“I know. But this is a serious question,” she said.
I had nothing but worry in my brain, so I only grunted again. Anxiety made it nearly impossible to do anything but focus on what was going wrong.
“What would you do? If I weren’t here?” she asked.
I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. My anger shot out in all directions. It wasn’t her fault that Benny Jr. couldn’t operate a safe machine. If I left her up there and just lied to my boss, all this would have been avoided and I could have still been paid. Maybe.
“Be honest,” she added.
“It would be no different. I would have to wait until morning,” I lied.
She shot up off my lap. I couldn’t see her but felt the shifting of the thin flooring and heard her footsteps moving back and forth. It was too cold for this. I wished she’d come back.
“You’re lying. There were two options when we first got stuck. Staying put was the safer option. It doesn’t seem like you feel that way anymore if your worry is any indication.”
“Bee.”
“Just tell me what you would do. There’s that cabin. Not far from here. It’s for emergencies. Hunters. Hikers. Uh, whoevermight need it. There’s food. A wood-burning stove and blankets. We should go there.”
I ran a hand over my face. “It’s not so easy.”
Her voice was right in front of me again. “Neither is this.”
“There is a catch. As you can imagine, it’s on the ground,” I said.
“Right. I figured. I’m clever like that.”
“It’s risky trying to get down that ladder.”
“How risky?” she asked.
I let a long sigh out. “Broken-femur-risky, or worse. I really don’t know. It doesn’t reach all the way to the ground. We would have to jump.”
“Better than freezing to death.”
“I’m trying to decide that.”
“Owen, we need to get to that cabin. It’s colder in here every minute. How many hours until they even get the ball rolling on a rescue attempt?” Her voice came close as she leaned above me, and my hands automatically found her hips. “I’m scratching into frost right now on the glass. If it’s only going to get worse, we can’t stay up here. We have no idea how long it will be until somebody comes. It’s a holiday, and everybody is probably drunk.”
I swore under my breath. She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already thought about.
“It’s bad out there. You don’t even have shoes,” I said, though I had no idea why I felt combative. Neither of these options was good.
“I have shoes. And”—there was rustling as she moved about—“I have some plastic bags. I will put them over my shoes to waterproof my feet. It’s not that far, right?”
“The visibility is bad. We can’t risk getting separated,” I said.
“Then we find a rope or something and tie ourselves together.”
“Let me think,” I growled.
Every option needed to be weighed. Too many things could go wrong. Better the monster you know? I wasn’t sure. If there were a clear right and wrong answer, this wouldn’t be so hard, but there wasn’t. It was just the lesser of two evils. And I didn’t know which was which.
“Think of the fire. And the real blankets. Of the bathroom,” she added with a whine. “God, there is a bathroom, right?”
I chuckled dryly despite everything. “Yeah.” Undoubtedly, we would be better off in the cabin than here. I could all but feel her shivers wracking the whole tram. But that jump, if something bad happened, we couldn’t get medical help for hours. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if she got seriously injured. This was beginning to feel like one of those terrible, scary movies where one bad thing happened after another. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, thepower goes out.
“Shit, I don’t know,” I said, completely torn. “If we jump, there’s no coming back. There’s no way we’d be able to climb back up,” I explained, holding her arm so that even if I wasn’t able to hold her gaze, she would feel my sincerity.
