Whiteout

by Adriana Anders

  “Relatively speaking.” Here, inside the sleeping bag, everything was magnified, whisper-close. He’d never sought intimacy before or even been comfortable with it. But this felt good. Inside and out. She felt good. Being alive felt good.

  He nudged her with his head, pressed his forehead to hers, and kissed her.

  It wasn’t a sexy kiss but something else. Dry, tender, affectionate. Proof of life.

  Part of him hated how much emotion crowded his brain right now, pushed out the logic and any semblance of control. Again and again, that moment came back. Angel on the ice and suddenly, poof! Gone.

  Recklessness edged under his skin. He pressed harder, more desperately, slid his fingers through her hair, tightened his hold.

  The deep, consuming kiss, tongues tangling, pushed noises out of his mouth. Painful against his ruined trachea. There was so much to do. He needed to take stock and figure out how they’d live for over two weeks on less than one week of food, but hell, maybe he could live off of this. Off of her.

  He barely noticed his erection at first. Then, like his body’d taken over his brain, he moved against her—a slow, rhythmic press of his pelvis to hers. Not easy in this tiny, confined space, but so satisfying when she opened her legs and gave him access to that warm place, meeting every move with one of her own.

  Adrenaline still buzzed in his brain, flushed his blood, made the heaviness in his limbs a pleasure rather than a pain. He rocked against her, let himself feel the pure, unexpected pleasure of sexual excitement. When had he last felt such a thrill from being with a woman? Years? Decades? He couldn’t help the way his breathing stuttered and his body shook. He couldn’t help grinding himself just a little harder against her.

  She made a sound and he stopped. “This okay?”

  “Yeah,” her whisper assured him. “It’s good.”

  “I’d do anything to be inside you right now, Angel.” She’d scoured his insides, leaving nothing but the truth, clean and raw as the surface of the ice. “Anything.”

  She let out a surprised little puh sound and went very still.

  Maybe that hadn’t been the best thing to say to a woman who’d almost died today.

  Shit. The words had just puffed out, exposing him for what he was: part teenager, part soldier, part awkward science nerd.

  When she didn’t say anything, he nodded, trying to make space between them, as impossible as that was in this bag.

  He swallowed, opened his mouth to apologize, and—

  She laughed. More a semichoked cough than the big raucous sounds she used to let out at the station, but a laugh all the same.

  “Me too,” she finally managed through the giggles. “But the last thing we need is your penis freezing off.”

  “Polar penis.” He shuddered with a laugh.

  This woman. Jesus Christ, this woman. Just when he thought he’d pushed things too far, she went and surprised him again. Her eyes, bright and full of humor, didn’t show a trace of today’s narrow escape. He kissed her cheek, then let himself luxuriate in the soft feel of her against his lips and nose. Back and forth, he ran a tender trail from cheek to jaw to mouth, occasionally tickling her with his too-long scruff. Eventually, her giggles faded into happy sighs. He stopped moving and just held her into sleep.

  When he slid out of the bag, he was punched in the face by the barrage of sound and icy air. He checked his fingers for frostbite. They were red, but warm, which made him hopeful. Actually, everything made him hopeful right now. He pulled his skullcap over his head before crawling over to the stove to melt more water.

  It made absolutely no sense how ridiculously happy he felt. Young and free and indomitably alive.

  Carefully, he went through the food he’d had on his sled, thankful that they’d divided it between them. Even after cutting their portions, they’d have to cover twice their average daily distance to survive.

  With the fresh storm to contend with, the crevasse field to avoid, Angel on foot, and lord knew what kind of army after them, they were absolutely fucked. And yet, idiot that he was, Coop couldn’t stop smiling.

  Chapter 30

  Day 7—201 Miles to Volkov Station—6 Days of Food Remaining

  “Nine left.” Angel shoved the bag of protein bars into her pack and held up her set of kitchen knives. “But, hey, at least we’ve got these.”

  “And I’ve got this handy virus.”

  “Mmmm. Tasty.” She forced a smile even though it hurt. Everything hurt. Her mouth, her feet, the knee that had wanted to buckle before she’d even gotten up today. Her heart hurt worst of all. It felt bruised and battered and swollen up to twice its size.

  She desperately wanted to put the tent up again, slide back into the bag with Ford, and just hold him. Just hold him.

  He tied their belongings onto the sled, glanced at her, and stopped. “All right?”

  Well, we’re running out of food, my body’s broken, and I’m hormonal, though I’d thought that wasn’t even possible for me.

  “I’m okay.” She nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  Walking was much slower than skiing, but without the sled to haul, it was doable. And the freaking snowshoes were a pain in the ass.

  An hour passed. Probably. Who could tell anymore? One step, another, crunching slowly forward, with nothing to think about except death. Or her past.

  Funny, though, because as soon as that thought flashed through her mind, her eyes landed on the other thing she could think about—Ford.

  I’d do anything to be inside you right now.

  A shiver went through her. Not the cold kind, but the realization kind. The shiver that tells you that your mind has landed on something important and your body’s aware of it before you are.

  I like him.

  Oh yeah. That thought.

  No, not like. Need. Want… Love?

  Maybe.

  She walked on, one high, knee-numbing step after another, and closed her eyes, remembering. Not just remembering but feeling. His fingers on her face, her cheek. The rough rasp of his beard, the press of lips, softer than any kiss she’d ever had from Hugh.

  Hugh, with his silky words. Smooth-talking Hugh, who’d stolen everything from her.

  What if I’d never come here?

  That was easy to picture. She’d be back in Pittsburgh, possibly with one of the few friends who’d stuck around after the accident—laughing, drinking, pretending everything was okay. Only she couldn’t pretend anymore.

  That was why she’d left.

  And that wasn’t her anymore, anyway. This is me.

  A body, surviving.

  Did she regret it? Coming here?

  Not if he’s here with me.

  Her eyes snapped open to a blurred world. She reached up, smeared the fog from her goggles…and there he was. Red back, straight and tall, forging through the infinite white.

  When she’d woken up that morning, he’d already been busy, getting ready for the next leg of their journey. She’d watched him through slitted eyes. His movements had been fascinating—calm and slow-seeming, but oddly efficient and fast. She’d seen chefs who worked that way and it was magic.

  She thought of the moment his eyes had landed on her. She swallowed, swiped a hand over her goggles again, and stumbled on. His expression had cauterized the wounds in her heart, even as it made new ones. Soft. That was the word for it. Soft—maybe yearning?

  She didn’t regret leaving Pittsburgh and coming to Antarctica. She didn’t regret cooking for people who appreciated it. Who needed the calories and loved her food. How could she? She didn’t regret setting out onto the ice with Ford, because she’d never have known how strong she was.

  Nor would she have known Ford, seen the tenderness under the hard shell.

  She’d never have felt this way. About anyone. Not even the man she’
d thought she’d loved.

  The night of the accident came back to her in a bright, loud rush of color so strong it could have been a hallucination.

  The quiet restaurant, dark, still, but with that strange, hovering sense of expectation that had put every hair on her body on high alert. Why had she gone back that late? Something about the cash drawer, maybe. Right, she couldn’t sleep because she’d forgotten to put the drawer into the safe at the end of the shift, but Hugh wouldn’t answer his phone or the restaurant phone, and she was pissed about that: Why wasn’t he answering? And why wasn’t he home yet?

  Through the dining room, through the dark kitchen, up the back steps, and there—she’d forgotten about that sound. A thumping, scraping kind of sound. Heart attack! she’d thought, picturing Hugh on the floor, unable to reach the phone. He needs me!

  She’d run down the hall, thrown open the door, and…

  Everything after that was a jumble. First, worry—that heart attack thing she’d been warning him about for years. He was older than her, after all, and lived a rough, late-night, hard-drinking, high-fat life. Confusion quickly followed. Why was Hugh on top of their business partner—Angel’s best friend—Lorraine like that? Oh God, maybe she was hurt.

  In the next blink, she’d thought he was pointing something out to Lorraine over her shoulder. Some fine point in their business contract, maybe? But that theory had ended when they’d groaned together, looked up, and…

  Kept going. They’d continued, eyes on Angel while she’d stood there, wishing she could unsee what they were doing, but also unable to move. Stuck in a continuous loop of horror and betrayal until Hugh opened his mouth and, in a voice tight with the effort of screwing her best friend, told her to get out. So he could finish.

  After that, she’d half slid down the long, narrow staircase, stumbled through the dining room, knocking into chairs as she went, out into the heavy night air. Without thinking, she’d gotten into the car and sat there with the engine on for who knew how long.

  When the driver’s door swung open, she wasn’t surprised to see him there. Hugh had the gall to look completely unruffled. Neither satisfied nor abashed, not freshly fucked nor devastated by the inevitable end of their marriage.

  And she’d watched him, utterly blank, empty inside.

  “Switch,” he’d ordered, and out of habit, she’d obeyed and walked over to the other side of the car, gotten back in, and buckled up. She’d opened her mouth to tell him to do the same and then decided not to.

  Fuck him.

  He’d leaned forward to put on some late-night NPR show and turned out of the lot toward home, as if everything were normal. As if he hadn’t just upended her entire existence.

  Did he think they’d go home and get ready for bed together? Was he planning to somehow explain what he’d done? Would try to make love to her? “You need to move out.”

  “Come on, Ange, you know this isn’t—”

  “And you either buy me out or I find an outside buyer.” She hadn’t known she wanted out until that very moment. A thread of relief had wound its way into her, turning hurt into anger.

  He’d watched her for a few seconds, then turned back to the road, his jaw twitching in the dim light. “It was a mistake. Didn’t mean anything.”

  “I don’t care. It’s dead. We’re dead. This…it’s been dead for a while.” She couldn’t remember exactly when she’d lost faith in him. In them. They’d been together forever, it seemed like. She’d been twenty and he more than twice her age.

  “You’re tired. We’ll talk in the—”

  “No!” Her voice, punctuated by a hard slap of her hand to the dashboard, had filled the space—and because that kind of yell deserved an echo, she’d screamed it again. And again. And again.

  His grip on her wrist had been a vise, a testament to the strength in those famous hands. Hands that had held Lorraine’s hips to the table while he’d pistoned into her, mechanically. Did he fuck her like that? The way he might take a leak? Without any expression at all?

  “I’m done being your—” Jesus, what had she been? His tool? His muse, he used to say, but that seemed about as fake as his front-of-the-house smile. His stooge? Puppet? “I’m done.”

  “Done?” The look he’d thrown her was different from the others, more highly charged. As if he’d had a right to be pissed. “You’re done with me?” He downshifted to take the next turn, cutting it close the way he always did. The tires squealed on the wet road. “After everything I’ve done for you, you ungrateful little…” Another turn, onto the highway this time, full acceleration. “Bitch. You think I brought you up from nothing to have you turn your back when things get bad? At least Lorraine’s willing to spread her legs. You won’t even let me into that—”

  “What things are bad?”

  “What?” He’d used that “big man, I’m the chef and you’re my minion” voice.

  The speedometer read over a hundred miles per hour, with the rain hitting the windshield in staggered bursts. “Slow down.”

  “No. What did you say? Before?”

  “I asked what’s bad in your life? What things?”

  His laugh had been a strange hollow sound, woven into the low-pitched radio voice droning on about rising sea levels. “We’re broke, sugar!” he’d said gleefully. “We’re broke and you’re all happy in your little kitchen, totally ignorant of how bad it is for me. All these guys after—”

  With a sound like hell breaking open, the world had gone completely still for one breathless moment in which she’d taken in so many things: his hand, too tight on her thigh; his eyes nowhere near the road but on her instead, focused and hard and more than a little desperate; and in front of them, one of those thick concrete guardrails.

  And then the blurry, too-quick crunch of metal to asphalt, bone to plastic, the taste and smell of blood, inhaling it, choking on it. Another crash shoved them forward, and a roll turned her into a rag doll, heavy, limp, the world upside down.

  Slowly, in the vacuum left by all that noise, she’d opened her eyes, swiped the wetness away, and looked to the side.

  The last thing she remembered with any clarity was Hugh watching her, fixed and still, the oddest, shocked expression on his face.

  Then darkness, yelling, sirens, flashes of light. More yelling and voices asking her to stay with them while they worked hard to get her out. Angel, they said over and over. Hold on, Angel. Angel.

  That was a bad day. But not the worst. The worst was the day she’d found out he’d been right. There was nothing left. No restaurant, no home. The bastard had mortgaged it all and spent every last penny in his constant race to keep up, to be the biggest, best, most impressive chef. No health insurance, no life insurance. Nothing.

  And she couldn’t even yell at him because he was dead.

  Her snowshoe caught on a bump in the ice and she stumbled, landing hard on her butt. It took her a few seconds to blink back to reality. To here. Now.

  Ford turned and started to unclip from his skis.

  “No!” she yelled. “It’s fine.”

  Which wasn’t a lie.

  A half-hysterical laugh zipped through her veins and burst from her mouth.

  Here she was, plowing across Antarctica, body a mess, food supply nonexistent, in a losing fight against death. But she was better than she’d been back then. She was fine.

  Ford’s hand appeared in her field of vision and she grasped it, let him pull her up into his arms.

  She was fine. Because she’d changed through her months spent in this place—the loneliest place on earth. And unlike the woman she’d been back then, here she knew without a shadow of a doubt who she was…and that she wasn’t alone.

  Chapter 31

  Day 7—Harper Research and Testing Facility, East Antarctic Ice Sheet

  The quick, heavy thud of boots had Clive throwing his c
ards down and dashing into the hall, where he nearly collided with Sampson and three of his men, monstrous and ice-crusted, emitting angry clouds of cold air like toxic exhaust.

  “Get her on the phone,” Sampson said roughly.

  “The director?” Clive half laughed. “The satellite’s not—”

  The man faced Clive and, without showing his face or lifting a hand, somehow showed him just how much violence simmered under his surface. Holy shit was he scary.

  “I need a line out.” Sampson pulled up his goggles, baring bloodshot eyes, the pupils such narrow pinpricks that neither light nor life could possibly flow through them.

  “No luck?” Clive forced a stiff smile to his lips. After a week of pointless searching, patience as a whole was wearing thin, and tempers were frayed. Fights had broken out, drunken brawls ending in missing teeth and broken bones. Most worrisome of all was Sampson’s physical transformation, from bright Hollywood son to something as feral and wrong as a junkyard dog.

  “Fuel’s freezing up. We’re grounded.” Sampson huffed out a breath, snorting. “Eyes, dammit. Told her we need eyes in the sky.”

  It took Clive a few seconds to understand what he meant. Satellite images. Right, well, that was patently absurd. He shook his head. “Even without the cloud cover, the communications satellites are only available sporadically, so I can’t imagine you’ll get…” He trailed off, watching Sampson warily. There was something entirely too wired and unhinged about him now, no doubt underscored by fatigue and excessive alcohol consumption—or consumption of something else. Not that Clive could blame him for that, but it was quite an about-face from the man who’d arrived here talking about his body being a temple.

  Apparently uninterested in a reminder of the Facility’s communications capabilities, Sampson stepped around Clive and continued down the hall toward the labs. Beyond them lay nothing but housing for the trial participants.

  “Hey.” Clive’s voice clearly didn’t reach Sampson’s ears. Anxious now, he followed in Sampson’s slippery path. “Where are you going? There’s nothing for you down there. You can’t—”