Page 61 of Keeping Kasey (Love and Blood #3)

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Logan

“What do you mean?” Kasey asks, near hysterical. “There’s nowhere to go!”

When I stand, her hand shoots out—albeit with a wince—to stop me.

I lay my hand gently over hers. “Waiting here isn’t an option anymore. We could’ve survived one, maybe two days before that window broke, but now we’re looking at a few hours.”

“Going out there isn’t going to change that. There’s nothing for miles! You have no way of knowing where to go. You won’t make it down the driveway.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I quip.

Her glare is equal parts vicious and fearful.

“Stay,” she pleads. “If we die, we die together, okay? Don’t you think we’ve spent too long apart?”

I brush a loose strand of hair from her forehead, memorizing every detail: her soft blue eyes, the parting of her full lips, the curve of her cheek that fits so perfectly against my palm. Her bruises have darkened in the last few hours, and her pain has to be reaching an unmanageable level.

I need to get her out of here.

“We’ve spent way too much time apart,” I agree. “And I’m going to get us out of here so we can spend the rest of our lives making up for lost time.”

“I can’t lose you too,” she says in a broken whisper, tears filling her eyes. “I won’t recover, Logan—I won’t.”

Her pleas weigh on me, each word carving into my resolve. I almost give in—I almost stay. But I can’t. I won’t let us die, and staying here is a death sentence.

Kasey is content to die together, but I’m determined to live together.

“Listen to me,” I say, holding her face between my hands.

“No one is dying tonight. Not me, not you. I’m going to find help, or at least a signal to call for help.

You’re going to stay here until I can get medical care for you.

We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to get married.

We’re going to have lots of psychopathic children.

We’re going to grow old together. We are going to live . ”

Tears spill over her cheeks, and I gently wipe them away with my thumb.

“I can’t lose you,” she says on a breath.

“No, you can’t. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.”

Her breathy laugh is the sweetest sound, a fragile promise of hope, and I soak it in as I kiss her temple.

I start rifling through the dresser to find several long-sleeved shirts, flannels, and jeans. I take off my jacket and start layering up. Wearing a dead man’s clothes should probably give me pause, but right now, I don’t care.

The clothes are tight, but they’re better than nothing, so I don’t complain as I throw my jacket back on over several layers. It barely stretches over my shoulders and restricts my movement, but it’s better than nothing. As long as I have circulation, I’ll be fine.

There’s a pair of boots on the floor beside the dresser, and I pull them on. They’re two sizes too small, but I force my feet into them anyway. I’ll be trekking through several inches of snow, and there’s no way my dress shoes will hold up.

I take the remainder of the clothes—roughly four drawers’ worth—and cover Kasey in them. They aren’t much in the way of bedding, but they’re one more layer of insulation to keep her warm.

“This is really creepy,” she murmurs, looking at the clothes scattered over her.

“And unfortunately necessary.”

She shrugs as much as she can. “Just this once.”

Despite everything, I laugh. “If I ever have to cover you in a dead man’s clothes to keep you from freezing to death again , I really will buy you an island.”

Kasey winces through a laugh, which quickly dies when she realizes it’s time for me to go.

“I’m coming back,” I assure her.

“I’ll be here,” she whispers.

When I lean in and kiss her, I nearly give in and stay. Who needs a full life when I can die on Kasey’s lips?

It’s only when we hear the high-pitched whistle of the wind blowing through the broken window that I finally pull away.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you, too.”

I close the bedroom door behind me, sealing Kasey inside, and pull the cushions off the couch.

I stuff one against the bedroom door to block airflow from coming in through the base of the door.

I use two others to pack in around the broken window and block it as much as I can.

The tree is stubborn, and while I finally position them both in a way that keeps them in place, it won’t be enough to keep the place from becoming an ice cube in the next few hours.

They will, however, slow the inevitable and hopefully buy me the time I need to find help.

I scan the room, looking for anything else that could possibly help Kasey, but there’s nothing left to do.

Without giving myself the chance to change my mind and curl up beside Kasey, I leave the cabin.

The chill hits me with violent force the second I step outside, but the wind is mild, and I’m layered up enough not to freeze instantly. The boots are a lifesaver. There are roughly eight inches of snow, and without the sturdier shoes, I wouldn’t be able to walk through it.

Not much light emanates from the cabin, but it might as well be the sun compared to the darkness that consumes me as I make my way down the drive. Even if trees didn’t cover the sky, the clouds would hide the moonlight, leaving me to take my chances in the dark wasteland.

Wind and snow rustle the leaves around me, and the snapping of twigs echoes every few seconds from places hopelessly out of sight. I’d been so concerned with the cold itself that thoughts of wild animals or other weak trees falling hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Even now that the thought occurs, it’s Kasey I worry about.

Another tree could hit the cabin, or a hungry coyote could stumble upon her there.

All the more reason to keep going.

The cabin has disappeared from behind me, and based on what I remember from my drive here, I can’t be far from the main road.

With rapidly numbing fingers, I pull my phone from my pocket. It takes several seconds to maneuver it out, but I finally manage. The screen lights up, and though it’s relatively dim, it seems blinding in the dead of night.

Still no signal.

My battery is at fifteen percent, which should be plenty if all I do is make a call once I finally have a signal.

I tuck the phone back into my pants pocket—reserving my jacket pockets for keeping my hands warm—and force myself to continue moving.

Even with my hands shielded from the wind, my fingers are burning from the cold. My feet, which are constantly buried in the dense, wet snow, aren’t much better. The boots make moving through the snow possible, but they can only do so much to keep the freezing water from soaking in.

The trees on either side of me begin to thin as I reach the main road, filling me with as much dread as relief.

It’s just as dark and isolated as the driveway.

There are no streetlights, no signs, and absolutely no cars. Snow plows haven’t even been through here yet, and I have no idea how I’ll manage to get help to Kasey.

But I’ll figure it out. I have to.

I reach for my phone, but the use of my hands is severely limited. I can’t feel my fingers, and while they move on command, it’s an odd sensation to not have any physical feeling of the movement. It makes digging my phone out of my pocket even more challenging.

When I do finally manage, it’s all for nothing.

No signal.

Putting my phone away again takes several tries. I can’t see my fingers to know if they’re turning purple, but I imagine they have. My toes aren’t any better off. I try to move all my extremities to get blood flowing through them, but it doesn’t help.

Thirty minutes later, I see the faint outline of a road sign in front of me. When I reach it, I can barely see that it’s a warning for deer crossing. Not much help to me, but it might mean I’m close enough to civilization to have a signal.

It’s physically painful to pull my hands out of my jacket. Commanding my fingers to get the phone out takes several minutes, and the burning has started to subside—which I do not take as a good sign. I’m going to be facing some severe nerve damage if I can’t find help soon.

Finally— finally —I pull the phone free.

And it falls through my numb fingers into the snow.

I don’t even have it in me to curse in frustration. I have half a mind to leave it there and take my chances walking, but that isn’t a feasible option.

I picture Kasey lying in that cabin all alone, waiting for me to come back with help. I have to do whatever it takes to save her.

Leaning over, I force my hand into the snow to dig it out. It takes several minutes, since my fingers can’t actually feel anything, but eventually I notice an added weight when lifting my hand and realize I’ve found it. I clutch the phone in both hands and pull it up.

No signal.

Five percent battery.

With no remaining feeling in my hands and feet, I only have two options.

I can use the energy I have left to return to the cabin and spend my last hours with Kasey.

Or, I can keep going and use the last of my energy in search of a signal, knowing that if I can’t find it, I will die on the side of the road.

In the end, it’s the thought of three grainy, black-and-white pictures that decides for me.

The child who should’ve been.

I’ve already missed out on four months with Kasey. I can’t give up now, not when an entire lifetime is at stake. If risking my life can get us the future we deserve, then I will gladly hand it over as collateral.

I don’t bother putting the phone back in my pants pocket. It takes up most of the jacket pocket, but my hands are already numb, so I barely notice.

My face and neck stop burning, and once again, I take it as the bad sign that it is.

It isn’t long before my thoughts narrow to two little words.

Keep going. Keep going. Keep going .

It’s all I can think.

Nothing else matters right now—not when putting one foot in front of the other is a feat I can barely manage.

When the phone’s battery drops to three percent and the signal status never changes, I stop checking. I have no idea how far I’ve come or how long it’s been since I left the cabin, but it doesn’t really matter.

All that matters is that I keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

But my legs can only function for so long.

My brain can only process so much pain before it starts to shut down, and when my vision goes dark around the edges, I realize that’s exactly what’s happening.

It starts slow.

At first, I feel dizzy. My eyes strain to process anything, and my head pounds with each step I take. Then I realize I’ve stopped walking altogether.

It’s when my knees give out that I understand I failed.

I failed.

I can’t save Kasey—I can’t even save myself.

I collapse into the snow, oblivious to any creatures that may use my corpse for their dinner.

The last thing I see before my vision goes black is a light—far in the distance ahead of me.

Better than the hellfire I’d been expecting.