “My leg and I are currently in a fight, but we are moving in the same direction.”

“Luck.”

“It’s fine.”

Keith looked at him. “You’re limping.”

“Wow. Betrayed by the new guy.”

“I’m the original guy,” Keith teased.

Luck pressed a hand to his chest. “Wounded.”

“He’s just observant,” Oxi said. “And he’s right.”

“He’s ruining my mystery.”

“Your mystery is that you’re limping,” I stated, worry creeping through my tone.

Luck gave me a wounded look. “And yet, somehow, you make it sound less sexy.”

“We have to keep moving,” Mad said, though his voice was tighter now. “We have no choice.”

Oxi shook his head, scanning ahead through the white haze. Snow clung to his dark hair where it escaped beneath his hat, making him look even paler than usual. “We’re not going to make the farmhouse at this rate.”

“We don’t know that,” Mad gritted out.

“Yes, we do.” Oxi gestured sharply into the storm. “We’ve been walking for five hours, and everything still looks like the inside of a freezer. Unless the farmhouse grows legs and comes to us, we’re not reaching it before one of us drops.”

Luck lifted a finger. “If the farmhouse does grow legs, I’m no longer interested in sheltering there.”

Mad ignored him.

Keith squeezed my gloved hand with his. I barely felt it. “We need shelter. Now.”

“How do you expect us to find shelter?” Oxi shouted over the howling wind. “There’s fucking nothing out here.” His frustration cracked through the storm, raw enough that I turned toward him. Oxi’s eyes kept sweeping the fields ahead, then flicking to me, then Luck’s leg, then Keith, then Mad, as if he could calculate the moment one of us wouldn’t be able to keep going and hated that he couldn’t stop it.

Mad’s jaw flexed. “Lower your voice.”

Oxi laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Oh, yes. Wouldn’t want the snow to hear me.”

“Could be worse,” Luck said through chattering teeth. “The cult could hear you and decide sarcasm is blasphemy to their blessed leopard.”

“If sarcasm is blasphemy, more than just us would be damned,” Keith muttered before his hand tightened on mine hard enough I could kind of feel it. “Spencer,” he said.

“What?”

“Your breathing.”