She patted his cheek until he stirred.
Those eyes. They’d been the first part of him she’d loved, and she’d loved them even before she’d met him, even before she’d known him, even before she’d been willing to admit any of it to herself.
She had to say something, but she struggled with the words, partly because her lips were stiff and numb with the cold and partly because she felt like she was going to cry. She wanted him to live, and if it took pushing him out of the car to save his life, she would shove as hard as she could—but at the same time, she knew she didn’t want to die cold and alone.
She had been brave her whole life only to be scared now. But being scared couldn’t stop her from doing what she needed to do.
“Coop,” she whispered.
He tucked his chin against the top of her head, and Gretchen wondered, a little dizzily, if he’d heard the same trivia she had about most of your body’s heat escaping from your head. He was doing everything he could to keep her warm. She could feel the rumble of his throat against her forehead as he answered her.
She swallowed down her tears. If she let them out, they’d only freeze anyway, just like the rest of her.
She could see goosebumps on his shoulders where the blanket didn’t quite cover them. Cooper’s skin was chilly now, however nice he felt against her. Being a shifter didn’t make him invulnerable. That only drove home that he needed to leave. He needed to get to shelter while he still could.
“You have to go.”
He stilled. She couldn’t even feel him breathing anymore.
“No, Gretchen.”
“Yes.” She wrenched away from him, as much as it killed her to do it, and met his eyes. She needed him to see how much she meant this. “The storm’s not showing any signs of letting up, and if we keep waiting for it to stop, you won’t have any strength left by the time we know you need to run. You’re tougher than I am. You have a chance of making it out there. Being a shifter—”
“I can’t shift,” Cooper said. “I told you—there’s just nothing there anymore.”
“Even if that’s true, you can still get to that motel. You can still last longer in the cold than I can, and you have to try. You can’t just stay here and risk dying to keep me company.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“Yes, you will, dammit. You have to.?
? She took a deep breath and tried the tactic she thought might have the best chance. “It could be your chance at freedom, Coop. Do you really want to throw that away? Run and keep running.”
He touched her cheek, and she realized she could no longer feel much of a difference between the temperature of his skin and hers. They were both on a downhill slide. She willed him to feel that too, to understand how his own body was giving up on him, how little time he had left. He needed to go.
“I can’t leave you.”
At first she thought that he was just repeating himself, but then she noticed the slight difference. This time, he hadn’t said that he wouldn’t leave her, he’d said that he couldn’t. As if he physically couldn’t make himself do it, not even to get the freedom that must have been so precious to him.
Could she get herself to leave him?
She didn’t even have to think about it. No. She would never be able to leave him to die.
But it was her responsibility to protect him, and it wasn’t his job to protect her.
And if you weren’t a Marshal, does that mean you’d just waltz off and be able to leave him to freeze to death? Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t leave a prisoner behind to save yourself, but you couldn’t leave Coop. You know the difference just as much as he does.
But that didn’t mean that she was going to just give in and agree to let him stay. She wanted to save his life by whatever means she could.
“It was my idea to do this,” Gretchen said. “I’m the one who said we should try to outrun the weather. I put you in this situation, and I’m the one who has to get you out of it.”
“I would have done the exact same thing in your shoes.”
She blew out an exasperated breath, which at least restored a little feeling to her lips. “But you weren’t in my shoes. You’re in the passenger seat.”
“I think you’re mixing your metaphors.”
“Dammit, Cooper.” Now she really was crying. “I need you to make it out of this. We can’t just both stay here hoping we’ll live until morning when I know we won’t. I can’t die knowing you’ll die too. I can’t stand it.”