Chapter 13
Owen
Bee sat back with a gasp. “Did I do that?”
I had been about to tilt my head and deepen the kiss when she broke away. I reluctantly opened my eyes to the noticeable absence of her mouth. I had been so lost in her sweet, soft touch, her charming eagerness, that I still wasn’t caught up on what happened. I wasn’t sure what drove me to kiss her, except that it was a new year, and our discussion about plans had inspired me to take action. Or at least that was what I told myself.
Probably, more simply, I wanted to kiss her. I liked her, and it felt like the right move at the moment. So much for not mixing business with pleasure. But this night was so weird; this woman was such a pleasant surprise.
“What?” I asked, confused with my limited mental faculties. I couldn’t see her. It was pitch-black. Bee was still close enough that I could feel her quick pants against my cheek but couldn’t make out the shape of her.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “What happened? Why are the lights off? Are they motion-activated?” I felt the air shift as she rocked back and forth, likely flailing her arms.
My suspicions were confirmed a second later when one of her flails caught the side of my head.
“Ow.” I reached for her in the darkness and stilled her.
“Sorry.”
“Not motion-activated,” I said, worry growing.
That was when I noticed the loud rattling of the ancient heater had stopped too. The track and running lights were totally out. In the pitch-blackness and without the white noise of the heater, the roaring storm was thunderous and impossible to ignore.
“Owen?” she asked, a tremble in her voice.
Fear lodged itself into my chest. It was like the universe hit me upside the head with a giant bat to remind me to stay focused on the task.
It wasn’t ideal to spend the night in this tram, but it was protection from the storm. It was heat and safety. If the power was well and truly out, then the warmth would escape through the cracks. And quickly. There was almost no insulation in The Can. How long until the windows and door iced over? Fear prickled the back of my neck.
I shouldn’t have kissed her. I taunted myself by hoping this year might go any differently. Of course, this was a big ole screw you from the karma gods or whoever decided these things. I’d been starting to feel hopeful and excited about the future for once. When she asked me what I wanted and how I might change, I began to hope for the first time in a long time that change was possible.
“It’s okay,” I said, but I didn’t feel that way at all. “Let me just check some stuff. You stay here.”
She was silent.
“Okay, Bee?”
“Sorry, yeah. I nodded. Wow, it’s so dark. Like dark dark. Can’t say I love this. Didn’t think I was afraid of the dark, but it amplifies every other sense. This tram sure is jerky. Also, it smells like old pennies. I didn’t notice that before. Oh God, I hope the spider doesn’t come back?—”
“It’s okay, Bee.”
I squeezed her shoulder before I stood, equilibrium shaky. I dug out the radio.
“Hey, Azi?” After a few shaky seconds, the radio crackled with static. I let out a sigh of relief.
“Hey, man. Happy New Year. How’re you two holding up?” A slur to his words made my anger rise to the surface. Had he partaken in celebrations even as two people were stuck up in this decrepit tram? What about Bee? What about her safety? My desire to give this job the middle finger and quit was never stronger, but I couldn’t risk being totally forgotten about.
“Happy New Year,” I said flatly. I had my back to Bee, but there was no privacy, especially now where the silence rang almost as loud as the storm. “The power went out. Is there any way to reboot it or a switch to reset it? Anything on your end?”
“Ah, shit. I was afraid of that,” he said. A round of expletives followed. Bee mumbled her displeasure from behind me. “There’s nothing to be done until some of the ice melts.” I closed my eyes, not that there was much difference, but I needed to center myself before I lost my temper.
I needed to take care of Bee. That was all I could focus on.
“When is help coming?” I asked. My brain raced through the options.
“Nothing’s changed. I’m sorry, Soupy.”
I slammed the button to shut off the radio.
“Owen? Are you okay?” Bee asked in a small voice behind me.
It would be one thing if I was stuck up here alone, but I had an innocent person to take care of. She didn’t even have proper shoes on. I had no idea how long until help would come. Benny Jr. and Azi should have been frantic to get help up here. They should be on the phone with the nearest search and rescue. But I knew the realities—a holiday, this weather, this tiny town. Even if we got outside help, we would be low on the priority list.
We had no source of heat. This was no longer a shitty situation, it was a dangerous predicament, and I had no idea what to do.
“Owen?” Bee’s voice was closer. I turned, and she must have been reaching out blindly for me because I caught a finger in the corner of my eye. “Oh, sorry!”
“I’m right here.” I grabbed her freezing hands and swore. I shucked my gloves and quickly thrust them toward her. “Put these back on.”
“Wh-what’s going on?”
“You need to stay warm. Do you have anything else in that bag that might help?”
She was silent for a beat. “No. I didn’t think I would be needing anything.”
“Shit.” I spun in a circle and pulled off my beanie. I realized she should have been wearing that too. Her nose had been icy when we kissed. I tugged it off and found her head, pushed back her hood to slide it on before pulling the hood back up.
“Won’t you need that?” she asked.
“No. I’ll be fine with my hood.” I tugged the hood from my sweatshirt out and covered my head, then zipped up the outer layer as high as it would go. All the heat from moments ago was gone. With every second, the air around us grew colder. I could almost feel the heat waves coming off my head, only to be instantly converted to cold.
This wasn’t sustainable.
“Bee, it’s going to get really cold now.” I rubbed up and down her arms.
“Oh,” she said. “Are we going to be okay?”
“Yes,” I answered immediately. “We just have to stick it out a few more hours.”
I never wished for something to be truer than I did at that moment.
“Okay.” Her tone was uncharacteristically tentative.
“We’re going to be fine.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her back to the seat. I didn’t even go through the pretense of asking her and pulled her right onto my lap. I was too scared to speak. I would sue Benny Jr. for every cent if anything happened to her. I rubbed her arms up and down through the heavy material.
When had this switch been flipped? When had she gone from the task I needed to complete to the person whose safety I prioritized over even my own? I’d only really known Bee these last few hours, but I already felt like I needed to protect her no matter what. She had plans and goals and was sweet and funny and a little scary.
“I’m okay,” she said softly.
I grunted. She was now.
I pulled her close and had her tuck her legs so that no part of her touched the frigid box. At first, it wasn’t too bad. I almost thought we would be okay if it weren’t for that damn wind.
But after another silent half hour, my worries became an obsessive loop I couldn’t shake. Each worst-case scenario posed was more horrible than the last. The fears were incessant, gnawing. Her body trembled in my lap. What was the right thing to do in this situation? I could give her more of my layers, but if something happened to me, I couldn’t help her.
“Owen?”
I couldn’t watch Bee succumb to the cold. She had plans; she didn’t deserve this. I should have never listened to Benny Jr. I should have never answered his call.
“Owen?” she said, poking me.
I made another grunt of acknowledgment.
“You’re shaking me. With the wind, it’s making me feel queasy.”
I stopped bouncing my leg. “Sorry.”
“Can you answer me a question?”
“I’m not in the mood for any more games,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” she said sharply. “But also, rude.”
“Sorry.” I squeezed her closer, resting my forehead on her shoulder for a second. “Sorry,” I repeated. “I’m just pissed.” I didn’t want to admit I was scared. “At the situation.”
“I know. But this is a serious question,” she said.
I had nothing but worry in my brain, so I only grunted again. Anxiety made it nearly impossible to do anything but focus on what was going wrong.
“What would you do? If I weren’t here?” she asked.
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. My anger shot out in all directions. It wasn’t her fault that Benny Jr. couldn’t operate a safe machine. If I left her up there and just lied to my boss, all this would have been avoided and I could have still been paid. Maybe.
“Be honest,” she added.
“It would be no different. I would have to wait until morning,” I lied.
She shot up off my lap. I couldn’t see her but felt the shifting of the thin flooring and heard her footsteps moving back and forth. It was too cold for this. I wished she’d come back.
“You’re lying. There were two options when we first got stuck. Staying put was the safer option. It doesn’t seem like you feel that way anymore if your worry is any indication.”
“Bee.”
“Just tell me what you would do. There’s that cabin. Not far from here. It’s for emergencies. Hunters. Hikers. Uh, whoever might need it. There’s food. A wood-burning stove and blankets. We should go there.”
I ran a hand over my face. “It’s not so easy.”
Her voice was right in front of me again. “Neither is this.”
“There is a catch. As you can imagine, it’s on the ground,” I said.
“Right. I figured. I’m clever like that.”
“It’s risky trying to get down that ladder.”
“How risky?” she asked.
I let a long sigh out. “Broken-femur-risky, or worse. I really don’t know. It doesn’t reach all the way to the ground. We would have to jump.”
“Better than freezing to death.”
“I’m trying to decide that.”
“Owen, we need to get to that cabin. It’s colder in here every minute. How many hours until they even get the ball rolling on a rescue attempt?” Her voice came close as she leaned above me, and my hands automatically found her hips. “I’m scratching into frost right now on the glass. If it’s only going to get worse, we can’t stay up here. We have no idea how long it will be until somebody comes. It’s a holiday, and everybody is probably drunk.”
I swore under my breath. She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already thought about.
“It’s bad out there. You don’t even have shoes,” I said, though I had no idea why I felt combative. Neither of these options was good.
“I have shoes. And”—there was rustling as she moved about—“I have some plastic bags. I will put them over my shoes to waterproof my feet. It’s not that far, right?”
“The visibility is bad. We can’t risk getting separated,” I said.
“Then we find a rope or something and tie ourselves together.”
“Let me think,” I growled.
Every option needed to be weighed. Too many things could go wrong. Better the monster you know? I wasn’t sure. If there were a clear right and wrong answer, this wouldn’t be so hard, but there wasn’t. It was just the lesser of two evils. And I didn’t know which was which.
“Think of the fire. And the real blankets. Of the bathroom,” she added with a whine. “God, there is a bathroom, right?”
I chuckled dryly despite everything. “Yeah.” Undoubtedly, we would be better off in the cabin than here. I could all but feel her shivers wracking the whole tram. But that jump, if something bad happened, we couldn’t get medical help for hours. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if she got seriously injured. This was beginning to feel like one of those terrible, scary movies where one bad thing happened after another. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the power goes out .
“Shit, I don’t know,” I said, completely torn. “If we jump, there’s no coming back. There’s no way we’d be able to climb back up,” I explained, holding her arm so that even if I wasn’t able to hold her gaze, she would feel my sincerity.
She blew air out of her lips, waited a moment, then put her hand on top of mine. “I’ll decide for you. We’re doing this.”
Her determination buoyed me. I chewed my lip. Tugged at my hood. Stood up. Spun in a circle and found her again to grip her shoulders.
“Okay.” I swore under my breath. “Okay. But I’ll jump first … if it’s not survivable, you’ll know not to jump.”
“Your pep talks could use work, but let’s do this,” she said with a shaky laugh.