Cold

Ines hates winter. It reminds her of things she doesn’t like thinking about. Things that leave her waking in the night, shaking and gasping in a cold sweat from dreams and half-formed memories.

Snow crunches beneath her feet as she walks along the waterfront. She tries to focus on that sound, that sensation, keeping her mind firmly in the present.

The mark on her neck stings, the skin red and inflamed. Ines recognizes the signs, and knows the fever will be coming next. She’ll have to take off work, which she doesn’t mind, and slow down for the next few days, which she does.

When she slows down too much, her mind inevitably drifts to the past, and other dangerous topics.

She stops walking, staring down at the snow between her boots, and ungloves her hand. Her fingers touch the mark. She winces. She doesn’t know why she does that, why she feels compelled to confirm what she already knows.

Her memories of that day were jumbled, leaving her not entirely sure which were real and which were horrible figments of her own mind’s creation. She doesn’t remember much about that day, but she remembers the cold.

She shivers, and resumes walking.

* * *

She closes the door behind her and enters the apartment wordlessly. He's there, at the counter, messing with something in the kitchen.

Heavy bootfalls take her to the the opposite side of the room. Her mind is empty, limbs moving stiffly, almost of their own volition.

She takes it from her pocket and sets it down on the table.

It takes him a few seconds to stop what he's doing and turn around.

Has he been waiting for something like this to happen? she wonders. Ever since they'd lost the Shrike, it felt like the two of them were holding their breath, anticipating some inevitable slip.

He turns to face her, eyes immediately drawn to the small bag of powder on the table between them. At least it's not booze, she'd thought. As if that would make a difference.

"Did you...?"

She shakes her head.

She came close, very close, too close, but she didn't. She wants to throw up.

"I need to dump it," she says. Her arms aren't working. Her bones are liquid and now all she can do is stare at it.

He takes the bag, and she numbly watches as he turns it upside down over the sink, switches the tap on. Her body shudders, and it's like a dam breaking. Ugly sobs and snot bubbling, tears flowing freely.

She feels his hand on her shoulder in reassurance. "You're ok," he says, and she's revolted by the sheer amount of warmth and understanding in his voice.

She doesn't want kind words. She wants to scream, cry, break something, break herself, shatter into a million unfeeling fragments.

Her eyes begin furiously tracing the patterned tile of the floor, focusing on the ways they fit together. Some of them are new, some are faded and discolored, some are cracked but haven't been replaced. She finds this comforting.

Eventually, her heart rate slows, and her breathing evens.

She slumps against the table, then slides over so her head rests against Luc. She feels his arm lift, followed by the weight of her friend's hand atop her head.

"You're ok," he says again, and she laughs, then sniffles.

"Yeah," she says. "Not even close."

She reaches up and wraps her hand around one of his fingers.

"But I will be."