Darkness(20)

Her clothing kept her from physically experiencing the full extent of how cold and wet he was, but she knew anyway. He was so close she could feel the chill emanating from him. His skin had the grayish pallor of a corpse. He staggered as if each step might be his last.

Casting desperate looks toward the open fields and necklace of hills that fell away from the beach, she spotted a rocky outcropping rising like a black wall through the gloom. Extending from the base of one of the smaller hills, it sat atop a small rise to their right, maybe half a city block away. It offered the only possibility of shelter she could see, and it had the additional advantage of being on relatively high ground. Like the boat, the tent was small and lightweight, no match for the current extreme conditions even if she was able to stake it—which, given the rocky, frozen ground, it didn’t look like she could do. That being the case, they would need protection from the wind. The outcropping would, she hoped, provide that protection. Its elevation should keep them safe from any storm surge as well.

The problem lay in reaching it. She wasn’t sure they were going to get that far. The pounding of the wind and snow was relentless. His steps were growing increasingly wobbly and his weight was wearing her down to the point where she thought her knees might give way. Her heart raced as if she were running a marathon. Her breathing was ragged. With every minute that passed, her fear of not being able to go any farther and getting caught out in the open by the full fury of the storm increased.

“We’re heading up there by those rocks.” She got the words out between pants for air, nodding toward the outcropping as they reached the snow-encrusted tundra that marked the edge of the beach. Despite the fact that she had to work to find sufficient breath to make herself heard, she shared their destination because she couldn’t just drag him where she wanted him to go: he was too big and the rise was too steep.

He lifted his head, looking in the direction she indicated, and made a sound that she thought signified agreement. Neither of them said anything more as they started to climb. For her part, just keeping him upright and moving required all her strength. The now-solid ground was slippery underfoot, he weighed a ton and was unsteady on his feet besides, and the screaming wind gusting around them was strong enough to make battling it a constant, energy-sapping ordeal. Her cheek intermittently brushed his hard-muscled arm where it wrapped around her shoulders, and she found herself unsettled by its latent strength.

“How much—farther?” The words—the first he’d said in a while—were barely audible over the shrieking wind. She glanced up at him. With him looming over her as he was, the bulk of his body provided her with some protection from the worst of the elements. His face was mere inches away. The glint of his eyes in the darkness, the harsh lines of his strong, chiseled features, all spoke of hell-bent determination. It was, she thought, all that was keeping him on his feet. She could smell the sea on him, feel the cold coming off his skin like breath from an open refrigerator.

“We’re almost there.”

“What’s—almost?”

“Right in front of you.” Her mouth was mere inches below his ear. She still had to shout to be heard. “Maybe thirty more steps.”

“Jesus,” he said, not in reply but in response to the storm, the full force of which overtook them at that moment with a violence that stunned her. It was like having a wind tunnel drop down on them. The only thing that kept her from being knocked over by the ferocity of the wind was, ironically, the anchoring effect of his big body draped on top of her. Their surroundings were instantly obliterated by the swirling, rushing fog of snow mixed with sleet blowing around them. Lightning struck nearby with a boom and a bright flash, making her squeak and cringe and wringing a curse out of him. The wind turned absolutely arctic between one breath and the next and shrieked so loudly that it hurt her eardrums. She could no longer see the outcropping, or anything that was more than a foot in front of her poor freezing nose.

“Walk,” Gina ordered. Keeping her face down to try to protect it from the wind, she managed to keep the pair of them lurching forward. Every step was a battle against being blown off their feet.

He managed to stay upright, but only barely, and only because she refused to let him go down. Moving forward, his feet dragged like they’d turned to lead. She somehow got him behind the solid, snowcapped mass of the nearest of the school bus–size rocks that jutted out in an overlapping progression from the ridge. Just like that, the wind no longer pounded them: the outcropping blocked it, blocked the worst of the storm, even better than she’d hoped. Glancing up, she saw that there was an overhang protecting them from above, too. Gina felt the sudden cessation of the wind and lashing snow with a bone-deep thankfulness. Pausing in the thick shadows at the base of the rocks to get her bearings, she felt him sway and automatically tightened her hold on him.

“I need to take a break.” His voice was thick. She could sense the sheer force of will that it was taking for him to stay on his feet.

“It’s all right,” she told him. “We’re here.”

The abrupt slackening she felt in the muscles of his back and arm confirmed everything she’d suspected about how nearly impossible he was finding it to remain upright. His knees didn’t quite buckle, but it was close. She let it happen, doing her best to support him as he collapsed so that he didn’t completely crash to the ground. He ended up sitting with his long legs sprawled in front of him and his back resting against the uneven black surface of the first of the giant rocks.