Chapter 20: Minus Eighteen

I sat up in bed with the phone against my ear.

"Tate," I said. "Stop walking."

"I'm okay," he slurred. "I'm just a little lost, Nat."

"Stop walking and tell me what you can see."

Mikkel was already out of bed, pulling on his sweater.

I put the call on speaker and slid my own location-sharing request into a text.

"Tate, I'm sending you a link. Press the blue button."

"My hands won't do it."

"Try with your knuckle."

I heard breathing, and a long pause, and a clumsy tap.

A dot appeared on my screen.

"A bridge," Mikkel said, leaning over my shoulder. "Over the river by the old mill, twelve minutes by car. He walked an hour from the hotel."

"Why did he walk?"

"I do not think he was choosing."

I stood up and started dressing.

I did it as I had dressed ten thousand times for cold games, thermal layer first, hat last.

"Tate. Are you shivering?"

"A bit."

"Good. Is it a hard shiver or a soft one?"

"It's, I can't stop it. My jaw hurts."

"That's all right. That's your body working. Stay on the line, and don't take your gloves off, even if you think you're hot."

"I don't have gloves."

I closed my eyes for half a second.

"Put your hands in your armpits," I said. "Right now."

We took Mikkel's car.

I carried my old kit bag, which Doc had made me pack, with six hand warmers and a foil blanket and a thermos of sugared tea.

Mikkel drove through the snowy streets without speaking, and I watched the dot on my phone stop moving.

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