TWISTED ICE (ONC 2023)

CHAPTER 9

As I press down on the wound, the blood leaks from Chloe's abdomen and runs between my fingers. She had already unzipped her parka and her sweater has a two-inch wide gash in it; the fabric tattered and stained with oozing crimson. Her breaths are rapid and shallow and her pulse has quickened. I read about this one time in a mystery thriller. When someone bleeds out, their blood pressure drops, heart rate skyrockets, and their breathing becomes short and fast, even raspy, as their body fights to stay alive.

I've experienced this firsthand with my father. My hands, although smaller back then, applied pressure to his gushing wound, much like I am now. I remember feeling torn as I watched him die in front of me. Part of me wanting to keep him alive, another wanting to walk away, let him gurgle on his blood while my mother called 9-1-1. That part was kinda funny, her high on marijuana trying to explain what happened. My pulse had pounded in my ears. My breaths, rapid and shallow, imitated my father's.

Much like the way it's doing now as I bend over Chloe's unconscious figure, my knees on the hardwood floor, while Jasmine paces and Hunter throws wood into the fireplace. This wood isn't dead branches laying on the ground. It's real firewood cut with a saw and split with an ax.

"Eliza. Where's your lighter?" Hunter says, standing over me.

My eyes cut to my backpack. Stare at it for a fraction of a second too long.

"What are you hiding in it?" Jasmine asks. "A knife?"

"My knife?" Hunter strides across the room and unzips my bag. He rifles through it, finding the matches, my thermos, and the lighter. Oh yeah, and my notepad and pen mingled in with my spare clothes. "Where is it? Where's my knife, Eliza?"

"Good job of acting," I reply. "Now can we rip open yours and Jasmine's bags to see what y'all are hiding? I would, but then Chloe would die. Which is what you want, right?"

Jasmine turns to Hunter. "Check Chloe's bag. Maybe Chloe killed Isaiah and stabbed herself to get the suspicion off of her? She could have your knife."

I snort. "Chloe didn't do this to herself."

"How do you know?" Hunter says.

"Because of the wound. Whoever did this to her didn't slash at her, they stabbed at her. It's a puncture wound similar to Isaiah's. It's deep enough to cause severe internal bleeding. If we don't get her to a hospital in the next few minutes, she'll die."

"Look around you, Eliza." Hunter slings his arms in the air. "There are no hospitals around here."

"What do we do then?" Jasmine asks.

"I don't know. Keep pressure on the wound? That should buy her time, but I'm not a doctor. I don't have a stitch kit. Besides that, if the wound is as deep as Eliza says—"

"It is!" I say without looking at him, my fingers covered in red. When I glance back, I see the hard lines and shadows on his face.

Hunter squeezes my lighter so tight he might crush it. "Then all we can do is find something to bandage her up to stop the bleeding, or at least slow it down."

Like lightning in a storm, a thought flashes across my mind.

Why did Hunter need to use my lighter? Yes, we had used it at the cave, but he has one too. He could have used his. Then it hits me. He wanted an excuse to search my bag, or Jasmine put him up to it.

I glance up to see her eyes darting away from mine. Yep. She put him up to it. With Chloe's blood seeping through my fingers, distracting me as I try to save her life, Jasmine wanted to see if I had Hunter's knife.

Maybe she whispered her request to him while my mind was in the past, thinking about my father and the blood oozing from his abdomen?

"Light the fire," Jasmine says, hugging herself, her hands rubbing her arms. "It's freezing in here."

Hunter turns away, his back to us while he works on lighting some kindling. He must have found the sticks outside along with the firewood.

I shift my gaze to the kitchen cabinets and the drawers beyond the table and chairs. "Jasmine. Go look for something to use as a bandage. Hurry."

She rushes over, bumping into a chair, the leg skidding across the hardwood floor with a knock and a scrape. The high-pitched friction of wood against wood makes me flinch.

While she searches the kitchen, I glance down at Chloe, in particular, her face. The blood loss has turned her cheeks pale and the cold air has shaded her lips blue. Her eyes remain closed and her chest rises and falls, but only with slight inhalations, each breath wheezing with desperation, her lungs struggling to pull oxygen from the air and her heart striving but failing to disperse it throughout her bloodstream.

Same way my father died.

In front of me, the wall glows orange as the fire behind me brightens with life. The stark contrast between the intensifying flames and Chloe's dwindling life strikes me and gives me pause. The fire grows warm, breathing in the oxygen as Chloe grows cold, unable to draw in sufficient air.

"Here." Jasmine shoves a roll of gauze in my face.

"I'll need help," I reply. "I can't let go. Hunter, come here."

We move Chloe toward the edge of the couch so Hunter can lift her up. Working together, I remove my hands and he rips her sweater away from the hole in her stomach, on her right side. I'm imagining her liver or spleen, but I think those organs are higher up. This is lower, maybe her intestines.

My hands go right back to the wound.

Jasmine forces a dish towel in to my face. I order her to fold it twice so it'll have four layers to soak up the blood. She passes it to Hunter while I press on the wound. On the count of three, I jerk my hands back and Hunter dives in with the towel, applying pressure again. The white towel turns red as soon as it touches her skin.

As he holds the towel down with one hand and lifts her body with the other, revealing his strength intensified by adrenaline, Jasmine and I work hard and furious to wrap the gauze around her back and stomach, using up the material fast. There's just enough to tie off after making several rounds.

As we back away from Chloe and observe our handiwork, I have this surreal moment where I realize something important. Two of us hope we did enough to save her, and one of us wishes she would die. Regardless, all three of us can do nothing but wait.

As we do that, my focus shifts to the blood on my hands. It looks like a thick red dye running between my fingers, covering my palms and everything else. It even beads and runs down my wrist, soaking the bottom of my sleeves, which I didn't think to pull up to my elbows when I launched into saving Chloe's life.

With the fire blazing, I rush out the door and throw my hands into the snow, using it to wash away the blood. As the ice melts and turns to water from my body heat, it sends chills coursing through me, straight to my core. My fingers quiver with extreme coldness as the snow turns red and my hands lose color and sensation, burning with numbness. When I'm finished, I race back inside the cabin, shivering from head to toe.

I thrust my hands over the fire, receiving life and heat from its flames. By the time my body stops shaking, I feel a hardened resolve sweeping over me as I turn to Jasmine and Hunter.

Jasmine is over in the corner, holding her phone up in the air, trying to get a signal. She huffs and whimpers. Guess she failed.

Hunter leans over Chloe, touching her neck with his fingertips. As he returns my stare, his eyes narrow and his jaw becomes ridged, and he shakes his head.

He doesn't have to say it.

Chloe is dead.

Just like my father.

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Chapter 9 - 1,403 words
Story Total - 16,483 words