Chapter 23
It was dark when he woke. Something heavy lay on his chest.
Snow.
He sucked in air and tried to sit up, but he was still trapped in the snow, and it wouldn’t let him go.
A sliver of light opened. Then widened.
Jem thrashed.
“You’re okay.” It was Tean’s voice. “You’re okay, Jem. Slow down. Calm down.” Movement came nearby, and then a hand caught Jem’s arm. For a moment longer, Jem fought against the restraint. Against the snow. Trying to get free. But Tean kept saying, “You’re okay. You’re okay. Calm down.”
And then Jem was awake, and he was in a bed, in a room, with light coming in behind a half-open door.
Tean sat on the mattress, one hand still on Jem’s arm.
The doc was dressed in a Kolen Lodge sweatshirt and a pair of dark jeans that Jem had never bought him.
His hair was more of a mess than ever, and his eyes looked huge behind his glasses.
For one final second, Jem was in both places: trapped in the snow, unable to breathe; and here.
Then he rubbed his eyes. His fingers felt stiff, and there was a throbbing heat in the joints that he didn’t like. Finally he dropped his hands.
“How are you doing?” Tean asked quietly.
Jem threw him an okay sign.
“You might feel some—” Tean stopped. He laced his fingers together. “You might feel some discomfort in your hands and feet. I don’t think you have frostbite but—” He shelled up, and he sat there, trembling. Finally he said, “You need something to drink.”
And he left.
Jem lay there for a few minutes. His body was still remembering all the things it was supposed to do.
His feet ached in that same hot, swollen way as his hands.
His back was sore like he’d twisted it—I fell over a suitcase, he remembered suddenly.
And then more of it came back: finding Stephen in the chalet, and the fight, and running after him through the storm.
The silence from the next room was almost as loud as the wind outside.
Jem sat up and pushed the covers back. He eased himself off the mattress, but aside from a few more twinges, his feet seemed up to the task.
He was naked, which he’d kind of known, but there was a robe in the closet.
He pulled that on. This wasn’t their room, he was starting to realize. So, whose room was it?
He found Tean in the bathroom. The doc was sitting on the toilet, fists balled up against his eyes, a washcloth forgotten in one hand, his glasses hanging from the other. And he was crying.
When Jem’s foot scuffed the tile, Tean gave a wet cough and scrubbed at his face. “What are you doing? You need to be lying down—”
Jem was starting to feel a little wobbly, so he wedged one hip against the vanity. Then he ran his fingers through Tean’s hair and pulled Tean’s head against his stomach.
Tean held himself stiffly. And then he started to cry harder.
It took a while for the tears to work their way out. When Tean finished, he mopped his face with the washcloth while Jem played with his hair some more.
“I’m sorry,” Tean said thickly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s been a lot, I guess.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you.”
Tean seemed to consider that before he finally said, “Everything—everything feels so messed up. Inside me, I mean.”
“It’s not messed up to cry,” Jem said. “It’s messed up not to cry.”
Tean didn’t say anything for a while. Then he put on his glasses. And he sounded more like Tean—more like the same Tean who had once taken the remote away and said something about bed sores—when he said in a firmer tone, “You need to lie down.”
Once Jem was in bed again, Tean spent time inspecting his hands. He touched Jem’s fingers lightly, as though Jem were made of glass. Jem’s skin was extra sensitive, and although the touches didn’t hurt, not exactly, they weren’t pleasant either.
“I don’t think you’ll have any blisters,” Tean finally said. “But I want to keep a close eye on everything until we can get you to a real doctor.”
“You’re a real doctor.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Jem said. “I knew it was stupid, running after him like that. I mean, I didn’t know it at the beginning. But when I was out there, and I knew I was lost, all I could think was ‘Tean is going to kill me if I get myself killed out here.’”
Tean didn’t smile. “It’s my fault. I can’t believe I told you to go after him.
I thought he was going to run for the lodge, or—” The sentence cracked down the middle, and Tean’s hand tightened around Jem’s.
That did hurt, a little, but Jem didn’t say anything.
After a moment, Tean continued, “Jem, I’m so sorry.
I knew how dangerous those conditions were.
” He shook his head. “I was so angry—” He took another breath.
“I wasn’t thinking. And as a result, I almost got you killed. ”
“Oh good,” Jem said. “A fight.”
“We’re not having a fight.”
“Yes, we are. We’re fighting about who feels guiltiest. And who was stupidest.”
“No, we’re not.”
“And now we’re fighting about having a fight.” Jem shifted around like he was getting comfortable. “Buckle up, boyo, because I am going to rock your fucking world.”
“I’m trying to explain—”
“Fight.”
Tean drew a breath. “Jem, you don’t understand—”
“Fight.”
“Stop doing that!”
“Is that seriously the best you’ve got? This is the lamest fucking fight I’ve ever been in.”
“It’s not a fight!” Tean shouted. “It’s a conversation between two people who care about each other! And—and I’m very confused right now because I love you so much and I’m so—so—so angry!”
Jem put his arms behind his head. He waited.
Tean drew a hand over his mouth. He was panting like he’d been running.
“Feel better?” Jem asked.
“No,” Tean snapped. “I feel terrible.”
Jem waited again. “Now do you feel better?”
“I don’t want to feel better! I want to feel miserable!”
The shout hung in the air.
Tean scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know that sounds insane,” he muttered. “Jem, you almost died.”
“What happened?”
After a moment, Tean said, “You fell into a tree well.”
“What’s a tree well?”
“More or less what it sounds like. A well in the snow at the base of a tree. They happen around rocks sometimes too, for a different reason. With a tree, low-hanging branches protect a pocket around the trunk. The snow that fills in there is less dense.”
“And when you try to walk on it,” Jem said, “or someone shoves you…”
Tean gave him a sharp look.
“Oh yeah,” Jem said. “Somebody gave me a nice push.”
“We wondered—” Tean broke off. “I don’t want to upset you, but I think you need to know. Tafton is dead.”
Jem nodded. When Tean’s fuzzy eyebrows went up, Jem said, “I saw his hand.”
“Yes.” Tean fell silent again. “We thought maybe you’d seen him and tried to help.”
“Well, I probably would have. Or at least tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. I mean, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a tree well.” Snow pressed against his face. Powder filling his mouth. Jem closed his eyes. Coughing. Choking. He opened them again.
“People die in tree wells every year,” Tean said softly. “It happens very quickly. Unless there’s someone nearby who sees you go in and can pull you out, there’s almost nothing you can do.”
“Yeah,” Jem said. His heart was pounding. He scratched his beard and stared at a section of the wall behind Tean. He cleared his throat and said, “You got me out?”
Tean nodded.
“How?”
“The rope barrier. I used it to keep from going in myself while I grabbed you.”
“No, I mean—okay, well, that’s actually pretty badass.”
“I was lying on my stomach in the snow with the rope around my ankle.” Tean’s smile was thin. “There was nothing particularly badass about it.”
“Are you kidding? That’s even more badass. But I meant, how did you know I was in there?”
“I saw you go in. Barely. I ran after you when you left the chalet, but I lost you in the snow. Then I heard the gunshot, and I thought Stephen—” Tean spread one hand on the bedding like he was holding himself up. “I had to see.”
“You followed the sound of the shot?”
“Tried to. Sounds are different in the mountains. The snow changes how sound waves travel, and the blizzard made it more difficult than it should have been.”
“But you found me.”
Tean gave a half shrug. “I saw two people. One of them came up behind the other. I wasn’t…sure what happened. But I saw someone go sliding through the snow. And then they disappeared under the tree.”
Jem didn’t say anything. Another minute down there, maybe less, and he’d be as dead as Tafton. Finally, he made himself say, “Thanks.”
“I never should have let you go out there.”
“This sounds like the start of another fight.”
Amusement, not quite a smile, ran across Tean’s face. He found Jem’s hand and held it.
“God,” Jem said. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid. You did what you thought was best.”
“Yeah, well, it can be both things.”
This time, Tean did smile. A tired smile. But not that hard sliver from minutes before.
“So,” Jem said. “Stephen.”
“No one knows where he is.”
“Well, I’d be hiding too if I’d killed Tafton and planted evidence in his chalet.”
But Tean only frowned.
“What?” Jem asked.
“Nothing.”
Fortunately, they were still holding hands, so Jem could give him a shake. “I know that look. That look says you don’t believe the science behind the health benefits of Big Macs.”
“There’s so much sodium benzoate.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“But it can convert to benzene—”
“Teanaliese Leon!”
“I don’t understand what he was doing. If he’d already killed Tafton and planted the cane, why was he in the bedroom?”
“Looking for something to boost,” Jem said with a shrug. “Or finding another place to leave more evidence.”
“Maybe the latter,” Tean said. “But not the former. Not if he wanted it to look like Tafton killed himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Vaughan—Mr. Larsen—told me they found a suicide note in the chalet.”
“Shit.”
“And the gun, Jem.”