“Shine ‘em!” said one while the other pointed a light in my face. I closed my eyes and tilted my head away.
“They’re good,” said the other.
“P-p-p-puh-please,” I whispered. “She h-has a b-b-baby. She has a b-b-baby!”
They floated along the snow toward us. Was I dreaming? Pinching myself was out of the question because I had no free hands.
They took Mia from my arms and set her inside the boat-thing.
It’s real.
“Are they dead?” one asked in its echoey voice.
“She has a baby… She has a baby… Please…” I continued, my body convulsing. I was going into shock, I thought.
Either that, or I was dying.
“Leave him,” the other man said.
“What?”
“Leave him. He isn’t gonna make it. Bringing him in ain’t worth it.”
Please, I mouthed, no longer able to force the frozen air in my lungs to form words. Please… She has a baby…
She has a baby…
“Nah, I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“Then fuckin’ grab him. I’m freezing!” This figure turned and disappeared into the boat, mumbling, “Berretti’s gonna be pissed.”
Please…please…please…
The other person looked my way for an eternity. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he weighed the positives and negatives of saving me.
Then, finally, he moved…only the snow likes to play tricks on you—especially this snow—and I wasn’t sure if he was moving toward me or not.
I collapsed before I found out, and something other than the usual dark that came with losing consciousness swarmed my vision.
I saw not darkness, but an endless white.
7
The City
Although I came close, I hadn’t died.
I woke up in a windowless cell with no shoes or socks on. My inner arm was sore, along with the rest of my body. A bandage was wrapped around my elbow. Beneath this bandage was a cotton ball. I ripped it off.
Someone had drawn my blood while I was unconscious. I didn’t like that.
A lone light bulb hung above my head, buzzing faintly. I got up from the bed I'd awoken on (not much in the comfort department, that was for sure), and approached the bars. I leaned forward and grabbed them. They felt as cold as ice, but after what I’d gone through getting here, the temperature of the steel was a breath of fresh air.
Pressing my face into the small spaces between the bars, I tried to look around. Unfortunately, the angles were no good, and other than a dim glow to the right, I saw nothing but darkness.
“Mia!” I tried shouting. My voice was hoarse and scratchy. I needed some water, and, at the very least, a blanket. I cleared my throat. “Mia!”
No answer.
My legs felt heavy, and my chest burned. I limped back to the bed and sat down, hitting the thin mattress like a sack of bricks. The sudden movement sparked a flare of agony in my midsection. Then I became acutely aware of how bad off I really was. It was kind of like when you notice a paper cut on the tip of your finger for the first time; once your brain knows it’s there, it sends all sorts of pain signals to it. My grandma always said a paper cut was worse than a wound in need of stitches specifically for that reason, and I thought she was more right than wrong.
I sucked in a deep breath of the cool (but not icy) air, and I grabbed the bottom of my shirt. It wasn’t frozen like I had expected, but it was still wet from the snow. Slowly, wincing, I took it off.
Parts of my stomach were beet red, as if I’d been burning in the sunshine and not freezing in the snow. Other parts had taken on a darker, almost purple color. Namely around my lower abdomen and obliques, where the ice had packed under my top. The beginnings of frostbite.
I ran a finger over the darkest part and felt nothing. My hands were red too, but that was mostly dry blood from when Mia reopened the burn scabs, and I still had most of the feeling in my fingers.
I sighed with relief, letting a slight smile spread across my face. I wasn’t out of the woods yet, but I was out of the snow. I scooted back, intent on resting against the cell wall. This sudden movement, however, reminded me of another body part in desperate need of checking. A trio of body parts, in fact. My shaking hands now went to the button of my jeans.
“Oh God,” I whispered. My neck creaked as I tilted my head downward. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
You have to do it.
That internal voice was right. There are very few things in this world more precious to a man than the things that get him in the most trouble. If you don’t know what I mean, I’ll tell you. I’m talking about the family jewels, the twig and the berries, the ol’ sausage and eggs.
So, my fingers undid the button, then they made their way to the zipper and pulled, but just as I started stretching the elastic band of my underwear, someone cleared their throat.
I jumped, hastily set my hands in my lap, and twiddled my thumbs. I felt like I’d been caught masturbating or something. In reality, I didn’t even know if I still could masturbate.
A woman in a winter coat stood on the opposite side of the cell door. She held a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. She couldn’t have been more than forty, yet her eyes—a bright green color—possessed the tired look of someone who’d seen too much in too short a time. Everyone still alive shared that same feature, I think. Her hair was a sandy blonde, and her cheekbones were sharp.
She smiled shyly. There was a small gap between her two front teeth. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything…Grady, is it?”
Seeing her
