The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [86]
There’s something I should be holding on to. A promise I made. A feeling. But every time the thought enters my mind it’s gone before my frozen fingers can wrap around it.
The fire’s farther away than it looks. So so far. Too far. I don’t have the energy anymore.
Something tangles around me as I stumble against the snow. I fight but my arms are stuck and I can’t get them free. It looks like it could be rope but it doesn’t make sense that there would be rope just dangling here.
I scrunch up my face trying to figure it out but it’s too hard to think. I let my body weight fall against it and it holds me. That’s much better. My legs don’t hurt anymore. I can lie here tangled in the rope. Just for a moment until I can remember what I’m doing and have the energy to do it. Sleep will help. That’s all I need.
A noise keeps bothering me and when I look down I see that there’s a person huddled at my feet. Her shoulders shake and I think I should be doing something. I should have a weapon. I think I remember that much.
I push at the body with my foot, not wanting it near me. It rolls and I’m confused because it’s me on the ground. But I’m not on the ground, I’m tangled in the ropes—and then I remember my sister.
A shock of fear jolts through me, focusing the moment. My sister. I fall to my knees and grab her coat. “Abigail!” I shout. Her eyelids flutter. I scream at her, my throat raw with the force of it, until she looks at me.
“Gabry,” she mumbles, and I shake her again.
I get right in her face when I yell, “Fight!”
“No.” She bats at me and I slap her. I don’t even feel it, my fingers are so numb. Her eyes open and she frowns.
“Go away.” She tries to pull out of my grasp but I tug at her until she’s standing.
Wind howls fierce, blustering over the river and coating everything white. I shove my sister up the ladder, forcefully wrapping her hands around the rope when she wants to give up.
We make it to the platform and it’s empty. Sleep—pure blissful warm sleep—calls to me and I want nothing more than to follow.
“Come on!” I heave her down the platform and across the island, our bodies stumbling into each other as the wind blows at our backs. No one tries to stop us—everything’s too howling wind and frozen ice.
Her feet drag and I shake my head to clear it. To focus. It’s freezing. It hurts.
In front of me’s a tall building and I aim for it. Just one more step, I scream at myself. I can take just one more.
She’s limp in my arms now and I’m shaking her to keep us both warm. Finally there’s a door. A familiar door and I sag against it, forcing it open. My sister tumbles inside to the darkness and I shut the door and then I slide to the ground.
It’s warmer here. No wind. At last, I’m allowed to sleep.
In my dream someone’s screaming. It’s terrifying and I try to run away but the echoes follow me. And then there’s warmth. Such wonderful delicious heat that pours through my entire body so bright it’s almost painful. I don’t open my eyes—I don’t need to. This is my dream, so I know who’s talking when they beg me to stay with them, when they tell me not to sleep. But why wouldn’t I sleep?
It’s safe here in the warmth and I was so cold before. I don’t want to be cold again.
Catcher’s lips press against my closed eyelids and along my ear and my jaw. He touches his forehead to mine and I don’t understand why he’s crying.
It’s my dream. He should be happy like I am. Happy and safe and warm.
Wake up, he begs me. Please wake up.
I startle awake and every inch of my body burns.
“It’s okay,” someone says, his voice reverberating through me, and I realize I’m tucked against a body. I can tell by the heat that it’s Catcher. We’re lying on something soft and it takes me a moment to recognize that we’re in my bed, in my room.
Catcher’s lips rest lightly against my forehead.
I’m about to ask him what’s going on. I’m about to pull away when I remember the shore and the snow with a terror so deep that I feel like I won’t ever be able to breathe again.
“Abigail!” I shout,