Uncharted by Adriana Anders

Chapter 17

The shock of ice-cold water hit his system, shutting it down for the first few seconds.

Without the benefit of oxygen, it was like he just…left his body for a bit.

He’d read about a man who grew accustomed to the cold by immersing himself in frigid water daily. Apparently, this guy trained other people to do it too, heading to polar regions to swim in the water there. He liked the challenge.

Well, he’d read about it and he’d shaken his head and thought, What a prick.

And then he’d gone and done it a few times.

What else was there to do around here?

But now? Now he wished he’d practiced every damned day until it had felt like a warm bath. Because swimming—if you could call what he was doing that—in this lake was pure hell.

When he was finally able to move, he spun, looking for Leo. What he saw was a labyrinth of ice chunks—bigger from the water than they’d appeared from above it—floating like icebergs, as far as he could see. From here, the shore looked miles away.

He did another half turn, scanning the surface. They had ten minutes before their muscles gave out. Where was she?

From behind them, Bo barked.

Shit. The dog hadn’t followed.

“Leo!” he yelled, kicking in a circle until he caught sight of Bo back on a half-submerged chunk of ice, racing from one side to the other, then hunching before doing the whole thing all over again. She whined and slid a few inches closer to the edge.

Something splashed close by. There. Leo’s head, above water. “Elias!”

“Come…on.” Every word was an effort to get out. He didn’t know if he was calling his dog or Leo or giving himself the world’s shittiest pep talk.

Bo let out another high whine.

“Do it! Come on, girl!” Each inhale brought shards of icy air into his body—tiny splinters embedded in his lungs, which he’d then have to somehow exhale again. “Don’t…make me…come back there, girl, or I’ll—”

She jumped, the splash barely audible. After that, she was quiet, going through that same terrible period of nothing before the pain hit.

By the time he turned around, Leo had disappeared again. Underwater? Or behind a hunk of ice?

“Leo!” The word was a whisper, nearly inaudible against the sound of ice grinding against ice. He pulled in the most painful breath of his life and bellowed, “Leo!”

***

Down, down, under the surface, blind and frozen and throbbing with a million aching pinpricks of cold water.

Stay still, she remembered from her training. Go still and wait for the shock to pass.

It was almost impossible. The cold wasn’t like anything she’d experienced. It was like a being dragging her straight to hell.

She kicked, hard, barely budged, and kicked again, only making it out for a single, frantic breath before the ice they’d just been on rushed at another floating chunk, the two bashing together like bumper cars. She was shoved down again, with nothing but the bubble of air she held tight in her lungs.

She spun, looking for a way up. No. No, not like this. Not trapped, drowning, in the freezing cold. In the air, yes, at the controls of anything she could fly, but not like this.

She scrabbled against the underside of what had to be a freaking iceberg. Frantic for a few seconds, before possibly her single working brain cell chimed in with just enough reason to calm her down.

In a helicopter, she would never try to power out of, say, a vortex ring state—she’d establish forward flight and ease out into clean air. Do it.

Ease forward.

Pretend it’s air.

She put her head down and kicked, easy as pie, in the direction the ice was moving. Another kick got her sliding along beneath it, her lungs full, close to bursting now.

One more kick and something gripped her collar. Not something—someone. Elias. He yanked her to the surface, pulled her to him for a few gasping seconds, during which he said things she couldn’t understand. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God, it sounded like, though that could’ve been the beating of her heart.

And then they were moving. Slowly, slogging through the slush to a shore that he swore was there, through the fog, past the next hunk of ice, just there.

Not easy when she didn’t have a body. Or a brain. Just breath entering and leaving her…and a strange heat.

Something hit her foot and she stumbled, nearly plunging again until her other numb foot encountered the bottom, and she rose, faced with a mountain of ice chunks.

Her attempt to say Elias’s name produced nothing but a hacking cough.

She spun in a full circle. Wait. When had she lost him?

From the center of the lake, ice pushed toward her, rushing her like a logjam. As fast as she could, she hefted her bag, pulled her arm back, and threw it onto the shore with all her might. It slapped down about a foot from where she stood, waterlogged and shivering like a damn jackhammer.

She turned and reached into the water, her hands so numb she wasn’t sure she’d even know it if she bumped him.

“Elias!” she called, her voice hoarse, no more than a whisper.

Something appeared from behind a hunk of ice. She squinted, attempting to make it out.

Oh, holy crap.

It was him, forging through the ice-jammed water like something from a postapocalyptic painting, or straight from Norse mythology, something not even human. His pack was on his head and… Jesus, that wasn’t the freaking dog under his arm, was it?

He rose, a majestic creature emerging from the deep, a waterfall sluicing off him.

“No!” he bellowed when she struggled to her feet and started toward him. It went against her grain to turn her back on a teammate. Two teammates. “To shore! Get dry!”

He was right. With her body’s uncontrollable shivering, she’d be no help at all. The best she could do was to get out and get warm. Lead-heavy from her waterlogged clothes, she fought to climb over a pile of geometric ice pieces, then slogged the rest of the way to land as the sun she’d so fervently wished for finally broke through the clouds in a late, flamboyant entrance.

The earth was a soggy, boot-sucking mess. Which didn’t stop Leo from dropping to her knees and, from there, her front, finally rolling to her back to stare at the brattily beautiful sunset, shuddering so hard she worried she might knock herself out.

Poof, the storm was gone. Just like that. A disappearing act, complete with fog and a light show, ending with a dark bank of clouds settling to the southwest.

Eyes slamming shut, she breathed through a long, deep convulsion, wondering if she’d ever feel anything again. Or move.

“Got…to…” Elias dragged himself up the bank, slow as a swamp monster, and landed in a soggy heap beside her. Bo followed, low to the ground.

When neither human moved, the dog stood and shook herself, spraying them with water. Not that Leo could feel the difference. Whining now, Bo nudged Elias, who didn’t respond.

“Elias.”

Nothing. No sound but the frighteningly mechanical shuddering of his body on the beach. Beach, ha! Beaches were hot sand, slowly crashing waves, the easy lap of water on happy toes. Cocktails.

Caught in the fantasy, she rolled right into Elias.

This is where I die.

The dog growled. Leo opened her eyes.

“Elias, up.” She could produce the staccato syllables, she just couldn’t seem to act on them.

Together, their teeth chattered in a creepy percussion.

How much time did they have? Must have been at least ten minutes since they jumped into the water. Were they screwed? Done for? Hypothermic muscles atrophied?

No. No, forget that.

“No…way.” She ground her teeth into silence, planted her hands on the earth, and pushed. “Elias.” The word was so slurred it came out sounding like liar. She said it again. Liar. Liar. “Up. Get up.”

No movement. No reaction.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t. They hadn’t survived everything—he hadn’t been hunted for so long—to end up a shivering pile of meat on the bank of this lake.

As if in response to her thought, another crack resounded from the water’s busy surface, immediately followed by the faint echo of a scream. Holy shit, the lake was eating their pursuers. As Elias had predicted, they were stuck. And it sounded as though the ice was grinding them up like hamburger meat.

Too stubborn to give in to the cold’s pull, she rolled away from Elias, so hard she wound up with her face in the sludge. From there, getting up was a matter of life and death, since she refused to drown to death—in mud. “Come on. Move it, yeti.”

Bo slinked to her and nudged Leo on with her wet nose. She swallowed, planted her hands, and straightened her shaking elbows with a groan.

One stiff leg up and under, then she was standing on her own two feet. Wobbly but alive.

A look at Elias’s gray face told her he was too, though barely.