26. Vesper #3
Shivering, I rub my hands together trying to warm them up. “What am I supposed to do about that?” I grit. I don’t have experience with this sort of cold. I don’t actually know how close I am to dying, let alone how to warm up thoroughly.
“My parameters prevent me from helping you fully,” Cipher grits out, as if it pains him to say it.
“I cannot—” He cuts off, and for a moment, it feels as if he’s abandoned me.
Which is silly. Cipher is the machine that runs this place.
He’s not a person, not really, but . . . he also is. To me at least.
“Cipher?” I croak out. The tips of my fingers are purple and I can’t feel them even when I run my other hand over them, but I still hold them dutifully in front of the fire in the hope of warming them up. “Cipher.”
“My apologies,” Cipher grunts. “Locke.”
Locke jerks up at the sound of his name. Cipher rarely talks to him directly, and he certainly never uses his name. “Y-yeah?”
“I need you to stand up. Now.”
Locke meets my eyes, but forces himself to stand and leave the small bubble of warmth around the fire.
“Walk ten steps toward the back of the cave.” Locke does as he’s told, his shivers turning violent again the further he gets from the fire. “Two steps to the right. Now dig.”
“I can’t feel my hands,” Locke grits out, dropping to his knees.
“If you do not dig, you will not have to worry about that much longer,” Cipher growls. “You will not have hands.”
“Fuck,” Locke croaks and starts to claw at the earth beneath him. The ground is hard, frozen, and he quickly realizes his hands won’t do much good. He pulls out his hammer, and with a painful yell, he curls his hands around the cold metal.
“I can help—”
“Stay where you are,” Cipher orders. “You are closer to death than the Bone Breaker.”
His words are somehow icier than the weather outside. I stay where I am, my whole body seizing with the cold digging into my bones.
Locke slams the hammer into the ground, small rocks shooting away from the impact.
He shouts as the hammer connects, the pain ricocheting up his arms as he pulls them back to repeat the action.
Again and again he pummels the ground, blasting through the frozen dirt, until the first glimpse of a loot crate appears.
At the sight of it, Locke grows frantic, hitting harder despite his pain.
His muscles are bulging, the veins in his neck standing out in stark relief, as the tips of his fingers turn purple.
I frown. When had his shoulders grown so much muscle? He’d been leaner before, and though he’s not much bigger now, there’s an obvious difference as he starts to strain.
“Hurry,” Cipher commands. “Just open it. Do not worry about pulling it out entirely.”
Locke doesn’t argue, as if he understands just how fucked we are if he doesn’t do what Cipher says.
“I can’t feel my feet,” I say. They’re as close to the fire as possible without setting myself on fire, but I can’t feel it. I’m not even sure if I’m moving my toes.
Locke drops his hammer and claws at the clasp on the loot crate. He can’t feel his fingers, just like me, the tips blackening. It takes him five tries to get it open. It’s a large chest, and as soon as he has the lid pried up, he’s dragging the contents out of it.
A large fuzzy blanket. A double sleeping bag. Matches. Extra thick socks, two pairs. A thermos of bottomless everlasting hot soup. A jar of some ointment that Locke doesn’t bother reading out loud.
“Take off anything that is wet,” Cipher orders. “Quickly.”
I look down at myself. “Everything is wet.”
“Then take it off,” Cipher continues. “You must be dry.”
Even my eyelashes are wet where the ice that had gathered there melted near the fire. But I do as Cipher says.
“Both of you,” Cipher adds when Locke doesn’t immediately move.
Locke grimaces. “Taking off clothing when it’s so cold sounds like a bad idea.”
“Just do it,” I tell Locke. “He wouldn’t be telling us this unless it was necessary.”
Locke hesitates only two seconds more before he shrugs his jacket off and drapes it across the dry ground. Then he tugs his shirt off, revealing all his muscle. He kicks off his boots the same time as I do, his socks following. I’m in only my shirt and underwear, but my shirt is wet, too.
“Locke. Get the sleeping bag laid out near enough to the fire to gather warmth, but not so close to catch on fire.”
Locke moves over to do that and then looks down at his pants. They’re long, the bottoms of them wet from the snow. He grimaces and shoves his pants down, revealing his naked body completely. He wears no underwear. The tattoos continue past the pants—
“Don’t look at me,” he growls, cupping himself. “It’s cold.”
I blink and look down at my wet shirt. Then, before I can think better of it, I tug it off over my head, revealing my breasts. Mainly to make Locke feel better. My nipples pebble painfully and I wrap my arms around them, trying to warm them up.
“Hey!” Svetlana shouts as she’s pulled off with the shirt. Her voice is weaker than it should be and I’m suddenly worried for her. Carefully, I grab the shirt and bunch it up around her, trying to keep her warm. She doesn’t protest. She barely makes any sound at all.
“Into the sleeping bag,” Cipher orders. “Both of you. Now.”
I do as he says, sliding into the sleeping bag and trying to warm up. Locke follows, zipping it up behind him so we’re both snuggled inside of it.
“Sharing body heat is the only way this is going to work,” Cipher says. “You have both thought about it. Do not be shy now. Wrap around each other as tightly as possible. The sleeping bag will start to warm up shortly.”
I glance at Locke. If my cheeks weren’t already wind burnt, I’d be flushing in embarrassment. Locke, though, seems to understand exactly what’s needed right now. He reaches for me and jerks me against his body, wrapping himself around me completely.
“Tuck your legs between mine,” he orders, his arms enveloping me. “Fuck, you’re so cold. You’re even colder than I am.”
I’m still shivering, my teeth clattering no matter how hard I try to stop them, but when Locke wraps around me, the first dregs of warmth slowly start to filter in.
“Your body is trying to keep your vital organs warm,” Cipher says. “It will sacrifice your limbs first. Once you are in a safer vital zone, there is a cream in the loot crate to cure your frostbite.”
Warmth trickles into my body, slowly spreading. It’s working. Thank fuck, it’s working.
“I thought you couldn’t help us,” I rasp, wrapping myself tighter against Locke.
“I cannot,” he says. “I am just making the match more entertaining for those watching in Luxe. You are a popular player with those who bet on the survival of the players. I found a loop hole that instructs I can break minor rules in order to give a single favored player a boon.” He pauses.
“I will not be able to do it again without increased resources.”
“Resources?” I rasp.
“The shards,” he answers. “I need the shards. Now, conserve your energy. Focus on warming up. That is all that matters.”
Cipher falls silent as Locke and I stay wrapped around each other. Slowly, both of us warm up within the sleeping bag, but the feeling in my fingertips and toes doesn’t come back. That must be the frostbite Cipher was talking about.
Locke holds me tenderly against him, and as we warm, I become increasingly aware of our state of undress. I shift against him, nestling deeper into his chest, stealing his warmth as much as possible.
“You know,” Locke says with a weak chuckle, “I didn’t realize it would be like this the first time I got you naked.”
The exasperated chuckle pushes past my lips and spreads along his skin. “The first time? You expecting there to be more than one?”
He leans back just enough to look down at me, his eyes tracing my face. “Yes.”
The confidence in the word is enough to make me stop breathing. The way he’s looking at me, the way his eyes fall to my lips . . .
“Do not forget I am here,” Svetlana declares suddenly.
She’s still twisted in my shirt, desperately trying to warm herself up.
I crane my head to find her where she throws the fabric off her body and rushes toward the sleeping bag we’re inhabiting.
“If you are going to fuck, I need more warning so I can prepare a camera.”
I had indeed forgotten that Svetlana was there once I’d wrapped her in my shirt. Clearly, Locke did the same, because both of us immediately jerk at the sudden interruption and go back to cuddling instead of thinking about what the other’s lips might taste like.
“I’m going to go lower,” Svetlana says as she climbs inside the sleeping bag and moans at the warmth we’ve created. “It’s warmer deep inside and I cannot withstand this cold for much longer.”
“Stay away from my junk,” Locke growls.
Svetlana sniffs. “As if it’s difficult to avoid.”
Locke stiffens. “It’s fucking cold, you six-legged—”
“I implore you not to finish that sentence,” Svetlana warns as she disappears inside the sleeping bag.
“Lest my razor arm slips and cuts something off while I burrow into my familiar’s warmth.
” From deeper, her voice muffled by the sleeping bag, she adds, “You are only here to keep her warm. I am here to keep her alive.”
Locke’s mouth clamps shut, but when he tugs me against him again, it’s more comfortable, both of us sinking into the warmth of each other, even as the praying mantis joins us and nestles somewhere inside.
Svetlana is wrong though. If Locke hadn’t been here, neither one of us would be alive. Even Cipher knows that. Or else he never would have started talking to him. He would have never used his name.
It’s impossible to survive the Harrow alone it seems . . .