Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 138

**Blake**

Time stops moving properly. There is snow under me. Blood on my hands. Water dripping from her hair onto my wrist. Voices around us. Orders. Footsteps. Someone crying. Sirens somewhere far away, cutting through the trees. Charlotte doesn’t move. Her chest doesn’t rise. I keep waiting for it. One breath. One little sound. Anything. 

“Blake.” Charlie drops to his knees in front of me.

He has clothes on now. His face is white, and his eyes are red. He holds another set of clothes in his hands, but he isn’t looking at them. He’s looking at Charlotte.

“Blake,” he says again, voice shaking. “Let me do CPR.”

My arms tighten around her before I can stop them. No. Everything in me says no. Don’t take her. Don’t move her. Don’t let go.

Charlie leans closer, his hands hovering near her but not touching yet. “Please,” he says. “Let me help her.” His voice cracks on the last word, and the realisation slams into me. I nod frantically, even though it feels like tearing skin from bone. Charlie reaches for her, and I let him take her from me.

The second her weight leaves my arms, something inside me drops. Charlie lies her flat on the snow, tilting her head carefully, fingers checking her mouth, her throat, her wrist. His hands are shaking, but they move with purpose. “Come on, Lotty,” he whispers. Then he starts compressions. His palms press hard into the centre of her chest. One. Two. Three. Her body moves under the force of it. I can’t breathe. Theo shoves the clothes into my hands. Charlie’s eyes flick up to me between compressions. “Put them on.”

I stare at him. “Blake,” he snaps, voice breaking and hard at once. “Put the fucking clothes on.”

I drag the hoodie over my head, barely feeling the scrape of fabric against wet skin. My fingers won’t work properly on the pants. Theo crouches beside me and helps yank them up over my legs, his face tight, his jaw clenched hard enough to shake. Charlie keeps going. Then he pinches her nose, seals his mouth over hers, and breathes into her. Once. Twice. Her chest rises faintly, then falls, but nothing else, and he goes back to compressions.

“Come on,” he says through his teeth. “Come on, Lotty. Breathe.”

The sirens get louder.

Blue and red lights start flashing through the trees, bouncing off snow and ice and the faces gathered around us. Pack members shift aside as the ambulance pulls as close as it can, tyres crunching over frozen ground. Two pack doctors rush toward us with a stretcher between them. I know them well, Dr Hale and Dr Morgan. They both work at the hospital in town. Half the staff know enough to look away from things that don’t fit human rules, and the other half never see what happens behind the right doors. Dr Hale drops beside Charlotte. “How long was she under?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie says, still doing compressions. “A few minutes. She wasn’t breathing when we got her out.”

“Pulse?”

“I couldn’t find one.”

Dr Hale nods calmly, in a way that makes me want to scream. “We’ll take over.”

Charlie hesitates but shifts back as Dr Morgan moves into place. One of them resumes compressions while the other fits a mask over Charlotte’s mouth and nose and squeezes the attached bag. Air moves into her. The bag thing expands and collapses in Dr Hale’s hand, pushing oxygen into Charlotte’s lungs while Dr Morgan checks her neck again, then her pupils. “Get the monitor on her,” Dr Morgan says.

They move the blankets and coats from her, and I flinch. Dad’s hand clamps around my shoulder. “They’re helping her.”

I know. I know. It still feels wrong to watch them move fabric away from her blue skin. They put pads against her chest, and a screen flickers to life beside her.

“Core temp is low,” Dr Hale says. “Severe hypothermia. Keep compressions going. Ventilate slowly. We can get her warm on the way.”

“Possible aspiration,” Dr Morgan says. “We need suction ready.”

“Is she alive?” I ask. Nobody answers fast enough, and I lurch forward, but Theo catches my arm. “Is she alive?” I shout.

Dr Hale looks at me, one hand still squeezing air into her through the mask. “We’re working on her, Blake.”

That isn’t an answer. They slide a board under Charlotte and lift her onto the stretcher. Her head rolls slightly to the side, wet hair clinging to her cheek, and I move with her. Charlie gets to her other side as they wheel her toward the ambulance. He stares at her the whole time, one hand gripping the edge of the stretcher. I know exactly how he feels.

The ambulance doors open, and warm air spills out. They load her in, the stretcher locking into place with a hard click that makes my stomach turn. Dr Hale climbs in at her head, still working the bag over her face. Dr Morgan follows with the monitor and a thermal blanket, barking instructions back toward someone outside. “Blake, Charlie, sit there. Don’t get in the way.”

We sit, the doors slam shut, and the ambulance moves.

I grab the rail above me with one hand and Charlotte’s cold fingers with the other. I wrap both hands around hers and breathe against her knuckles, trying to give her any warmth I have left. Dr Morgan tucks heated blankets around her. Dr Hale keeps the oxygen going, watching her chest rise each time. “Come on, Charlotte,” Dr Hale murmurs. “Stay with us.”

Charlie leans forward. “Shouldn’t she be coughing? If there’s water?”

“Maybe,” Dr Morgan says, attaching another line. “Maybe not yet. Cold can slow everything down. Right now, we support her breathing, circulation, and warming.”

Dr Morgan slips an IV into Charlotte’s arm, tapes it down, and connects a bag. 

“Pulse is weak but present,” Dr Hale says.

Present. Charlie drops his head into his hands, and I press my mouth to Charlotte’s fingers. “You hear that, baby?” I whisper. “You’re still here.”

Her eyes stay closed. Her lips are still blue. The monitor keeps beeping, uneven and thin, but it keeps going. I stare at that screen, the only thing holding my world together right now.

The ambulance turns hard, and Charlie grabs the wall to keep from falling. His other hand reaches toward Charlotte’s leg. “I’m here too, Lotty,” he whispers. His face is ruined, his lips tremble, but his eyes stay fixed on her, refusing to miss even one second. I squeeze Charlotte’s hand tighter. “You’re scaring the shit out of us,” I whisper. “So you’re going to wake up, and I’m going to be mad at you, and Charlie’s going to be mad at you, and then we’re both going to cry, and you’re going to make fun of us for it.” 

Charlie lets out a broken sound beside me, and the monitor beeps again. I lean closer, my forehead almost touching her hand. “Hold on,” I whisper. “Please, Lotty. Hold on.”