Page 85 of These Tears

The door swings open—

And he pushes me out.

I yelp, flailing to keep my balance as slippers skid on the icy threshold and the blizzard swallows me. My knees nearly buckle as I plunge into the packed snow. It isn’t just cold – it bites straight through the bone; it peels my skin. It rushes in beneath the silk and sticks to my ribs.

The wind snaps at my neck. The shock of it blinds me for a moment.

‘Go on then,’ he says coolly, planting himself in the doorway like a monolith where the wind can’t quite reach him. His arms fold across his chest, the muscles bunching vividly even through the cotton.

‘North is… that way.’ He points lazily into the blur of white, then pauses, taps his lips in exaggerated contemplation. ‘Or maybe that way.’

One shoulder lifts carelessly, then falls. His breath steams in the air, making him look like a dragon exhaling.

‘Oh God!’ My teeth clack as I wrap my arms around me – as if that would do any good.

He starts sinking down to a crouch as if he were observing the most fascinating detail in the wild, elbows resting loosely on his knees. The light frames him in a warm rectangle of the doorway, the rest of him – a shadow on fire.

‘The shivering comes first,’ he says with his eyes fixed on me. ‘It’s your muscles burning through energy trying to make heat faster than you’re losing it.’

His gaze drifts to my bare hands. ‘Then your fingers stop cooperating. Thinking gets slower.’ He pauses as he allows the shaking of my body to underline his words. ‘Breathing is next. Little gasps.’

A grunt tears out of me. The cold begins to hurt.

‘Let me back in,’ I mutter, my teeth already aching from the violent clench.

He angles his head. ‘Then you start bargaining. You tell yourself you can walk it off. That movement might be warmth. That the trees might offer something. A miracle.’

‘Elias!’ I plead, teeth rattling.

‘Within ten minutes, your hands won’t feel like hands.’

‘E-Elias! Let me the f-fuck in!’ I screech as tears well in my eyes, but they’re already frosting over my lashes.

‘Your limbs start burning. Then they stop.’ A pause as he watches my face. ‘That’s when you mistake it for relief.’

A gust of wind slams into me and I flinch hard as if the air itself has struck me. It steals what little breath I had. The cold is picking through my organs, and I can already feel that numbness he’s talking about.

‘Please—’ I whimper.

‘Eventually you get tired,’ he says. ‘Confused. Sleepy.’ He looks at the snow between us and his head tilts. ‘And if you ever reach the point where the shivering stops, that’s when I’d really start worrying.’

The words wrench inside me. The fear in me recognises truth even while my pride tries to spit it back.

‘What are you willing to do for warmth, Leah?’ he asks me finally.

‘Stop b-being a dick!’ I push through my teeth, but it comes out as a trembling breath instead. ‘Let me back in.’

‘No,’ he says flatly, his eyes still trained on me. ‘You want freedom? You have it.’

He doesn’t say anything else. Just stares at me, driving the panic straight through my breastbone until my toes hurt, my fingers burn, and my ears feel as if they’re about to fall off.

Then he spreads his arms like an eagle. ‘All the freedom you can get. No roads, no civilisation for miles. Nature’s perfection.’

Folding himself back, he pierces me with his gaze. ‘But it may not last long.’ His voice drops a register and his smile falters. ‘What are you willing to do to be warm again?’ he reiterates. ‘Five more minutes out here, and those fingers will become less useful…’ The latter comes out quieter. ‘And then the winter sets in your system.’

Even with my body on overdrive, my first instinct is to spit on him. To tell him I’d rather freeze than play house with a madman whose idea of conversation is educational hypothermia.

But my body ignores the pride entirely. My legs are shaking uncontrollably from the cold wind sawing at my muscles. Pins and needles stab my ankles.