Page 126 of Snow

She grabbed Gabe beneath his arms and pulled. He moved, but barely, and pain immediately shot through the cut on her upper arm. She gritted her teeth and pulled again, managing to drag him several feet toward the stairs before stopping to adjust her grip.

If he woke up, she was absolutely giving him shit about this.

She managed to get him to the top of the stairs, but one look down made her realize that it wasn’t going to be pretty. She hated the thought of his body bouncing off the metal steps, but she hated the thought of leaving him there a hell of a lot more.

“Sorry, babe.”

She hooked her arms beneath his shoulders and worked her way backward, lowering him one step at a time while using her own body to control his descent. His weight nearly took her down twice, and by the time they reached the bottom, her injured arm was bleeding worse, and every muscle in her body felt like it was on fire.

They had made it, though. That was all that mattered.

The lower level was more open, and the fresh air coming off the Gulf helped clear some of the smoke from her lungs.

She quickly searched the area, knowing she needed some way to keep Snow afloat once she got him into the water. When she spotted an emergency cabinet mounted against one of the support columns, she hurried over and yanked it open. Life jackets.

“Thank God.”

She grabbed two and returned to Snow, wrestling it around his upper body before securing the straps as tightly as she could. It wasn’t until she finished that the next problem occurred to her. Getting him into the water was one thing. Keeping hold of an unconscious two-hundred-something-pound man while trying to swim away from a burning platform was something else entirely.

Nova scanned the area again and spotted a coil of rope hanging nearby.

For the first time in several minutes, she felt like maybe luck hadn’t completely abandoned her.

She tied one end securely to Snow’s life jacket and looped the other around her jacket, leaving enough slack that they wouldn’t be on top of each other in the water. It wasn’t exactly a professionally designed rescue system, and she was sure Snow could point out a dozen things wrong with it if he were awake, but since he wasn’t currently contributing to the discussion, her plan won by default.

“Don’t you dare complain about my knots when you wake up.”

A louder explosion sounded somewhere above them, and Nova flinched as pieces of metal crashed onto the deck. Whatever Brett had done, it was spreading quickly.

She dragged Snow toward the edge and looked down at the water below. The Gulf was still rolling, but compared to what she had seen earlier that morning, it had settled considerably. That didn’t make the drop look any more inviting.

Nova carefully maneuvered Snow toward the edge and eased him over, holding onto the rope until his weight became too much. She let go and watched him hit the water below, her heart jumping into her throat until the life jacket brought him back to the surface.

His face stayed above the water. That was enough for her. Then she jumped.

The impact drove the breath from her lungs, and cold water swallowed her before the life jacket did its job and brought her back to the surface. She emerged coughing, wiped the water from her eyes, and immediately searched for Snow. The rope between them pulled tight, and she followed it until she spotted him floating several yards away.

“Okay,” she gasped. “We’re good.”

They were nowhere close to good, but she would take what she could get.

Nova started swimming away from the platform, using her good arm as much as possible while kicking hard enough to compensate for the injured one. The Gulf fought her with every swell, and towing Snow made progress painfully slow, but she refused to look back. All she cared about was putting as much water as possible between them and the platform.

She had no idea how far they had made it when the explosion came.

The sound was so violent that Nova felt it before her mind registered what it was. She turned just in time to see fire rip through the center of the platform, followed by a massive cloud of black smoke as part of the structure blew outward.

“Oh, shit.”

The concussion rolled across the water and slammed into them.

The force spun her around, and for several terrifying seconds she couldn’t tell which direction would take her back to the surface. Then the rope around her waist pulled, reminding her that Snow was still attached to her, and panic gave way to instinct. She kicked until her head finally broke through the water.

She dragged in a breath and immediately looked for him. She found him still floating.

Relief hit her so hard she almost cried, but pieces of debris were already splashing into the Gulf around them, forcing her to move again. Nova grabbed the rope and swam, putting whatever strength she had left into getting them farther away while bits of metal and burning wreckage rained into the water behind them.

Her body was reaching its limit. Her injured arm had gone almost numb, her lungs burned, and she wasn’t entirely sure her legs were still kicking so much as moving out of habit. She kept going anyway, because stopping meant drifting back toward the burning remains of the platform.