by Krista Wolf
Shane laughed. “That chimney could be four times as wide and you still wouldn’t fit.” He jerked a thumb at himself and Jeremy. “Neither would we.”
“You’re right about that,” said Boone. “But there’s one person here who can…”
Eighteen
MORGAN
All eyes turned on me, including those of the newcomer. The instant attention turned my pale skin two shades more red.
“Me? You want me to climb up there?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” Boone said. “I’m just pointing out you’re the only one who’ll fit.”
I took a step in the direction of the big fireplace, but Shane cut me off.
“No way.”
I placed a hand on his chest. “Let me look.”
“Uh uh.” His gaze shifted menacingly to Boone. “No way you’re sending our girl up there. It’s too dangerous.”
Our girl? The words made my stomach lurch. But somehow… in a good way.
“It’s only a chimney,” said Boone. “She could wedge herself against the walls the whole way, pull down whatever snow was in there until she reaches the open air.”
Shane laughed. “Not sure how they do things over at Alpha Rho,” he said, drawing out the last two words snidely, “but over at Delta Lambda Mu we don’t send girls up chimneys to get stuck… or worse.”
Boone yawned as if bored. “Ever been trapped by an avalanche and in danger of freezing to death over at the DLM house?”
Neither of the other guys said anything.
“Then maybe you should both shut up and let her decide.”
All the alpha posturing was getting to be a bit too much. If left alone, I wondered how long it would take to come to blows.
“Everyone stop it.”
I pushed past Shane and crawled onto the hearth. Craning my neck inside, I could only see a few feet up the long, dark shaft. It was definitely climbable, though. In fact, it looked easy.
“What if there’s ice up there?” Jeremy put forth.
Boone pulled out a very large, long-handled screwdriver. “She chips it away.”
“And if she’s afraid of heights?”
Once again, everyone was looking at me. It was already more male attention than I’d received in the entirety of my first two years at school.
“I’m not afraid heights,” I said. “Now give me that thing.”
Boone handed over the tool, handle-first, and I took it. Our eyes locked for a brief moment; my green against his chestnut brown. I saw approval there. An appreciation that somehow told me my stock with him had just gone up.
“Go slow,” he told me. “It’s going to be pitch black. Take your time. Feel around.”
Shane went to protest again, but I shushed him with an outstretched hand.
“Be back in a few minutes,” I said, shrugging out of Shane’s jacket. Then, taking a deep breath, I climbed into the firebox.
The darkness I expected. The bitter cold I did not. It was like a freezer in the tiny vertical corridor, way more so than the icy hotel. For a brief moment I felt claustrophobic again, as I had in the snow-shelter. But I choked it back.
I tucked the screwdriver blade-first down my shirt, securing it between my breasts. It wasn’t exactly my first choice of places, but I had nowhere else to put it. Then I pulled myself up.
This is nuts!
Yes, it definitely was. But I was doing it anyway. Partially so we could finally get a fire going, and partially because the guys expected me to. So far they’d taken very good care of me, and now it was my turn. I wanted to be useful. I wanted to be—
“YOU OKAY?”
Shane’s voice, calling up from below.
“YES!”
“WE CAN’T SEE YOU ANYMORE,” he said. “ALL WE SEE IS DARKNESS.”
“WELCOME TO THE CLUB!”
The chimney was a perfect dimension for climbing. Just wide enough to brace my legs and back against the sides, while using my arms to feel around above me. Higher and higher I went, grunting and exerting myself until my breath became short. Eventually I could hear my breathing becoming muffled and distorted, and my head bumped into a wall of snow.
“MORGAN! ARE YOU—”
“PULL YOUR HEADS BACK!” I shouted down. “I HAVE TO DIG!”
I scraped with my hands first, sending clumps of frozen snow hurtling down the chimney below. I could hear the guys moving beneath me, two stories down, probably sweeping everything out of the firebox.
Eventually I hit ice. Pulling out the screwdriver, I struck upwards with my arm, hard, using the blade as an ice-pick.
“AHHHH!”
My whole body slipped! Swinging too hard, I’d stopped focusing on keeping myself wedged against the walls. I slid down the chimney a good three feet, then extended my body hard in both directions. It hurt like hell, but by jamming myself tight I was able to skid to a stop.
“ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”
“NO!” I said, choking on something in the darkness. Dirt. Soot. Spiderwebs. God knew what else. “I MEAN, YES!”
“YES OR NO?”
“I—I’M OKAY,” I called down. “JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE!”
I rested for a moment to catch my breath before working my way back up. When I reached the obstruction I took my time, chipping away at chunks of ice and hard snow until I’d removed enough to begin scooping with my hands again.
Snow rained down. Ice followed. They swept it all clean, and I kept on moving.
One advantage of the darkness was I couldn’t see how high I was. But eventually I could see light — very dim, very faint — filtering in from above.
“ALMOST THERE!”
I scraped and scraped, and suddenly I could see my hands. My arms. The filthy black sides of the chimney itself. Bracing my back and legs tightly against the walls, I punched hard and my fist broke through!
Light poured in, followed by a magnificent wave of fresh air. I drank it into my lungs, coughed a few times, then grabbed the top of the chimney and pulled myself through.
I was floating in a brilliant field of pure white snow, standing with one foot on each side of the heavy brick chimney. My vision was obscured by the raging blizzard, giving me no more than ten or fifteen feet of visibility in any direction. But it was absolutely beautiful. Like poking your head through a fluffy cloud, and climbing up to stand on top of it.
Someone shouted from below, but I couldn’t possibly hear them. It didn’t matter, though. The chimney was cleared. All that remained was to climb back down, making sure not to break my ass on the return trip.
Then I heard something else…
Whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop…
My body froze, arms out.
Was that…
I tilted my head to one side, ears straining to hear.
Was that a helicopter?
A wave of excitement rushed through me, obliterating the wind and the cold. The noise grew louder, even more distinct. I started waving my arms. I started shouting, screaming at the top of my lungs…
“HEYYYYYYYYY!”
I shifted in the direction the noise seemed to be coming from. But it was hard to pinpoint. Hard to tell.
“HEEEEEYYYYYYYY!”
I took a step in that direction. Two steps. Three. My heart was soaring, my body filled with all new levels of adrenaline. Even so, something in the back of my mind was nagging at me. Nagging hard.
MORGAN! WAI—
It hit me at once, where I was, what I was standing on. My mistake, my crucial error.
Then I was falling…
… and everything around me was thick and white.
Nineteen
BOONE
Even over the wind, I heard the scream. Not sure the other dingbats did, though.
I left them in the dust as I raced back outside.
The wind struck me full force, as if screaming at my return. This time I didn’t have my jacket. I didn’t even have more than a sleeveless Tee.
But if I was right abo
ut what happened…
If I was right about what happened, she didn’t have much time. The snow was coming down so heavily, and so thickly, any marks or indications she’d made up there would be covered in minutes.
I ran up the leeward side of the building, the only part still exposed to the world. Getting out of the wind felt almost warm. I wanted to stop there. Huddle up…
Instead I sprinted past the wind-swept dunes and toward the low corner of the garage. The roof was low here, and I could reach it if I timed it correctly. Maybe. Hopefully…
I jumped.
DAMN!
My fingers scraped the snow-covered edge of something, and then I was tumbling into a drift. My body disappeared into it completely, swallowed whole by the thin, billowy powder of the wind-manufactured wall of ice and snow.
Get up!
Scrambling to my feet was easy. It was emerging from the snow dune that sucked. My body heat had melted the thinnest layers of snow against my skin, creating a slick layer of instant wetness. It felt a hundred degrees colder as I stepped back into the wind, like being stabbed with icicles along every inch of my exposed skin.
My ears pricked up as a heard a faint shout, but it came from behind rather than ahead of me. The others — somewhere back at the doorway. Probably pissed I didn’t wait up for them, or something equally ridiculous.
From what I’d heard of them around campus, they weren’t bad guys. I didn’t even begrudge them for being Delta Lambs. But there wasn’t any time to explain myself, and I wasn’t sure I wanted them following anyway. Three people trying to do the same thing always got complicated, and right now there was no time for complicated.
Shaking it off I looked up at my target again — the exposed corner of the low-slung roof. I sprinted at it once more and leapt, digging deeper this time, coiling my legs and springing hard. Bringing myself that much closer…
My fingertips caught. I held on, grunting through the pain, pulling my body upward even as the snow and sleet and wind stung my face.
“Unghhh!”
I’d always hated pullups. My body was just big, too bulky. Strength-wise I could do just about anything, but pulling my giant body upwards like this…
Somehow I managed. I pulled just high enough to swing one leg over the edge, then I was plowing through thick feet of snow on my way to the upper rooftop.
Visibility was abysmal. My footing was treacherous. Luckily, I knew exactly where I was going. I’d seen it before, on the way in, stuck to the side of the building — a long, metal-runged ladder.
I slipped three times. On the third, more than halfway up, I actually slid down a rung. My chin hit one of the unforgiving metal bars, snapping my jaw shut painfully. I growled rather than cried out. Got angry, rather than nursed my wounds, or paid any attention to the thick, coppery taste of blood in my mouth.
The upper roof was a vast sea of nothing but pure, untouched white. It was so thick it came up to my chest, even my chin in places. Slowly I made my way forward, estimating where the chimney would be. Trying to figure out which direction I’d come from, and where it was in relation to the lobby below.
You’re never going to find her, you know. This is crazy. This is stupid…
The voice in my head only made me more angry. It was negative, and I hated negative. It was a voice I used to hear all the time — the voice of my father, really. The eternal pessimist. The hardest man I knew.
She probably slipped down, the voice reasoned. Fallen past the edge. Landed in the drifts below, maybe even on the other side, or—
Suddenly I saw it: a sharp hole, punched in the snow. And behind that, footprints. Three of four of them. Already they were nearly covered up by fresh powder. Almost invisible, almost gone.
Be careful!
I moved quickly but cautiously, making sure to keep my footing. I was straddling the peak now. Moving forward with one foot on each side of the roof.
“HEY!” I shouted.
No answer. Nothing but the wind.
“MORGAN!”
Still nothing.
My bare arms moved frantically, sweeping away the snow in front of me so I could push forward. Each step was a battle. Every foot of ground I gained came with a price.
“MORGAAAAAAAN!”
My heart was pounding, sending hot blood coursing through my body. That part actually felt good. But my arms…
My arms were rapidly becoming like lead weights. Two gargantuan lead weights entirely exposed to the elements. Weights I could no longer feel.
“MORGAA—”
I stopped, mid-cry. The hole was before me, and I broke into it. I kicked around with my legs. Reached around with my arms…
Nothing.
She’s gone, man. She slipped down, just like you thought.
I was struck hard by a sudden stab of panic. It couldn’t be like that. Not after all this.
But it is like that, the voice admonished. She slid downward, man. Down along the entire surface of the roof, to disappear over the—
My foot caught something. Something big and bulky. Something hard but yet soft and yielding.
Summoning the last of my energy, I tore through layer upon layer of snow, digging down until I could see color. Red waves. Streaks of hair…
I dug faster, more frantically. An arm came into view. A hand…
I grasped that hand and pulled hard, yanking the girl upward. Her body exploded from the powder, the white stuff falling away as if she were being born from the snow. She coughed mightily, then gasped as a giant breath of freezing air was gulped into her tender lungs.
Then she looked back at me, all wild-eyed and utterly bewildered. I squeezed her hand.
“Gotcha.”
Twenty
MORGAN
I was shivering so violently I couldn’t even speak. Not at first, anyway. All I remember was the vertigo of being carried back, wrapping my body tightly around Boone’s as he climbed down the ladder and dropped from the roof in a dizzying display of strength.
He carried me over the threshold and back into the hotel lobby like some frozen, ice-covered bride. Instantly the wind stopped. I still had no feeling in my arms or legs or face, but somehow I knew we were back inside.
“Did you clear the chimney?” he asked, staring down at me. My arms were wrapped around his neck, my head resting against his chest. My throat didn’t work. I barely had enough strength to nod, as the others came rushing over.
“I already got her,” Boone said, halting them in their tracks. “Start the fire.”
Jeremy paused and opened his mouth. “S—She alright?”
“Yes.”
“But—”
“Start the fire or she’s gonna freeze.”
Shane jumped on it. I was only vaguely aware. There was a spark, then a flame, and then I was being laid out on a sleeping bag right before the hearth as a big, bright, beautiful fire began roaring in the ancient fireplace.
It felt so good I wanted to cry.
“Holy shit…” Jeremy said, echoing everyone’s thoughts. All three guys were huddled around me, pushing their hands against the flames for warmth. “This is the best thing in the whole fucking world.”
Shane fed the budding flames with another armload of kindling. The flames grew taller, hotter, even more intense.
“Her clothes are soaked,” said Shane. “Get her out of them.”
The other two hesitated for a moment, then went about making that happen. Something in the back of my mind vaguely screamed for me to resist, but the logical part told me that modesty was right out the window.
“Are you alright?” Jeremy asked after a time. My hair felt soaked. He stroked it back over both ears.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I—”
My throat felt constricted, like someone was standing on it. It was difficult to speak.
“I thought I heard…”
“Easy,” said Boone. He was kneeling over me, and I noticed he�
��d taken off his T-shirt too. He was completely bare-chested now, the warm flames reflected against his beautiful, glistening chest. “Don’t talk if you can’t—”
“I thought I heard a helicopter!”
All three guys kneeling over me looked at each other. Shane leapt to his feet.
“A helicopter?” He reached for his jacket. “Where? Which direction?”
“I— I’m not sure.”
“Think, Morgan!” He took my hand. “Point! Show me where—”
SLAP!
A hand clapped loudly over his wrist, attached to a thick, tattooed forearm. I watched Shane’s gaze follow that arm upwards, to where Boone was staring back at him coldly.
“Leave her alone man,” he snapped. “She’s still in shock.”
Shane twisted his wrist sideways and jerked his arm back. His expression was murderous.
“Don’t ever fucking touch me.”
“And I said—”
“I don’t care what you said!” he snarled. “If there’s someone out there looking for us, we need to signal them!” He pointed downward. “She said she heard a helicopter! Which means—”
“She said she thinks she heard a helicopter,” Boone corrected. “But up there on the roof? It could’ve been the wind.”
Shane looked unconvinced. He was still pulling on his jacket.
“Don’t go out there,” Boone warned. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m serious,” Boone reiterated. “There no way a helicopter is flying through this. No way she heard what she thinks she did.”
He looked at me almost apologetically, but I brushed it off. I wasn’t sure what I’d heard, to be honest. I only knew I’d been stupid to ever step off the chimney.
“This could be our only chance at getting seen for a while,” said Shane. “Possibly ever.”
But Boone only shook his head. “We should stay here. We just got the fire going.”
“We?” Shane laughed. “WE?”
“When you get yourself into trouble out there,” said Boone, “we won’t come looking for you.”