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Either way, I keep pumping my arms and kicking my legs forward, numb stumps of my feet digging into the snow with step after step.
The bank of the iced-over lake is thankfully clear of brush.
And so, I run.
And run and run.
My little rabbit’s heart keeps beating, somehow, as I push myself harder than I ever imagined a body could be pushed. Much less my broken body.
I glance about everywhere. I should watch the snow below my feet. No, if I do that, I’ll go snow-blind. So, I look over at the lake.
But if I don’t watch where I’m putting my feet, I’ll trip!
I try to shake off that thought. That’s old thinking. Old-body thinking. I don’t trip every other step anymore without my crutches. And it’s more important to keep tabs on my surroundings right now.
Especially the sky.
I immediately look up, expecting the beast to be flying overhead.
There’s nothing but a heavy overlay of gray clouds, though.
It doesn’t help my thumping heart.
I look ahead. Keep pumping my arms.
Then glance over my shoulder to see if the creature that ran on all fours with its knuckles somehow got free of the chains and is chasing me from behind.
But no, there’s just the castle further and further in the distance, the turret disappearing in the low-hanging fog.
Jesus, it hardly looks real.
I face forward again and run.
I’m only a little tired. My adrenaline supply isn’t running out, somehow. Thank God. I won’t question it. I won’t question anything ever again, so long as I can get away.
Of course… I might just be running into a wilderness of snow, the glint I thought I saw only something in my imagination.
And I’ll run until my adrenaline hits its dead end, and I die quickly of frostbite.
Unless he finds me first.
A fresh burst of adrenaline hits, which seems impossible considering how little I’ve eaten lately.
I don’t know how long I run.
Hope dwindles the further I go, and still, nothing.
Nothing but white, endless wilderness, trees further away from the lake blanketed with so much snow…
And just when I feel my eyes start to ache from all the white, the endless, endless white, it starts to snow.
My nose runs as tears hit my eyes and it all freezes right there on my face. I can’t feel my toes. Or my feet. My breasts have gone numb. My hands that chop through the air as I run feel like spikes.
I feel delirious.
I want to fall over and die.
But as soon as I think that, my fury against death that drove me in search of a miracle in the first place—ha! some miracle—keeps driving me forward.
The adrenaline must finally be wearing off because my sprint is more like a jog now. The internal heat that was keeping me going isn’t enough against the searing, icy wind that cuts through me. My sweat has frozen on my brow.
Giving up means dying, but I don’t know how much longer I can go.
When I look up again at the sky, suddenly I’m flying forward. I must have tripped over something, is all I can think as my wan body dives forward into the unforgiving, hard-packed snow.
I’m crying useless tears as I try to push myself up using my aching arms and frozen-block hands.
I won’t die ten years from now after all.
I’ll die here.
Today.
God, will you forgive my hubris, thinking I of all people deserved a miracle? I traveled the world. I saw all the people far needier than me. And still I kept chasing. Chasing life.
And look where it has gotten me.
Frozen tears gather on my cheeks.
I crawl a few inches forward in the snow but now that the cold has got me…
I.
Will…
Die.
Chapter Twenty-Four
HANNAH
Drew is by my side as we approach the table full of our colleagues for dinner. They all stand up when I get closer even though they didn’t do that when another couple sat down just moments before. I’m using my walker, though, and I can already see everyone’s eyes on it.
“Don’t. Get up. I’m o-kay,” I say, my characteristic slow speech pattern even more apparent when I’m nervous, which just puts me more on edge.
Drew is holding the crook of my arm, and when we reach the table, he rushes ahead to pull out my chair for me. Everyone realizes too late they haven’t left an open chair in an accessible space, so they all hurriedly start to scoot over a couple chairs to the left around the large corner table to make space for me.
Their gazes flick back and forth between Drew—always so handsome—and me, asking the unspoken question: what is he doing with… her?
Drew puts his hands on my waist from behind to steady me in case I fall as I transfer from my walker to the chair, and I clutch onto the tabletop to ensure that doesn’t happen as I shift my weight forward on my awkward, unsteady colt-like legs.
