Drifting

Chapter 5

"Jesse!" she shrieked. He'd caught the woman, but her weight pushed him back against the railing of the fire escape, bending his back over the rusted bars. Relief flooded her as he managed to pitch the woman forward and regain his balance, dropping her rather unceremoniously to the grate under their feet.

"We're okay!" he promised.

"Wait for me!" she shouted over the wind. Forcing herself to take it slow, inhaling and exhaling a few deep yoga breaths, Lara swung her legs over and caught the ladder, and climbed the rest of the way down. Together, she and Jesse managed to help the half-conscious woman back to the open window.

Lara slid in first, and Jesse handed the woman through to her before climbing in himself. Together, they shuffled the limp creature to the couch and settled her onto it. She moaned, her eyes fluttering, as Lara put a pillow behind her head. Jesse got up and closed the window, then retrieved blankets from the bed and wrapped them around the shivering woman. Her breath came shallowly and her teeth chattered, an incessant bone-grind music.

"We have to warm up her core," Lara said.

Jesse inspected the thermostat on the wall. "I don't think the heat's working. It's electric."

"The stove's electric too. There might still be hot water. Stay with her."

Jesse nodded and pulled the coffee table closer, using it as a chair, murmuring comforts to their patient.

Lara searched the bathroom methodically, and found a hot water bottle, which she filled in the cracked bathtub. She also fetched a glass of warm water, dissolving a few spoonfuls of sugar in it from the little porcelain box near the coffee maker. She returned and pulled the blanket aside, putting the water bottle on the woman's sternum and raising the glass to her lips. She drank, but her movements were lethargic.

Tense silence as Lara continued to encourage the sugar water. She ached with questions, but tempered herself.

"Who did this to you?" Jesse wasn't as patient.

"Just wait," Lara advised. "Give her some time."

The woman's breathing lengthened, and her eyes opened after a few more minutes. She groaned and sobbed, curling her legs up and writhing under the blankets. "It hurts!" she cried. "The... feeling's coming back, oh God, it's like my skin's on fire!"

Lara made her take some ibuprofen, but they could do little more for the pain. "I lost my phone in the snow," Lara told her. "Where's yours? We need to call you an ambulance."

Jesse shot her a look infused with the gravity of the situation. It could be hours before an ambulance arrived. Besides that, their last run-in with EMS hadn't been pleasant.

"On the charger in the bedroom," the woman said.

Lara went to get it, and dialed before Jesse could protest. "Hello, yes, there's an emergency," she said after a few minutes' wait to get through. "My friend and I found a woman who had been left outside to freeze. She's awake, but I think she's got hypothermia and probably some frostbite. She needs an ambulance." Lara walked back into the bedroom to continue the conversation after asking the woman her address.

Jesse repeated it as Lara reported details to the dispatcher, her clear voice muffled by the bedroom door. "294 Sycamore St. SW," he murmured. "This building... I think it used to be a candy store."

The woman eyed him, grimacing as her limbs stabbed back to life. "Yeah, it was," she said between short gasps. "We have... storage units in the basement. I found... some old displays and posters and stuff. It was called..."