Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,65

had seconds to get her out. He pulled his glove off, slid to the edge of the hole, and thrust his hand into the water.

He waved it around, thrashing it so she’d see the movement. Too many seconds passed. Suddenly, something brushed his fingers. It was her pack. Dean grabbed it, heaving upward with all his strength. For a second the pack caught on the edge of the ice, and he worried she’d slip out of it. Then he saw her head emerge, sagging forward. He pulled hard, slithering backward on the ice. His snowshoes dug in and he managed to pull her partially out, then grab her shoulders and tug her all the way out of the water. She collapsed on the ice next to him, shuddering. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Dean knew he had to get her warm and dry as quickly as possible.

Continuing to lie on the ice, he elbowed his way to the edge of the hidden lake, dragging Grace along with him.

When they entered the trees again, he stood up and threw her over his shoulder. After carrying her a few feet to safety, he set her down against a tree and shucked off her wet pack. Her teeth chattered, her lips already blue. He shrugged his own pack off and left it next to her.

Dean replaced his glove and looked around for kindling that wasn’t soaked through with snow. Quickly, he moved through the denser undergrowth. He found a few logs that didn’t look too bad and carried them back to her. She remained silent, shuddering, teeth chattering.

Good. As long as she kept shivering, she wasn’t going hypothermic. But she wasn’t cognizant, either.

Dean clustered some pine needles and kindling around the logs and pulled out his Zippo. But when he tried to light them, they wouldn’t catch. He tried again and again, but everything was just too wet. Some of the pine needles caught, but it wasn’t enough heat to even catch the kindling on fire. He tried for a few more minutes, then knew it was futile.

He had to get Grace out of her wet clothes.

Dean rummaged through his pack, pulling out his tent and sleeping bag. He set the tent up in the snow, efficiently snapping the poles together and sliding them through the nylon sleeves. When it was up, he tossed his sleeping bag inside and unrolled it.

Grace hadn’t moved or said anything. He picked her up and slid her into the tent, laying her next to the bag. He grabbed a pair of pants and a flannel shirt from his pack and laid them out.

Then he quickly stripped her out of her wet clothes and dressed her in the dry ones. Crawling into the tent with her, he zipped up the tent fly, blocking out the wind. He folded her inside the sleeping bag and then got in himself. Wrapping his arms around her, he warmed her with his body heat. She continued to shiver, and pressed in close to him. Even her breath on his neck was icy cold, and he pulled the sleeping bag tightly around her.

“You’re going to be okay, Grace.”

She shuddered against him, her wet hair cold against his face, and muttered unintelligibly.

Dean stared up at the tent ceiling, feeling a tinge of fear in his gut. One thing was clear. They’d somehow gone off course. There was no lake on the map where they thought they were. They could be miles from the resort.

Dean listened to the wind as it made the tent flutter and quake.

They were lost, and Grace could die out there.

FORTY-TWO

Dean kept talking to Grace, jostling her when she started to fall asleep. If she lost consciousness, she would be at even greater risk of hypothermia.

Her body was starting to warm up. Her wet hair had at first frozen into spiky strands, but the tent grew slowly warmer with their body heat, and finally they thawed out.

She started talking a little bit. Dean had asked her trivial questions at first, trying to get her to stay awake, but those hadn’t worked well, so now he asked her tough ones that made her stir.

“What’s your family like?”

That one had earned him a jab to his ribs. She didn’t answer, just shifted around, trying to shove him away, drifting in and out. He held on to her. The light outside dimmed and night set in, the temperature lowering. But with the thick cloud cover, it only felt a few degrees