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My eyelids keep closing.

Body feels heavy. So heavy.

“Please,” I murmur. I know it’s the wrong thing to say, but I can’t help it. How else should I plead for someone’s life?

“Sshh. Blankets! And more wood while you’re at it.”

A hand brushes my hair back, and I want to look and see who the hand belongs to, but my eyelids are too heavy to pry open. I finally feel safe and taken care of, and that’s all my body needs at the moment. I begin to relax, my head finding the crook of an arm once more.

Such an oddly comfortable place to sleep.

The children!

I begin to sit up again, forcing myself to rouse.

“Sshh, Sara. I’m right here.”

Who?

Not the children.

Not the children.

I come togradually, getting my bearings bit by bit. A mound of blankets covers me, and in front of me is a wood-burning stove, a fire cheerily burning inside it. I stare at it like it holds the answers to all my questions.

I move slowly, feeling like I drank my weight in bad moonshine then decided to run a marathon before getting hit by a freight train. Yesterday was not my best day.

I groan, beginning to roll away.

As soon as I shift, I feel the wind brush against my bare skin.

What in the world?

Am Inaked?

An arm tightens around my stomach, feeling like a band of steel.

… Waitonefuckingmoment.

My mind screeches to a halt.

No.

Nononononononono.

Nooooooooo.

I glance over my shoulder, and sure enough, there’s Pestilence, spooning me like we’re lovers. From what I can tell, he doesn’t have a shirt on.

Deep breath, Burns.

“Did we … ?” I can’t even finish that sentence.

“You were hypothermic.”

Oh. Of course. That would be the logical sequence of events. Not screwing the world’s most hated being. Because that would be so far out of the question that—

Why am I even dwelling on this?