Page 28

One moment he’s racing across the ice, holding a baby carrier in one hand and Olivia’s palm in the other, then the cat whizzes past his head and Olivia is gone.

At first, Cole doesn’t understand what happened.

A horde is chasing them, and each wasted second brings them closer to certain death.

Already, he fears they won’t make it. Never seen rotters this fast before, and without any barrier to stop them, his and Olivia’s legs will give up long before the dead do.

Thinking she tripped, he turns back, expecting the group to be rushing towards her, ready to fight them off, only to discover the lake empty.

There are no rotters except the few stragglers at the cottage door.

An eerie silence replaces the constant groaning and growling of the dead.

A massive crack in the ice ends right before his feet. Everything chasing them has fallen in, taking her with it. Rotters, fixated on him, stream from the house’s rear exit, charging into the icy water and sinking like boulders.

Cole scrambles to the edge, calling out her name, blindly reaching in with one arm but finding nothing. He abandons the baby in her carrier on solid ice, shoving Lucy a few feet away in case the entire thing collapses under his weight.

Knowing exactly what he needs to do, fear shivers through his limbs, pumping his lungs at double the pace.

For a brief moment of self-doubt and terror, he believes he can’t do it, only to realize that he’d rather drown than regret not attempting to rescue her.

He takes a deep breath and slips into the jagged opening, all his organs seizing up at the freezing temperatures, and then dives beneath the surface.

The army forced him to learn to swim. He tried to quit, only to be denied.

Considered breaking his leg to avoid the water, but heard stories of men who did the same for other reasons and still couldn’t get an honorable discharge.

With his luck, he’d be stuck in the army and forced to swim with a broken limb.

Somehow, he survived and passed. He spent that entire stretch of time in cold sweats in his bunk at night while the others slept, fighting nightmares in the shadows.

Learning to swim didn’t help overcome his fear.

If anything, it made it worse. He is grateful now, though, that he was never allowed to quit, because Olivia’s life depends on his ability to dive deep into frigid waters.

Beneath him, the sight of rotters sinking to the bottom appear as fuzzy shapes.

They’re all still moving like nothing is amiss, haphazardly roaming the lake floor.

As Cole spins, his breath running out, he frantically looks for Olivia, spotting her long hair falling into the abyss.

He rushes toward her, grabbing her limp, upstretched hand and giving it a tug only to meet resistance.

She’s far heavier than she should be and panic overwhelms him.

He can’t breathe. He can’t stay under. He’ll have to go back up and try again soon if he has any hope of saving her, but letting go isn’t something he’s willing to do either.

Then he spots the rotter attached to her ankle like a ball and chain and stabs it through the eyeball.

Suddenly, they’re both rocketing toward the surface.

His gasp of breath breaks into the cold night air, but she doesn’t move in his arms, or try to pull herself onto the ice.

He’s too late. He waited too long. He wasted time fighting his fears before diving in after her and now he’s lost her for good.

With hot tears streaming through his frozen cheeks, he hauls her halfway onto the ice, pulls himself up, and then drags her away from the edge.

Practical application of what he learned in the service takes over even while his mind is crumbling. His mouth covers hers, breathing air into her lungs, and he pumps both hands against her chest, trying to will her heart to beat again. “Come on, wake up. Lucy needs you. You can’t leave her.”

There is no response, but he won’t quit until she turns and tries to eat his face. He’ll keep going until she forces him to stop.

“Fuck, fuck. I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry,” he chokes out between forced heartbeats, leaning down to puff against her mouth again. “I need you. I need you, too.”

She is gone and in that moment he would trade anything to have her back.

He tries to bargain with a God he doesn’t believe in, offering ridiculous, pointless things in trade for her life.

It’s unsurprising that his prayers go unanswered.

His tears wet her face in heavy droplets, and his efforts become frantic.

Fear of her dying outweighs his worry that he might break her ribs during CPR.

He can’t do any of this alone after knowing what it’s like to do it all with her.

The seventh time he leans down to breathe into her lungs, he is met with a face full of lake water as she coughs up what she swallowed.

He turns her onto her side, whispering soothing nonsense she likely isn’t processing, as she expels half the lake.

His first instinct is to pull her into his arms and hold her tight because he almost lost someone he didn’t fully understand how badly he needed, but then he remembers they’re sitting on unstable ice and one wrong move could land them back in the water.

Cole wraps an arm around her and lifts, holding the baby carrier with the other hand that contains both Lucy and Flower. “Come on, we gotta move! The ice is too thin!”

He drags her, coughing up water with each step, towards the shore.

Adrenaline pushes him forward when his body starts to fail.

His numb feet stumble in the snow while frozen breath hangs in the air and cold, wet material clings to his skin.

They’re out of the water, but not out of the woods yet.

Without a place to warm up and change, they may not survive much longer before hypothermia sets in.

Frostbite is already trying its best to take his fingers and nose.

There are no structures in sight or cars to warm up in.

Thomas’s gas station comes into view right when he’s certain he can’t feel his feet anymore. He fears that Olivia, heavy on his arm, could pass out and pauses to shake her. “Hey, hey, stay awake. We’re almost there. Talk to me.”

“Cole?” Her voice is confused and graveled like sandpaper.

“Yeah, I’m here. We’re okay, everyone’s okay.”

“The baby?”

“She’s fine, just fine.” He props her against the gas station window before using his elbow to bust open the glass above the door lock, granting them entry.

The store is empty, and he forces them to the back room. Boxes of files litter the floor and a small, tattered sofa lines the wall. He deposits Olivia onto the cushions and starts stripping her clothes off her body without a second thought. His only goal is to get her warm again.

She flinches away from his touch and he remembers what happened in that house before the herd saved them.

“Look at me,” he says softly, keeping the panic out of his voice as best he can, letting it go soft and careful, as if she may bolt.

“You’ll get hypothermia if we don’t get these clothes off.

I will too. Let me help you, sweetheart.

It’s just me and you here. You can trust me, you know that, right? ”

He’s asking a woman who was just assaulted to cuddle naked with him under a blanket, and she has every right to be wary.

So much has happened in the space of an hour that it could grow into a chasm between them if they aren’t careful.

He fears that it’s already begun. What will he do if she tells him no?

He can’t let her freeze to death on this sofa.

She could hold the cat against her instead. It’s small, and currently curled around Lucy, keeping the baby quiet and content, but better than nothing.

There are two thick blankets in the room. She could have them both and maybe it would be enough even without his body heat.

He’ll recover without them. She was in that ice bath far longer.

Her eyes, though glazed, flicker with recognition, followed by a nod. His relief at her agreement is only matched by the moment he rescued her from the water. While helping her take off her shirt and pants, he narrates each step to calm her, unsure if it’s actually helping or not.

“Keep your underwear, but the tank needs to come off, okay?” He grips the hem of the only barrier left between her skin and the cold air.

Shivering, she nods and lifts her arms for him to remove the semi-frozen fabric, quickly covering her breasts.

He wraps her in the first blanket like a burrito, tucking in all the edges, before stripping down himself.

He isn’t a fan of anyone seeing him either, but she’s already laid eyes on his back before and this isn’t the time to be shy.

He keeps his boxers even though they’re freezing his dick into a popsicle and then tucks in under the same blanket as Olivia.

Pulls the second blanket over them both and hopes they’ll catch a break this once.

She doesn’t feel cold at all when he tugs her against his chest to merge their body heat, and that’s when he realizes just how fucked they are.

His own body temperature is as frozen as hers, so she feels downright cozy when she’s not. It might be too late, he worries. They’re at risk of losing fingers or toes in this awful little gas station, or, even worse, falling into the kind of dangerous sleep that’s already pulling at his eyelids.

Olivia lets out a pained cry, tucking her face into his collarbone, her hands curling into stiff fists between them.

“I know. It’s the circulation coming back. It’s a good sign even if it hurts. It won’t last long,” he soothes, feeling his own fingers start to burn and cramp.

“You jumped in the water for me,” she chokes out.

“Of course I did.”

“You hate the water.”

“No chance I wasn’t going in after you. Fuck, you scared the shit outta me. I thought—”

“It’s alright, we’re okay. Should we bring Lucy up here? Is she cold?”

“Nah, she’s warmer than all of us. Flower is keeping her toasty. You must’ve tossed that cat right before you fell in. Saw her flying past my head.”

All at once, her body tenses again and her voice goes shrill. “Oh my god, they’re coming for us! They could find us here… what if those men find us?”

She’s still disoriented, fearing their attackers who are long gone, and he hugs her a little tighter. “They’re all dead, remember? Got what was coming to them.”

He’d been in the middle of a fistfight, his ears ringing and blood coating his mouth while she was pinned to the floor across the room. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to will the image away. He should have kept in what he asks her next. “Did they… are you hurt? Did they—”

“No. No, I’m fine. They didn’t get the chance.”

She is far from fine, but he accepts her answer as truth for lack of any other option. He certainly isn’t going to interrogate her about it.

“Your friend’s alive,” she says softly, finally relaxing against his chest, her face nuzzling his pulse point.

“Should have known he’d be making enemies.”

“Those men would have done what they did, regardless. It’s who they are. It’s only good news that Wade’s still out there. You have a real chance at seeing him again.”

“He’ll be going to the farm. If he makes it, then we’ll find him there.”

Cole really fucking hopes Wade shows up, not only because he’s family, but because he can’t keep Olivia and Lucy safe alone. There’s safety in numbers and the world is still ripe with people like those assholes in the cottage. He needs his friend, his brother, as backup.

“All I care about right now is that I’m seeing you,” he murmurs. “Don’t fall asleep yet. Keep talking, we’re still too cold. Are your fingers still numb?”

“Oh yeah, they feel huge, like sausages.”

He huffs. “Mine too.”

She’s quiet for a moment and he’s about to nudge her to wake up when she speaks again. “You saved my life. That’s twice now, at least.”

“We’re not keeping score.”

“You could have died, too. I’ll keep putting a target on your back, no matter where we go. I’m so sorry, Cole. If I wasn’t so selfish, I’d tell you to leave us and save yourself, but I am and I hope you won’t.”

It takes him a moment to understand. She is a live woman in a world filled with the dead. The vast majority of men they come across will want her for themselves, more than willing to kill Cole to take her. “Don’t you dare apologize for people being animals.”

“Animals behave better.”

“I don’t wanna hear any more talk of splitting up either, alright? Those fuckers would’ve killed me anyway for my shit, even if I were by myself. You’re not a liability, you hear me?”

“I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t do anything but lie there.”

He cringes at the mental image of her struggling on the ground with the baby wailing in the background. “Only the dead could stop them.”

“Do you still have the gun?”

“Lost it in the scuffle.”

“What about that? Can you show me how to use it?” A shotgun hangs on the office wall, and she points to it with a trembling finger.

The corner of his mouth lifts slightly in a proud smirk. “That works too.”