True North (The Bears of Blackrock Book 4) (20 page)

“She’s here!” He called, and the words hurt his throat.

She was still bundled in her down jacket, the fur lined hood up around her head, but her eyes were closed, and her lips were blue.

Theron grabbed her, touching his hand to her cheek to feel her temperature. She was freezing.

“Sinead. Baby, talk to me. Can you talk to me?”

She didn’t respond or move. Theron pulled her against him as he heard the sound of Darrell approaching.

“Is she shivering?” Darrell asked, dropping to his knees beside Theron.

Theron was holding Sinead so close to him, his face buried into the hood of her jacket so he could smell her hair, press his face to her neck and maybe warm the blood that would be pumping through her jugular vein.

That would be pumping
, he thought.
Because she’s alive. She’s alive. Please god, please god, please god.

He loosened his hold to look at her a moment. Her blue lips were still.

“No,” he said, and the words caught in his throat. He knew what that meant. Cold and shivering were a good sign. Cold and not shivering?

Darrell was on his feet in an instant, yanking Theron’s arm to make him stand. “Come on, cousin. We have to get her back to the car.”

Theron stifled a sob and nodded. He hoisted Sinead up from the icy ground, her red hair whipping in the wind as the hood fell back.

Darrell stood by to make sure Theron had his prize, then Darrell walked with Theron back down the hill, Sinead jostling in his arms, limp and unaffected. Theron fought hard not to look down at her face. Seeing the lips he’d kissed only hours before now blue was too much. Instead, he kept his eyes on the ground ahead, carefully following in his own footsteps to bring her back to the car.

“Can you get it started?” Darrell called up ahead. Pearl called something indecipherable back, but as Theron came into view of the car, the only voice Theron could hear was Buniq, crying out in despair at the sight of her teacher.

Pearl rushed over to Theron, touching her hand to Sinead’s cold forehead as she walked beside him. The often hardened woman was soft now, her hands caressing Sinead’s face with such affection and care, Theron realized how cherished Sinead was to his family. She’d stayed with them when they were locked away. Denied herself the chance to leave when it was offered, knowing she might never see her family again.

Theron growled softly to himself. If this was how the fates would reward such a good heart, he’d happily die to meet them and tear them limb from limb.

“Get her inside, baby. Come now, get her inside,” Pearl said, stepping aside as she held the back seat door open.

A second later, Darrell piled into the driver’s seat.

He scrambled around the front of the car in a sort of panicked searching, then frowned back at Theron. “I wish my years of being a hooligan included learning to hot wire a car.”

Theron’s eyes went wide. “Charlie! Charlie knows how! Do we still have the radio?”

Uncle Gregory shifted mid-turn and took off back toward the trucks, the white of his fur disappearing into the darkness.

Theron wrapped his arms around Sinead, pulling her into his lap as the car doors were shut against the cold. “Come on, girl. This isn’t how we’re supposed to spend the night. There’s a warm bed in your future. Come on, girl.”

Theron fought hard to keep his voice steady, but he could feel her motionless and cold in his arms. He didn’t know what to do save for warm her.

He thought of Deacon’s morbid commentary, fighting to remember every detail.

‘You’re not dead until you’re warm and dead,’
Deacon said.

Theron thought EMT talk a tad morbid over those family dinners, but that night, he was grateful. That night, Deacon’s words were Theron’s only shred of hope.

He hadn’t dared check for a pulse. He couldn’t do anything but hold her. He prayed his warmth would be enough. Theron reached down to find her bare foot frozen to the touch. She’d managed to pull her sock off at some point as well.

“Come on, Shinny. You’ve gotta take me to meet your parents. You gotta bring me to Halifax so I can embarrass you in front of your friends. Come on, baby. Please,” he said, and his voice was beginning to crack.

They sat there for a long while, waiting.

“God damn it, where’s Charlie!?” He shouted, fighting the sting of tears. He pressed his face against her neck again, burrowing into the shelter of her jacket with her.

He felt a tremor move through his chest and swallowed hard. He wouldn’t cry. Crying meant he admitted she was gone. Crying meant he’d lost her. No, he would not cry.

He would not fucking cry!

Yet, the tremor continued, shuddering deep in his chest, demanding he let it loose. Theron growled there, squeezing her even tighter, as though he might still it.

He heard a soft exhale from the pressure of his embrace and loosened his hold on her.

It took every ounce of his will to look at her face.

Hope had taken root. Hope had sprung somewhere deep and he knew he wouldn’t survive it being snuffed out. Still, he had to look. He had to see if that tremor was what he believed it to be.

Theron looked down at Sinead’s blue lips and saw the slightest tremble.

She was beginning to shiver.

“Thank you, god!” Theron wailed, and the sound of it tore through his throat as he began to weep with her in his arms.

She was alive.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SINEAD

“Darrell! Darrell! Will this work?”

There were voices. Familiar, but very strange, coming from somewhere in the house.

“Sinead, honey. Can you grab a couple eggs from the fridge?”

Sinead turned to find her mother smiling down at her from the kitchen sink. She was washing out the mixing bowl for their Sunday afternoon tradition of making Grandma’s Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Sinead went bounding across the kitchen to the refrigerator, throwing the door open to grab the container of eggs. The cardboard shape was heavier than she anticipated, and the carton slipped from her fingers, smashing to the floor at her feet.

Anguish was the only word to describe the emotion she felt. She’d just ruined the afternoon. The eggs were certainly all shattered. There would be nothing to put in the cookies and mom would be so disappointed. She could feel the slimy cold of the eggs on her bare toes. She frowned, feeling tears coming at a brutal clip.

“It’s alright, sweetheart. It was an accident.”

“I’m sorry, mommy. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry,” Sinead said, openly crying now as her mother dropped down to her knees to console her.

“Sh, sweetie. It’s ok. Let’s look and see if there are any eggs to save.”

Sinead looked down at her toes as her mother rubbed a towel over her feet, cleaning off the mess from between her toes. Sinead hissed. The touch hurt.

Her mother pulled her hand away, looking up to Sinead’s face. “There we go. All clean.”

The pain intensified – a burning, searing pain that began to build and build until Sinead felt as though her toes were being held over a fire. Her face tightened as she closed her eyes tight against the pain.

“Sinead!?”

She didn’t respond. The pain was so intense. Why wouldn’t her mother fix it? Why was it getting worse?

“Sinead, can you hear me?”

“Momma, it hurts,” she said, and she wanted to cry. Yet, the tears had stopped. She could no more cry than she could move her fingers. Or any part of her body for that matter. She felt weak and helpless, as though half dreaming.

A figure caught her eye as she waited for her mother to acknowledge her pain. There was a man sitting at the kitchen table, dark hair, warm brown skin, and a gentle smile on his face as he watched in silence, like some ghost or an angel that only she could see.

She knew that face. How did she know that face?

The pain returned, three fold this time, and she winced, turning her face away. She couldn’t move her foot to take it away from the source of the pain.

“Come on, Dalton. Stay in it. I got money on ya.”

That voice wasn’t her mother’s. That voice was Darrell Holden.

Who was Darrell Holden, again?

Sinead opened her eyes, and the kitchen, the sunshine through the curtained windows – and her mother’s loving face - were gone.

In their place she saw another expression, familiar and clearly in anguish, hovering just inches from her.

The man from the kitchen table. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Theron,” she said, and despite the pain she felt, she smiled.

The pressure she felt around her body tightened, and she realized Theron was holding her. They were talking – an agitated exchange about radios and cars and ‘where was Charlie?’ She opened her eyes, fighting to focus on the world around her, but there was no use. She wanted to sleep.

She wanted nothing more than to sleep.

“I was making cookies,” she said.

“What?”

“Cookies. I dropped the eggs, though. My toes hurt.”

Theron’s arms moved around her, shifting his hold as she fell back onto the soft shape beneath her. Sinead looked around again, trying to understand the dark place.

A car. She was back in that car.

Instantly, Sinead started crying. There was nowhere on earth more miserable than that car.

“Charlie, are you there? Do you copy?”

Sinead glared toward the sound of the voice. Darrell was hollering into a small black box. She glared at him. “Sh, you’re very loud. What are you doing? Don’t do that, I’ll be naked.”

Theron was unzipping her jacket. She tried to swat at him, but her hands were completely useless.

The wind picked up outside with such a fury, the windows rattled in the car doors. The sound startled her. Theron responded to it by holding her a little tighter. Now he was in the jacket with her, and she was burning up.

“I’m here. Have you found them? Are they alright?”

“You’re naked!” She said, her eyes wide as she looked up at Theron. He ignored her, wrapping the open coat around his bare form and pressing himself against her.

She shook her head and began to cry. “It’s too hot. Stop it, it’s too hot.”

Yet, Theron didn’t listen. He couldn’t listen, because she hadn’t actually said the words out loud.

“We should go to the beach. It’s too hot today.”

“You think so? That sounds like a very good idea, baby.”

Sinead opened her eyes, and her mother was there again, the warm glow of the sun shining in through the curtains.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THERON

“Bunny’s fine. Theron’s doing his best to warm Shinny up. She’s not looking good,” Darrell called into the radio. The wind was picking up outside, making conversation harder with each passing moment.

“She’s out again. Fuck! She won’t wake up!” Theron was holding onto Sinead for dear life, squeezing her as though he might warm her by will alone.

The radio clicked on before Darrell was even finished speaking.
“Tell Theron to go slow! If he burns as hot as he says he does, she could go into shock. You can’t warm her up too fast.”

Theron shot a look up at Darrell and swallowed, scolding himself. Of all the details Deacon shared in idle conversation, he’d forgotten that one. For an instant, for the first time in his life, he almost loathed what he was.

A normal man could keep her warm now, save her life now.

He
could kill her with comfort.

Darrell quickly relayed their plan to Charlie. Charlie directed Darrell to rip the panel from beneath the steering wheel.  He did as he was told.

Theron listened as Darrell flicked the wires together. There was a subtle clicking sound, but nothing more.

Theron began screaming in his mind.
What if the cold killed the battery?

If he could, Theron would’ve killed Davenport all over again.

Theron lost his patience as Darrell began to grow frustrated. He grabbed Darrell’s bare shoulder. “Here!”

Darrell took his meaning and moved without another word, jumping over the seat to settle in beside Sinead. Theron had to squint against the rising wind as he climbed out of the car, the sheer force of it picking up particles of ice from the ground. They hit his skin like shards of glass. Theron climbed into the driver’s seat, shutting the door behind him, and snatched up the wires. He flicked them together in the dark.

No spark.

He flicked them together again. Nothing.

Theron glanced back at Sinead, at her trembling lips and Darrell’s awkward embrace around the massive shape of her jacket. Theron flicked the wires, again.

Why wasn’t the car starting?

There was a soft tap at the glass. Grandma Pearl stood at the passenger side of the car again, her hand up to her temple to shield her face from the wind.

“Pop the hood, boy,” she said. The calm yet stern tone to her voice was almost comforting. Without further word, it said, ‘I’ll fix this. Don’t you worry.’

Theron wanted to believe that tone.

He did as he was told and watched Pearl disappear beyond the hood of the car.

“Try it now,” she called.

Theron felt his hands freeze for a moment. He murmured softly to himself, praying to whatever gods might hear him in that nothingness.

He flicked the wires together again. The car engine rumbled and turned over, instantly blasting cold air through the fans. Theron let out a cry of relief, fidgeting with the knobs to make sure the heat was at full blast. He pressed his hand to the fan vent, waiting for a sign of heat. Pearl appeared at the driver’s side door, signaling for Theron to climb in the back.