He launched himself into a run, his lungs gashed by the frantic breaths he gasped, and he felt a strange sense like he was in some distorted maze, because the window didn’t seem to be closer—it was so much farther than it had looked. He’d slipped on the ice repeatedly before he reached it. He tried shoving up the pane with his rubbery hands, but it wouldn’t give, so Tom hurled himself at it, and then kicked viciously over and over, perfectly willing to scrape his leg to break the glass, but it still wouldn’t break. His gums were aching, his teeth chattering. He willed on net-send, but the frequency was still jammed, and he grew aware of another camera boring right into him from over the window. He wished he had something to hurl at it. His gaze roved over the ground, and he spotted a rock, half-buried in snow. Tom realized with a spring of glee that he could use this to break the camera—no, the window! He knelt to dig it up.
A message blinked across his vision center: Warning: Low body temperature detected. 95.2º F. Trainee is advised to seek shelter.
Tom began laughing. He couldn’t help it. “I a-am T-T-TRYING!” he shouted at the message, clumsy fingers scraping over the rock’s jagged edges. He couldn’t feel the stinging cuts.
Then light flooded the corner of Tom’s vision. Tom gaped for a moment, unable to believe it: Vengerov had relented. He’d opened the door again!
Of course. Of course, he couldn’t strand Tom out here and let him freeze. It was a game of chicken and Tom had won. Tom sprinted back toward it, but it took even longer now, getting back to where he’d come from. His legs were so clumsy, he tumbled again and again, numbed hands and knees scraping the snow. His limbs were unfeeling blocks by the time he reached the door, and he felt the tantalizing blast of warmth from inside the building—and then the door swung closed again.
“NO!” Tom screamed, hurling himself at it, but it was too late. “N-NO!” He punched it with his unfeeling fists. For a moment, he felt like his chest was going to split open. His throat seemed to be jammed. Then he reeled back with an insane laugh spilling from his lips. The camera was still fixed on him.
“OPEN UP! OPEN THE D-D-DOOR! OPEN IT! I’LL K-KILL Y-YOU F-F-FOR THIS!”
Some part of his brain warned him that death threats weren’t very enticing reasons for anyone to open a door for him, but Tom didn’t muse on it for long.
An emergency alarm blared in his vision center. Warning: Low body temperature detected. 93.3º F. Transmitting emergency beacon.
Tom’s heart soared. Would this work? Would someone get it? And then he screamed in frustration as he read the words: Frequency unavailable. Emergency beacon not sent. Automatic retry in twenty seconds. Nineteen seconds. Eighteen seconds. . . .
He stopped clawing his way forward, his eyes stinging as they focused on the distant window. Too distant.
He could die here.
The thought spliced through his head, sharp like a razor. A vivid image of his own body frosted over with snow filled his brain and Tom couldn’t banish it from his mind.
Vengerov wasn’t messing around. This wasn’t a game of chicken. He could really die out here. He grew wild with rage and fear, and whirled back toward the window, knowing it was his best chance. His throat felt numb. When he fell, he clawed his way forward, the wet snow plastering his clothes to his limbs. He sprinted ahead, but before he knew it, he’d plunged back into the snow. Panic tore at him. He wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t focus on anything other than the cold.
So cold, so cold . . . He couldn’t fight it now. His body contracted into a shivering ball, but nothing warded off the terrible ice. He felt like he was being erased, everything human and deliberate vanishing from his mind, replaced by some nameless, tormented creature that knew only frost and could understand nothing else, and he became numbed all over, all sense of where he was, what this was, receding from him.
Warning: Critically low body temperature detected. 92.0º F. Transmitting emergency beacon. Frequency unavailable. Emergency beacon not sent. Automatic retry in twenty seconds.
He had to get up. He had to. With strength he didn’t feel like he had, he uncurled slowly, even though his legs were so numb, they felt like they weren’t even there. Standing took so much effort it was like heaving up a ton of granite. He forced the legs he couldn’t feel to move, to jog in place, but it was like moving through a swamp. Everything was dragging, and even his brain was sluggish. He couldn’t feel his face.
The window.
The window. That rock could break the window. He had to get there. It was his only chance.
He lifted his legs and set them down, drawing step by step toward the window. Each minute felt like a year. Several times, he found himself on the ground, fighting for air. He saw that the door had popped open again to spill light onto the snow. Just to taunt him. Just to offer safety and slam shut again. He kept going. He wasn’t going to fall for it.
Then he reached the window and lowered himself clumsily, pawing at the snow, trying to extract that rock from the frost. But it was too late. His fingers weren’t closing. His hands couldn’t grip, they couldn’t hold. He only knew where they were by looking at them. Horrible fear stabbed him, sharp and acrid, as he realized his body wasn’t working anymore.
Tom turned that thought around in his mind, his pulse thready in his ears, because even during the simulated deaths in the training room, it had never sunk in that he could really die. That someone like Joseph Vengerov could come along and simply end him. That he could get so cold, his body would actually stop moving for him. That every shred of will he had couldn’t force his fists to clench. That his life or death could hinge on something so small as his fingers.
He lurched to the window. His blood beat in his head. A strange, unnatural heat began to well up within him as he planned a kick. One good, hard kick. He could do this. He had to do this. It didn’t matter now if he broke every bone in his leg. He’d die if he didn’t get through that window.
He squinted at the window and swung his foot forward. His other leg buckled, the world flipped before his eyes, and he landed on the ground, hard. Icy snow shot up his nose, and he coughed weakly, his brain blurring. The snow was warm. Hot. Tom realized he was sweltering all over, like someone had lit him up from the inside. He wanted to tear off his tie, shove off his coat, relieve himself of the unbearable heat, but he gave up on it quickly. He tried heaving himself up again, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. And then he began to grow comfortable, like he was sinking into the depths of some exquisite bed.
Some nameless time later, he was on his side. He stayed there, his face nestled in the crook of his arm, still roasting in the Antarctic tundra, his body so unfeeling, it was like he’d become detached from it. Now even his brain was slipping, slipping out of reach, and Tom realized in a detached sort of way that this was the way it would end. A stupid, pointless death at fifteen, out here all alone. But it wasn’t so bad. The pain was gone.
A strange glow pervaded him. Heat receded into warmth. Lethargy seeped like syrup through his muscles.
Tom couldn’t think of what had been so important about breaking that window. The words were like an afterthought in his vision center, searing into life and then fading: Warning: Critically low body temperature detected. 87.2º F. Transmitting emergency beacon. Frequency unavailable. Emergency beacon not sent. Automatic retry in twenty seconds.