Page 46 of Collateral Damage
She nods, and I can see her mentally rehearsing it all.
"One hour," she says. "Then I'm waking you anyway."
I extend my hand. "Deal. But only if you let me take your phone."
She hesitates, then pulls it from her pocket.
I slip the phone into my pocket and leave her in the kitchen, praying I haven't just made a mistake.
I’m dreaming in fragments of snow and ice when my eyes snap open. The cabin is hazy, a thin gray fog hanging near the ceiling. I sit up, listening. No crackling. No roar of flames. Just the low moan of wind outside and Ava coughing in the next room.
I'm up and moving, pulling my shirt over my nose and mouth as I head for the main room. The smoke is thicker here, rolling out from the fireplace in slow waves.
"Ava."
She's struggling to get off the couch with her blanket pulled tight around her shoulders. Her eyes are red, watering, but she's steady.
"I’m so sorry, I must have fallen asleep. What’s happening?"
"Not your fault.”
And it isn’t. She may be suffering from oxygen deprivation.
“The wind shifted. Smoke's coming back down the chimney." I crouch by the fireplace and start banking the coals, smothering them with ash. "We have to kill the fire, or we'll both be breathing this all night."
While I deal with the fire, she moves without being asked, crossing to the window and cracking it open. The smoke begins to clear, but so does the warmth.
I glance at the thermometer on the wall. Sixty-eight degrees. Falling.
This is going to be a problem.
I grab a flashlight and head outside. Fighting against the gusts, I make my way around to the side of the cabin where I can see the roofline. The chimney is barely visible through the blowing snow, but I can see enough. The wind is hitting the cabin from the northwest now, creating a downdraft that's forcing smoke back into the structure instead of letting it vent.
There's nothing I can do about it. Not in the middle of the night. Not in this. Getting on that roof would be suicide, and even if I could reach the chimney, I couldn't change the wind direction.
I head back inside, brushing snow off my shoulders. Ava's closed the window partway and is standing near the dead fireplace, arms wrapped around herself.
"Can you fix it?"
"Not until the wind shifts or morning comes—whichever happens first." I strip off my wet jacket and check the thermometer again. Sixty-two. "We'll have to manage without heat for now."
She nods, but I can see the concern in her eyes. She's already shivering.
I move to the chest in the corner of the room and pull out everything inside. Two wool blankets. A sleeping bag rated for thirty degrees. A couple of extra throws that won't do much, but they're better than nothing.
"Layer up," I tell her, handing her the warmest blanket. "We need to conserve body heat."
She takes it without argument, wrapping it around her shoulders over the one she's already wearing.
I check the thermometer again. Fifty-eight. The temperature is dropping faster than I'd like.
“I can take the sleeping bag. Maybe?—"
She interrupts me in a clipped tone. “We don’t have room for maybe. The practical solution is that we sleep together,” she says.
My eyes snap to her as heat washes through me. She's standing there perfectly calm, like she just suggested we switch to decaf.
"Excuse me?"
