Chapter 47
M yles
Liam stopped running, and I almost prayed to whoever would listen that he was tired.
I’d never pushed myself this hard physically before, and every muscle was screaming at me, including my lungs.
Panting, I leaned over with my hands on my knees, and my breath came out as steam.
Why was Snowflake walking so fast? I honestly thought we would’ve caught up to her by now.
Standing up straight, I tried to massage the stitch in my side. “What is it,” I asked as Liam climbed up onto a boulder, looked around, then leaped off and jogged ahead a few strides.
“She’s injured,” he said, and I snapped to attention.
“How bad?”
“Not sure. She stumbled off the trail here.” He pointed.
“Looks like her….” He bent down and started patting her footprints.
“I’d guess ankle or knee with the way she’s walking.
Here’s the toe of her right foot, and you see this?
” He touched the snow beside a round hole in the snow.
“She’s using a walking stick.” He stood.
“I don’t see any blood which is good, but we better pick up the pace. ”
If he’d said that five minutes ago, I would’ve told him he was insane, but I nodded and matched his stride as we sprinted along the path. The only sounds were our boots and the rhythmical slapping of our bags, while the only thing on my mind was Ren and getting to her.
“What’s that noise?” It sounded like water but much louder.
“Waterfall.”
It was almost deafening as we closed in on the mist rising in the air.
Liam slowed as he looked at the footprints.
I didn’t know what he was looking for, but the fact that he was slowing at all didn’t make me feel better.
The trees on either side of the trail opened up ahead, and it looked like we had to cross over the top of the waterfall.
I had no idea that something this pretty was even here.
Liam stopped short, and I almost slammed into him. “Did you hear that?”
“Naw, what….”
He didn’t answer and took off so fast that I couldn’t keep up with him. With each stride, he pulled further ahead. We reached the top of the waterfall, and my heart jumped out of my chest as I saw a hand thrust above the churning water as they were dragged downstream.
“This way,” Liam yelled. I ran after him, fear racing through my body as we skidded down the trail beside the waterfall. I had to jump over Liam’s pack as it suddenly dropped to the ground in front of me, and he took off like he’d been in third gear the rest of the time.
Terror seized my body as Ren was swept so far away that I could hardly see her hand.
Then she was pulled under the water and didn’t resurface.
Where the hell was she? Liam disappeared over the berm, and my lungs burned as I pushed as hard as I could.
Reaching the top, I saw Ren standing on the rocky bank, shaking.
My relief was short-lived as she took a few short steps and crumpled to the ground.
She tried to stand again and got herself pushed up but didn’t make it another two strides and fell face first onto the hard ground.
I came to a stop as Liam reached her. He barely slowed as he picked her up and ran back toward me. She hung limply in his arms. Her face had lost all color, and her lips were a light blue.
“Go, get my pack,” Liam ordered. I turned and sprinted back to his red pack lying on the ground. Ren’s yellow one was there, and I grabbed it as well.
“What do you want me to do?”
“We need to get her warm,” Liam said, panting as he reached me and laid Ren on the ground. “You’re going to need to strip her down and get dry clothes on her. I’m going to go grab wood for a fire.” Before I could question anything, he was off again.
“It’s just me, Snowflake,” I said, even though I had no idea if she could hear me. “I need to strip ya down.”
Ren was shaking so hard that it was a struggle to get at the zipper of her jacket. The little teeth were frozen shut with a thin layer of ice. “Faster,” Liam yelled from the forest.
I took a deep breath and squeezed my hands into fists as I steadied myself before pulling her jacket off and then the rest of the layers, leaving her in just her bra.
“Do I need to take her bra and underwear off?”
“Are they wet?”
“Aye.”
“Then yes,” Liam barked.
“Shite. Forgive me Snowflake,” I mumbled as I grabbed my knife and cut them off.
Her skin had a bluish ting to it and it was becoming difficult not to panic.
Unzipping her pack, I pulled out a long underwear and a hoodie that was folded up on top and got them worked over her head and her arms before moving on to her boots.
“Fucking laces,” I growled as I fought with the frozen double knot.
Liam ran back with his arms full of wood and tossed it down on the ground. I didn’t spare him a glance as I finally got the laces undone and her first boot off before fighting all over again with the other one. My fingers were working against me as they trembled.
“Myles, you need to move faster,” Liam said.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder. We don’t have much time, or she’ll die.”
“Jesus, no…forget it,” I said, pulling the knife from my back pocket once more I cut the laces.
I didn’t bother to slow down as I slit her jeans and long underwear up both legs before putting it away.
She had some cuts, but I didn’t have time to bandage them well.
Instead, I pulled out a shirt from her pack and tore it into strips to wrap around the two deeper cuts.
She had a pair of jogging pants in her bag, and I quickly tugged those up her body before changing out her socks for a dry pair.
“Good, now take her sleeping bag and wrap the two of you inside it. Sit by the fire. I’m going to set up the tent.”
She still hadn’t opened her eyes. But by the time Liam had the tent up and our packs tossed inside, the shaking in her body was a little bit less.
He stuck his head out and waved me over.
My now seized legs barked loudly as I pushed up to stand.
Liam took Ren from me while I grabbed her sleeping bag before crawling into the tent and zipping it closed.
Liam shimmied down into the double-wide sleeping bag. “Lay her sleeping bag on top and then get in here and zip it up.”
I quickly kicked my boots off and anything else of mine that was wet before getting in and zipped it closed.
It was cozy, and I snuggled up beside Ren as close as I could get, my leg over hers and my arm wrapped around her body.
I didn’t care if I could feel Liam holding her from the other side.
All that mattered was that she was okay.
Ren’s eyes slowly fluttered open. She looked at me, then rolled her head to the side and looked at Liam.
“I didn’t expect to see you in my dream,” she mumbled, her words thick as she struggled to say them. She smiled at Liam. “It’s okay, you’re sexy.” He smirked and then looked at me. I wasn’t amused.
“What the fuck?”
“What can I say? She speaks the truth. I am sexy,” he said.
“Aye, show off,” I said as her eyes closed again. “Is she going to be okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I think we’re good. She was in the water for no more than a few minutes, and we got to her under the thirty-minute mark. She’s a little delusional, but she should be fine. I didn’t see any hits to her head. Her body is warming, and her breathing is good.”
“Fuck, this girl. Straight-up heart attack. If we hadn’t come after her or if we’d been any slower…” I shook my head. “I can’t even think about it.”
“No point in thinking about it. That’s not the way it played out. Rest up, and in about an hour, I’ll get dinner started. We’ll have to stay here for the night and strike out for the cabin tomorrow.”
“How far are we?”
“I need to look at my map, but prob like ten miles. It’s going to be tough going if we need to carry her the entire way.”
“I’d carry her over a bed of hot coals in the middle of the scorching desert even if it killed me,” I said and kissed her cool cheek. “If someone can be yer north star, then Snowflake is mine.”
MARCH 9 – THURSDAY 4:12 PM
Ren
I had to be dead. It was either that or I was so cold that my body felt warm because the last thing I remembered was pulling myself out of the water.
It clearly felt like I was lying between two people.
The warmth their bodies radiated was incredible, and if I were dreaming about lying between Myles and Blake, then I would stay on the rocks and dream this forever.
Blinking my eyes open, I looked to my left to see Myles. His eyes were closed, his head was on my shoulder, and his arm wrapped around my body. Was this real? If it was, how did he find me?
“And the escape artist is finally awake.”
My head snapped to the right, and I stared into Liam’s chocolate eyes, some of his platinum blond fauxhawk partially covering his face.
I blinked and then looked down as I realized we were pressed as flush against one another as Myles and I.
He stared into my eyes, and I swallowed hard.
Liam always seemed to be saying fuck you even when he said nothing at all.
“Um…what happened? Am I really here?”
A dimple appeared as he smirked. “Yeah, you’re still alive. Although, you certainly did a good job of trying to kill yourself. What were you thinking leaving on your own?” His tone never changed, but that didn’t stop the condescending vibe from filtering through.
“I was thinking that I wanted to go home, and I’m capable enough to make it. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t make it out here alone,” I said.
“I don’t care who you are, striking out on a trail in the middle of winter alone is…
frankly, it’s stupid, and you didn’t strike me as someone that did dumb things,” he said.
I wanted to yell every bad word at him as he slipped out of the sleeping bag, but I couldn’t think of a comeback.
It may have been stupid, but it didn’t feel stupid.
“Then what would you have done?”