“Fine, we’re both concussed. Stay awake for me.”
She saluted, then squinted up at the surface, now just a circle of swirling white far above. “Think the others made it to the snow cats?”
“Probably.”
“Good. I’ve never lost anyone on one of my expeditions, and I don’t plan to start now.”
He found her glove half-buried in the snow, its fingers frozen into a shape that seemed like she’d been flipping off Death on the way down.
Classic Rue.
He held it out to her.
“Thanks.” She shook the snow out of it, then scowled at the wide tear extending across the palm down to the wrist. “Well, shit. Lotta good that will do me.”
She stuffed the ruined glove into her pocket and pulled her bare hand up inside her sleeve.
He’d done that, he realized. Because she caught him, the rope burned through the glove, and now she was at risk of frostbite.
“You should have let me fall.”
She looked at him like he’d suggested she strip naked and run laps around the station. “Are you insane?”
“You could’ve been killed,” he shot back, harsher than he intended. The words came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep in his chest where fear had taken root and grown thorns.
Rue’s eyes flashed with temper. “So, let me get this straight. Because I could’ve been killed, I was just supposed to watch you die?”
“Yes. You take risks that—” He stopped himself before he could finish the thought. Before he could say something that would cut too deep to take back.
“That what?” Her voice dropped to something dangerously quiet.
The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the bone-deep ache of impact and something worse—the memory of watching her disappear over the edge, of thinking for one horrible second that he’d lost her.
“Nothing,” he muttered and sat back on his heels. “Forget it.”
She studied his face in the blue-white glow, and he could practically hear the gears turning in her head. Rue had always been too perceptive for his own good.
“We need to get out of here,” he said before she could respond, pushing himself to his feet. His left knee protested, sending a sharp spike of pain up his thigh, but it held his weight. He tried his radio, but it was dead. Either the jamming had reached them down here, or the fall had shattered the electronics. He checked his backup beacon, but the red light just blinked in slow, defeated intervals.
“They’ll find us,” she said, but her tone wasn’t confident. “They have to.”
But even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. No one at Thwaites was trained for technical rescue. Well, except maybe Koos, who had made Antarctica his career. But his help depended on theothers getting back to the station and the weather clearing long enough to launch a rescue.
Too many variables. If they waited, they’d freeze.
He looked at the wall above them—shee ice, with maybe two holds in the first five meters. The rest was slick as glass. He shook his head.
“There’s no way up,” he said, tracing the route with his eyes. “Not without proper climbing gear.”
Rue nodded, though her jaw was set in that stubborn way that usually meant she was about to do something reckless. But instead of arguing, she turned to examine the downward slope.
“Then we go down.” She pointed her headlamp into the darkness. “Ice caves form networks. There’s probably another way out.”
“Probably,” he echoed. There was that word again—the one Rue used when she was guessing but didn’t want to admit it.
He checked his watch. The temperature was dropping fast, and they had maybe four hours before hypothermia became a serious concern. Less, considering Rue was missing a glove and he had a tear in his coat from the fall.
“Okay,” he agreed, because they had no better options. “But we stick together. No heroics.”
