Page 95 of Born of Ice

I run.

PART II

REBIRTH

26

Give me this one win

Exton

Cold. Freezing cold. It’sin my every pore and vessel, seeping through every crack and filling me until I can no longer take a breath or move.

I was just warm and happy. I was alive and now I’m not. I’m cold and tired.

It’s paralyzing me, trying to pull me down farther and farther into its lair.

All I see is inky blue darkness and glistening ice.

It’s everywhere, it’s surrounding me, swallowing me and lulling me to stop fighting, to rest, to spot pushing. Maybe I should. Maybe I’m done playing someone I’m not. Maybe this is for the best. Maybe this is the price I pay for the guilt I carry.

But then the most gut-wrenching sound pierces through the depth of freezing heaven, clearing the pretty frost and exposing the hell it really is.

Because she’s not here.

She’s not by my side, holding my hand, warming my soul and keeping it calm. She’s not here and the waves are storming up.

Electra…My Electra…I can’t leave her. I can’t…I can’t.

“EXTON!” I hear the barely audible cry, but it rings loud and clear in my soul, and I push, I fight the icicle links already chaining me to the bottom, tugging on me. I rip my hands up but it’s hard. It’s so damn hard, my lungs are burning, there’s not an ounce of breath left in them, but I push until I see light and a small hand reaching for me.

Is this a dream?

Did I already die?

Mom?

“EXTON! Please, please, please!” The voice above is muffled over the ice as it pleads. “Don’t leave me, you bastard! Please! Take my hand, I’m begging you! Take my hand or I’m jumping in.”

Electra! My mind is foggy, but all I can hear is her jumping into this freezing hell and my body bursts out in flames.

My fingers barely grasp the tiny ones reaching for me, but I hear her gasp above. “Yes! Please, God, please!” She’s crying. The other half of my soul is crying, and it’s the most maddening sound. Unhinged. Pleading with that higher power as if it must help her and maybe it does or maybe it’s that piece of her soul that I’ve kept holding onto inside mine all this time that fights to get back to her, but I push again, grasping her freezing hand and feel it tug on me.

Was she always this strong? My little star is fighting for me, and I gather the remains of my power, pushing one last time as my head breaks through the water and I gasp and spout the water clogging my lungs.

“Exton.” She’s crying, the sound even more gut-wrenching than what it seemed under that water.

I want to reassure her, tell her I’m all right. Joke that she won’t get rid of me that easily, but I can’t stop coughing and shaking, I can’t get a single sound out, and once again I feel her small hands on me, her body becoming one with the crunchingice around us as she pulls on my coat, dragging me against the ragged, broken ice.

Electra pulls so hard, I hear the coat ripping against it while she’s silently pleading with me, God and the damn ice. She pleads with it as if it’s her best friend. As if they are one.

“Come on, damn it, give me this one win. Let me have it this once, and then I’m yours.”Her tears are falling in rivers as she whispers into the frost.“Don’t take him from me, please. Don’t take him.”She chants almost absentmindedly, reverently. Lost in her own world of loss and pain.

I pull my hands out, grabbing onto the shaky ice and drag myself alongside her.

Electra’s cry hitches with relief but the tears don’t cease as she helps me to climb all the way out. My extremities are frozen solid, I can barely move and for one second. One long, agonizing moment I feel what she feels. I live a second of her life when there is nothing below your waist and the fear that grips me is strong enough to shake off whatever frost bite is covering me. It’s enough to turn and heave as I cough out the remains of lake water. It’s enough to realize that I can’t even grasp how strong she really is.

Electra is next to me, her forehead touches the ice, legs bent underneath her shaking body. Her dark hair is free of the knit hat and splayed all over the spilled water as her fingers grip it, dig into it, like she’s praying. Or sealing the deal she made.

---