Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Darcy Coates
- Language: English
- Genre: Horror Suspense
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Snow in my mouth. In my nose. Burning my eyes as winds buffet me about
like a scrap of cloth tangled on the mountainside.
Kiernan screams for help. His voice is raw, cracking. He holds my hand
with a grip so tight it hurts. I suspect it would hurt more if I weren’t so
numb.
“Stay with me, Christa,” he repeats, and his words are dragged away by
gale-force winds. “Don’t leave me.”
Snowdrifts rise up to my knees. We’re struggling, clawing our way
across a landscape we can barely see. I don’t know where we’re going. I
don’t think Kiernan knows either, and that thought is terrifying.
Nothing around us is familiar. I can no longer see the sun or which way
the summit is or whether there was ever a path under the snow we’re
stumbling through. All I can see is white, interrupted by pockets of black
rock jutting out of the empty void. The landscape is inhospitable. Jagged
and harsh, inhumane. Not even the wildlife wants to live here.
My black jacket has turned grey under a coating of snow. My heart
thunders, each pulse bruising the back of my ribs. I can barely breathe. My
scarf keeps sliding down to my chin, exposing my face to the brunt of the
snowstorm. My nose burns. I imagine blood vessels bursting and spreading
a web of red lines across my skin.
I pull the scarf up again, trying to hold it in place, but then my footing
slips on the uneven terrain and I stumble. Kiernan clutches at me. He tries
to pull me back up, but we’ve been fighting the snowstorm for too long and
we’re both exhausted. Instead, he drops to his knees beside me.
Not much of his face is visible, just a slim line between his neck gaiter
and thermal hat, revealing squinted eyes and pale skin. Ice flecks cling to
his brows and lashes.
“It’s not far,” he says. The wind howls around us, deafening, and he
bends close so that I can hear his voice. “We only need to go a bit farther.”
He’s said that before, nearly an hour ago.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. No one had expected the storm. Or
how rapidly we would lose the path once visibility dropped.
Kiernan tugs at me, his gloved hands slipping off my jacket as he tries
to pull me up. “Come on, Christa.” Another pull. “Not far.”
I’m so exhausted. My exposed skin is either numb or burning. I
scramble to rise, and Kiernan pulls me against himself. “There we go,” he
says, or I think he says, under the gale. His hand runs down my arm until it
finds my hand, then he grips it, and I grip back as fiercely as I can.
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