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They pull her out of Lake Superior. That itself is a miracle, given how jealously it hoards its dead. How close she came to being lost at the bottom, drowning for ages.
Drowning, and freezing.
But they get her out, and she is still shivering, which Nile knows is a good sign--better than not shivering. She knows, too, what comes next, so she finds her pack and dumps it to get the vacuum-sealed bag with her change of clothes in it. Wool, for November in the north.
They followed this asshole all the way up the St. Clair, across Huron, through the locks in Sault Ste. Marie and into the open again. Now he’s beneath the water and she’s not.
By the time Nile fumbles the bag open, Joe has unfolded one of the survival blankets. He holds it around her like a shiny curtain as she pulls off her waterlogged tactical gear. “How are you feeling?” Nicky asks from the other side of it.
“Cold,” she chatters. She has goosebumps everywhere, her fingers are stiff, and her joints ache. It’s hard to say how long she was in the water--the shock rattled her. Once the smuggler slid down into the deep, the only thing she thought about was staying afloat.
She would have sank before much longer, and she would not have been able to come back up.
The boat lurches as Andy guns the engine, rocking Nile sideways; she catches herself on an elbow without feeling the impact. Nile straightens and pulls the base layer over her head. She didn’t pack extra boots because she planned for being shot, not doused, but she does have two pairs of dry socks. She gets those on, and last of all a lined beanie. Then she tugs the blanket, and Joe wraps it around her shoulders.
Nicky crouches before her. He shines a penlight in her eyes with one hand and checks her pulse with the other. A novelty, for her to be the focus of his concern, but for once he doesn’t need to fret over Andy. “Pupils are still reacting. Pulse is slow.” He glances up, behind Nile. “We didn’t pack a thermos, but we can get you warmed up.”
That’s really sweet. Nile forces her jaws apart to answer. “You don’t have to. I’ll come back anyway.”
“If you’d rather not, that’s fine,” Nicky says, voice low and grave. “But it’s a shit way to die, and it’s avoidable.”
Sluggishly, she thinks it over. She’s still cold. Even as fast as her metabolism runs now, the blanket can’t put back what the water took from her.
They aren’t profligate with their deaths. Nile always heals before she has a chance to bleed out, so headshots and impacts are the only true deaths she has anymore--fast and (at least until waking) painless. This would be her slowest death since the first. She would have time to think about it. Time to be afraid.
“And if you do still die,” says Joe, “at least you’ll die and come back in the middle of a love sandwich.”
A love sandwich sounds great. Grilled cheese, with bacon. God, she wants tomato soup.
Nile remembers herself and nods. “Okay. Thanks.”
Joe says, “Boss, yell if there’s trouble.”
Andy makes an agreeing noise and continues steering the boat. She’s kept her distance since she dragged Nile from the water.
They get a second blanket spread out in the bottom of the boat. Nile takes off the first blanket and lays on her side. It isn’t comfortable, but she’s well past caring. She has bivouacked in worse places.
The wind off the water gets through the wool, and she shivers harder. Then Joe is at her back, blocking some of it. “Hey,” he says gently. “Move your arms for me?” Nile does. Joe eases one of his arms under her and one over, bracketing her ribs. “Okay?” he checks.
She nods. He’s very warm. “You’re very warm,” Nile says.
“Thank you.” She can hear his smile. “You’re an ice cube.”
The other blanket settles over her. Nicky gets under, facing her. “Lift your head?” Nile does, hoping neither of them will ask her to move anything else, because she’s wiped just from laying down. Nicky’s arm goes under her head, which is very comfortable, or else she’s just losing feeling. She has stopped shivering, which can also be good or bad. Ambiguous thing, hypothermia.
Nicky sets his other arm across her shoulder. They’ve got her bundled in completely; nothing is exposed except her face. Everything feels so heavy, especially Nile’s eyelids. “Can I fall asleep?”
“No.”
“I’m gonna.”
“Nile!” But he wouldn’t dare shake her--she might go into cardiac arrest. After a moment of vehement staring, Nicky relents and tucks Nile’s head under his chin, as if to reinforce the insulating powers of her beanie.
Nile lets her eyes drift shut. “I love you guys,” she says.
She feels the answer in Nicky’s throat as much as she hears it. “We love you, too.”
“We’re so close.”
“Can’t get much closer,” Joe agrees.
“Close to Chicago,” Nile murmurs.
Less than five hundred miles, the closest she’s been since deployment. They could go the whole way by boat if they backtrack toward Huron, take a right at Manitoulin Island, pass under the Mackinac Bridge, and travel the length of Lake Michigan. Not that she spent a long time looking at the map or anything.
“I think… I think I want to go home.”
She hears Joe stir, feels his chest move away from her back as he turns his head. Immediately she shivers, and he goes back to where he was.
“Okay, Nile,” says Nicky. Humoring her, probably, but she’s too tired to take offense.
She sleeps or she dies; either way, she wakes. Heavy clouds mask the dawn. The boat sways but the engine is off, and she can hear little lake waves lapping on stones nearby.
There is a third set of arms wrapped around her.
“Andy?” Nile says without opening her eyes. Andy twitches at her back. “Did you get cold?”
She was the one who reached in with both hands to grab Nile by the kevlar vest, who hoisted her in over the side of the boat and then rolled to her feet and left her to Nicky and Joe’s care. Must have sat behind the tiny windshield all night with wet sleeves.
“Yeah,” Andy sighs. “Yeah, I got cold.” Her arms cinch tighter around Nile’s waist.
Before long they’ll have to move--ditch the boat and walk inland until they find enough dry wood for a fire. Nile can’t wait for shitty instant coffee from a tin cup.
But she steals a few more minutes of this, first.