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Kaitlyn had never in her life been more fucking pissed at herself than she was right now.
She'd somehow managed to survive the entire night up until this moment, having been chased by crazy rednecks with guns and hairless goblin creatures – that turned out to be fucking werewolves of all things – while trying to keep her friends from ending up as puppy chow. And for what? Just to die locked in a goddamn freezer as she slowly succumbed to hypothermia?
God, she was so fucking mad at herself. How could she have been so stupid ?
And what's even worse, she'd dragged Dylan in to die with her. Dylan, who got his fucking hand cut off and was suffering from blood loss and probably shock, but still managed to save her life back at the scrapyard.
And now it's all going to be for nothing, just because Kaitlyn didn't take a quick second to make sure the door didn't latch.
Granted, the werewolf that was chasing them didn't really give them much of a chance to think things all the way through. Dylan barely had enough time to crawl his way into the freezer before Kaitlyn hastily closed the door as the wolf stalking them rounded the corner. It kept the beast from finding them, bringing their ultimate end by bloodied claws and teeth, torn apart by a creature straight from a horror movie. But it left them to face a different doom, and after spending less than an hour stuck in the icy prison, Kaitlyn was beginning to wonder if a quick mauling would have been the better fate.
She wanted to scream, she was so frustrated . She knew, she knew the latch to the door locked from the outside, yet she still managed to get both of them trapped. How many times had they made fun of Nick for getting stuck in the freezer? (Way too many times. She’d figured after the first time he’d be more careful, but the boy got trapped at least once every other week and had to call for a rescue on the radios. What she wouldn’t give for those radios right now.)
She was pacing in front of the door, as much as she could in the cramped space, trying to keep her blood flowing to keep herself warm. Dylan was standing further back, his arms close to his chest, right arm guarding his bloody stump. He had been bouncing in place to keep his body moving, but now he was barely swaying from side to side. His skin had taken on a paler tone, even more so than his paleness from his previous blood loss, and his eyes had a glazed look.
Kaitlyn knew he didn't have long; at least, not as long as she might have. They had blocked off the cold airflow from the fans in the back with crates and anything else they could find in a bid to maybe raise the temperature a bit, but if it worked, it wasn’t noticeable. Fuck, why couldn't that hillbilly asshole have cut the power to the freezer as well and not just the lights?
The combined force of her and Dylan’s shoulders ramming the metal door had not been enough to put a dent in it. The lock held strong and they had no tools or anything sturdy enough to try and break it. Already her fingers and toes had gone numb, and with her body violently shivering she had no more dexterity left. They were well and truly trapped. Sunrise was only a few hours away, but if they didn't figure something out fast, neither she nor Dylan would get to see it.
“FUCK!” Kaitlyn yelled, giving in to her urge to scream. She kicked the door, immediately regretting it as pain shot through her numb appendage. She cursed at both the door and her foot, frustration and anger and hopelessness overwhelming her.
Dylan’s head shot up at the noise she made. “Whoa! Hey, calm down! We don't want tall, dark, and bloodthirsty to come back for an early morning snack.”
Kaitlyn shot a withering gaze his way, but ultimately ignored his comment in favor of trying to calm her racing thoughts. She was trying to come up with something – anything – that could get them out of this mess.
“I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not become a werewolf chew toy again,” Dylan continued to ramble, his own body violently shaking with shivers. He raised his stump slightly. “Already been there, done that, zero out of ten stars, would not recommend.”
Despite her panic over their impending doom, she snorted. “And what? You think freezing to death is any better?”
He shrugged. “I mean, like, it’s not my preferred way to go, and it’s definitely not how I envisioned this night ending, that’s for sure.”
“You and me both, buddy.”
“Yeah, I was kinda hoping for less, you know, being chased by bigfoot’s mangy wolf cousins and more hopefully making out with Ryan.”
There was a lightness in his tone, but by the way his head drooped and the unsteady wobble of his legs, Kaitlyn could tell that Dylan was exhausted. She was proven right when he started to sit down on the ground, but she grabbed his good arm before he could go all the way down.
“Don’t do that,” she grunted, straining to lift all 6’2” of his lanky ass back up with her own uncoordinated limbs.
“Do what? Sit down? I’m about to fall over, Kaitlyn, and I’d rather not die by busting my head open before I can properly turn into a human popsicle.” Despite his words, he still shakily tried to stand.
“No, dumbass. Don’t sit on the metal flooring. It’ll leach heat from you faster.” She grabbed one of the empty wooden crates and placed it on the ground. “Here, sit on this instead.”
He gave a little “Oh…” before sitting on the crate, Kaitlyn helping him down so he didn’t end up falling on his face. He drew his arms and legs closer to himself again, and she could hear his teeth chattering as he shivered so much it looked like he was vibrating in place.
He was losing heat too fast; both of them were losing heat too fast. Kaitlyn was running out of ideas on how to get the door open themselves. At this point it was smarter to preserve what heat they still had left between the two of them.
Standing in front of him, Kaitlyn pushed Dylan’s shoulders up, and he leaned back in confusion as she climbed into his lap, facing his front with her legs straddling his hips.
“Kaitlyn, what…”
“Give me your arms,” she said, cutting him off. He obeyed and she tucked them in front of him before wrapping her arms around his back and pulling him close, hugging his body with her own.
“Kaitlyn, I know you know I’m, like, super gay,” he commented, but he still rested his head on her shoulder – she was just tall enough that he could do so comfortably with her sitting in his lap – and pressed himself into her.
“Shut up,” she snapped back without any heat. Dylan's body was so much warmer than the air around them, and it didn't take much for her to shake off any of the lingering awkwardness of the situation and lean further into him, attempting to cover his broader torso with her own. “If we share body heat, there’s a chance that we can make it until someone finds us and lets us out.”
She could feel the warmth of his exhales against her neck and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. It settled something within her, the part of her that had spent the night hyped up on adrenaline ever since Abi had stumbled out of the woods, panicking about teeth and claws and something attacking Nick.
The primal fear of being hunted had now given way to a new anxiety. There was nothing chasing them at this moment. Their only danger was a proverbial timer, ticking down to the moment of their deaths. Time was both their friend and their enemy, marching forward to sunrise when the threat of the night would end and a rescue could come, but also giving the cold a chance to sink its claws deeper within them, stealing their life away with each passing minute.
Death had stalked them since the sun first went down, and it wasn't ready to let them go yet.
“It’s just a waiting game. We just need to hold out until someone finds us.” She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince more, Dylan or herself.
“Hey, at least this is just like your ski resort fantasy,” Dylan said. “Just, you know…without the skiing…and hopefully the implied cannibalism…”
Kaitlyn couldn't see his face but she could imagine the stupid smirk he probably had.
“You're such an idiot.”
“I’m not the one with the weird cannibalism fantasy.”
They were both trembling so bad that Kaitlyn was worried her hold on him would slip. Her arms could barely wrap around his wide shoulders and it wasn't helped by the stiffness in her limbs.
“At least we have something to snack on if we get hungry,” Dylan joked, nodding towards something behind her, and Kaitlyn turned to see what he was referring to.
On a shelf above them there was at least three jars of pickles, frozen just like everything else around them, and Kaitlyn’s mind briefly short circuited as she tried to comprehend why the fuck there were pickles in the fucking freezer . Why, Nick? Just…why?
“I’m just going to ignore the fact that those exist because I really do not have the mental capacity to deal with that right now.”
She turned around and buried her head back into his collar. He smelt like shit, from the sweat of running for their lives all night to the dried blood of various sources crusted in his shirt. She knew she didn't smell much better.
The exhaustion of the night was creeping up on her, along with the cold burning into her fingers and toes. She was thankful for the long sleeves she was wearing, even if the extra protection they gave was minimal.
Dylan’s teeth were chattering near her ear, his cold nose pressing into her neck. Her own nose was growing numb and her snot was starting to form annoying crystals in her nostrils. The muscles she could still feel in her body ached from all the shivering she had been doing.
“Hey, let’s switch our arms around,” Dylan suddenly said. He started pulling his limbs out from between them, but Kaitlyn squeezed her elbows down to stop him.
“But your arms are going to get cold,” he protested, wiggling in her hold.
“My arms will be fine,” she bit back. “Now stop moving so much! If you fall over I don't think I'll be able to pick your tall ass up off the floor.”
“Have you tried not being so short?”
“I will knee you in the dick, motherfucker.”
“You sure you can reach?”
“Don’t fucking test me.”
He gave a half-hearted snicker and they both fell silent. Kaitlyn tried not to think about how each breath of cold air she took burned her lungs and how the bite of frost was moving further along her numb limbs.
God, this fucking sucked. This whole situation was like the cumulation of all her mistakes this night coming and slapping her in the face. She should’ve stopped the door from latching. She shouldn’t have followed Dylan into the kitchen. She should have stood her ground and used the fucking gun she had, or she should have checked what the hell Emma and Abi were shouting about.
She shouldn’t have told Jacob how to sabotage the van. Both she and Dylan were going to die, and it was all her fault.
More than anything, Kaitlyn wished Dylan could have gotten through this night alive. If anyone was going to die, it should have been her. They were her own mistakes, and she should be the one to pay for them.
But another part of her, a selfish part, was glad that Dylan was here with her. As much guilt as she harbored, she was glad she wasn’t going to die alone.
…Goddammit, she shouldn’t be thinking like that. They weren’t dead yet. There was still hope for a rescue, no matter how slim, and she had to hold onto that.
Coming back to herself and her surroundings, Kaitlyn noticed that Dylan had been quiet for too long. He was leaning heavily against her, and she panicked for a moment before she realized that she could still feel his breath on her neck and the shivering twitches of his torso as he fought to keep himself upright.
Still, she couldn’t let him nod off, so she gave his back a good smack. He immediately jumped at the contact.
“ Owwwwwww! Kaitlyn, what the hell?!”
“Don't fall asleep on me.”
“Jesus, I'm not dead yet. I'm just, you know… chilling .”
“I barely even hit you, stop whining. And chilling? Really? That's the best you could come up with?”
“Well, I'm sorry that coming up with jokes when I'm suffering from blood loss and hypothermia is difficult. You should be giving me some slack. Like, come on, Kaitlyn. I can't even get a pity laugh out of you? That's just cold .”
Kaitlyn closed her eyes and let out a long breath through her nose in a bid to not strangle him. They were literally freezing to death, yet Dylan was still managing to crack stupid jokes. She hated him so much.
There was no one else in the world she'd rather spend her last few hours with.
“I think you just don't appreciate my comedic genius,” Dylan continued.
“I think I'm gonna shove those pickles up your ass if you don't fucking shut up.”
He scoffed, as if offended. “Kaitlyn, you know I'm a romantic at heart. At least take me out to dinner before you start shoving things up my ass.”
He went quiet again, and Kaitlyn noticed that he was still leaning heavily against her. At this rate he would knock them both over with his stupid tall frame if he couldn’t hold himself up.
Summoning what strength she had left, Kaitlyn forced herself to stand.
“Come on, get up,” she grunted, pulling at Dylan. It took several tries, and both of them nearly fell over, but Dylan was able to shakily get to his legs just long enough for Kaitlyn to pull the crate closer to the shelves before Dylan nearly collapsed back into his sitting position and Kaitlyn hugged him to her once more.
Just that small move took nearly all her strength and left her even more exhausted, but now if it got to the point that Dylan couldn’t hold himself up at all (which she knew was coming soon), she would be able to lean back against the shelves to keep them both upright.
Kaitlyn pressed her face into Dylan’s still-warm neck, fighting with herself to avoid giving in to the temptation to just close her eyes and drift off. He leaned into her in a similar fashion, resting his head on her shoulder and cheek against her own neck. Belatedly, she realized that Dylan had stopped shivering as much as before.
“...Hey Kaitlyn?” He suddenly asked, his voice vibrating against her neck with how close they were to each other.
“Yeah?”
“You know that, that scene in The Empire Strikes Back ? The one on Hoth with Luke and Han? Where they’re caught in the, uh, the snow storm and their weird lizard-goat thing dies…Tauntaun, it’s a tauntaun…and then Han cuts it open and pulls Luke inside its warm body to keep him alive? That scene?”
“Dylan…what the fuck are you talking about?” Kaitlyn didn’t like where this was going.
“I'm just saying…I don't think I'm gonna make it…so, like, make sure that you do…you know?”
It took a moment for his words to sink in, but when they did rage filled her.
“ Shut up ,” she hissed through her chattering teeth, stiff fingers clawing at his back. He grunted as her nails dug in, probably leaving bruises, but she didn't care. “Just shut up! You're going to be fine. We're going to be fine. We'll get out of here and get you to a hospital. And then you and Ryan can finally go on a stupid date and I can stop having to watch you two idiots dance around each other all the fucking time.”
She blinked at the pressure behind her eyes as she felt him smile into her neck. She was lying, and she knew that he knew she was lying.
“...Yeah, that'll be…that’ll be nice…” he replied, still willing to go along with her, and Kaitlyn had to fight back the urge to sob.
It took every bit of willpower that Kaitlyn had to reel herself in. There would be time to break down later. Right now, Dylan needed her.
She would never admit that she needed him just as much.
“You think Ryan’s okay?” Dylan asked, similar in fashion to what he had asked her earlier that night. Whether it was because he had forgotten he had already asked or he just needed some more assurances, Kaitlyn was willing to indulge him.
“Yeah, bud. I’m sure Ryan’s doing fine. He’s smart, he’ll be okay.”
She hoped she was right and Ryan was safe, even if she and Dylan weren't. And not just Ryan, but the others as well. The wolf that had been chasing them had fucked off in search of another meal when it couldn’t find her or Dylan, and she hoped it hadn’t found Emma and Abi in the office. Nick was more than likely still running around the woods as a fleshy, blood-covered, Nosferatu-looking knockoff, so he was fine.
The one Kaitlyn was most worried about (besides present company) was Jacob. They hadn’t seen the idiot since he ran off to find Emma, and there was no telling what kind of trouble he had run into.
Kaitlyn just had to trust and believe that the others would make it to sunrise.
She had no idea how much time had passed since she and Dylan had gotten trapped here. An hour? Two hours? Time had no meaning. Every second was agony and stretched for an eternity, but time was also passing too quickly. All Kaitlyn knew was that she was tired, and colder than she had ever been in her life. The parts of her body that weren’t pressed up against Dylan were stiff and numb, including her back and nearly everything below her waist. Ice crystals had grown on her eyelashes and no amount of blinking could shake them loose.
Dylan suddenly pulled his head away from her, looking to the door. Then, to her confusion, he started pulling away from her.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“There’s, there’s people,” he said.
“...What?”
“There’s people. At the door,” he repeated and tried to pull away from her again.
Kaitlyn reluctantly lifted her head and looked to the door, trying to hear what he was talking about.
She could see and hear nothing, only the sound of the freezer’s fans and Dylan’s and her own ragged breaths.
“Dylan…nobody’s there.”
“No, no…there’s people there…” he insisted, but his words were slurred. Kaitlyn looked up at his face and noticed the unfocused look in his eyes and the blue tinge to his lips. It was then she realized that he had stopped shivering.
…Fuck.
“Dylan, there’s no one there, put your head back down, okay?” she said, trying to get him to listen through his hypothermic haze of confusion.
He mumbled something she couldn’t understand, even with their close proximity, and then to her horror, he slipped his arms free from her weakening grip and started tugging his shirt up.
“Dylan, what the fuck?! Stop that!” She let go of him in order to grab his arms and stop him from stripping. Both of their limbs were uncoordinated, but Kaitlyn had the advantage of having more than one hand.
“Keep! Your fucking! Clothes on!” she growled, getting him to release his grip on his shirt and then pulling the cloth back down.
“But it’s hot !” Dylan whined, pawing at her arms weakly. She grabbed both his forearms, somehow getting her fingers to cooperate.
“I know, I know, but just trust me, okay?” Kaitlyn begged him, tugging his arms back to his front. He blinked, eyes still clouded over in a haze of confusion, but he let her pull him towards her and with some coaxing laid his head back on her shoulder.
“Okay,” he mumbled. “I trust you.”
Kaitlyn pulled him further against herself to keep from crying.
“Just stay with me, Dylan, okay? Just stay with me.”
She was tired. She was so, so tired. Dylan was no longer holding himself up on his own, fully leaning against Kaitlyn, and her back was pressed against the cold metal of the shelves to keep them both upright. Talking was a struggle, but she called Dylan’s name what felt like every few minutes, just to hear him give a “Yeah?” or a grunt back. A haze was filling her own mind, and it was getting harder to focus. Still, she dutifully called his name.
“Dylan?”
…There was no response.
“Dylan!”
Still no response. She weakly whacked his back, but he didn’t move.
No no no! Goddammit she wasn't ready, she wasn't ready! (She would never be ready.)
Kaitlyn brought her hand up to his neck, panickingly trying to find a pulse, but her fingers were too numb to feel anything. Her limbs shook as she manipulated his heavy torso enough for her to put an ear to his chest. She waited a beat…
There!
It was faint, and so very weak, but she could hear Dylan's heart as it continued to pump blood through his body. It was agonizingly slow, and coupled with the shallowness of his breaths, she knew he was down to his last minutes.
But he was still alive, and she would hold on to him until death came for her as well.
…Just keep him alive for one more minute, just keep him alive for one more minute, one more minute, one more minute, God please , one more minute…
It was a constant chant in her mind, even as she felt herself slipping. Her own timer was running out. She didn’t know when she had stopped shivering.
She could hear voices outside the freezer door, but she knew they weren't real. She cursed their environment for inflicting false hope into her, mocking her even as it stole her best friend and her own life away.
Kaitlyn couldn't hear Dylan's heartbeat anymore, but she didn't know if that was because it had finally stopped or if it was because she had reached her own end.
The pull of sleep that had been steadily growing stronger over time was dragging her into unconsciousness, and she no longer had the strength to push it off.
Surprisingly, she felt pleasantly warm. It was almost peaceful, not what she was expecting from dying in a frozen hell.
Her eyes slipped shut against her will.
But then suddenly there was light, and it was too bright. Dark shapes moved around them and the voices grew louder but Kaitlyn's disoriented mind couldn't make them out. Hands landed on her shoulders, her arms, and they burned . They pulled at her, tearing her away from Dylan and she tried to thrash free. They wouldn't take him away from her, they wouldn't !
But Kaitlyn was too weak, her limbs refusing to obey her commands, and the scorching grip of the people around her succeeded in ripping Dylan free from her grasp. No no no no no no no! She might have been screaming, she couldn't tell. The darkness that had been creeping along her vision surrounded her in its fog, and she couldn't fight it any longer.
Her world went black, and she fell still.
When full consciousness returned to her, the first thing Kaitlyn noticed was that she was warm. For a moment she couldn’t figure out why that was strange to her. Then she picked up the scent of hospital antiseptic, and the memories of what she had been through came rushing back.
Kaitlyn’s eyes groggily opened to a bland white hospital room, the glare of the lights almost blinding. Her fingers were wrapped in gauze, a thick blanket was covering her frame, and an IV was snaking from her wrist. The room was empty save for the constant beep of a heart monitor next to her.
She had no idea where Dylan was.
Kaitlyn knew better than to rip an IV out, so she quickly located the remote for the hospital bed, found which of her fingers hurt the least, and used it to spam the ‘Call Nurse’ button impatiently.
The door to her room opened and a woman in scrubs looked in. “Oh! You’re awake! Let me go get your doctor.” And then left before Kaitlyn could get a word in.
Letting out a frustrated growl, she went back to spamming the call button.Thankfully it wasn’t long until the door opened again with the nurse and another man.
“Miss Ka, good to see you awake. I’m sure you have lots of questions, so…”
“Where’s Dylan?” Kaitlyn cut the man off. “Last name Lenivy,” she added after a few seconds. That was probably important info for them to know.
“The boy you were with? We’ll get to him in a moment. Let’s talk about your treatment first.”
“No. I need to know where Dylan is ,” she said, her frustration growing. Her treatment could fucking wait until she knew Dylan was okay.
The man opened his mouth, probably to say something that wasn’t answering Kaitlyn’s question. Then the door opened a third time and, thank god , Ryan walked in.
Kaitlyn quickly zeroed in on him, ignoring the other two in the room. He looked exhausted but otherwise no worse for wear, especially since he was wearing clean clothes and was no longer covered in the blood of their friends.
“Ryan, where’s Dylan?” she asked, glad to see her friend alive but not wasting any time with pleasantries.
“He’s – they have him in the ICU,” Ryan replied, and the band of anxiety that had been squeezing her chest finally loosened. Dylan in the ICU was less than ideal, but it meant that he was alive, and that was all that mattered to Kaitlyn at that moment.
“Dude, I was only gone for ten minutes and you’ve already got half this floor annoyed with you.”
Well it was a good thing that Kaitlyn didn’t give a shit.
Still, she dutifully listened to the doctor list off her ailments (exhaustion, frostbitten fingers and toes, and heavy bruising from the fall in the scrapyard, which frankly she had forgotten all about) and her care plan, though she argued about staying for another night of observation. Ryan argued against her argument and eventually all parties reached a compromise for her to stay a few more hours.
When the doctor and nurse finally, finally left, Kaitlyn immediately grilled Ryan on the status of the others and what the hell had happened after he left with Laura. He assured her that the others had made it, mostly with minimal injuries with the exception of Jacob. Her childhood friend had to have surgery on his ankle due to the damage from the beartrap (dammit, she shouldn’t have let that dumbass go off on his own; she knew he was banking on a football scholarship for college, but she didn't know what he was going to do now). After that he filled her in on what she had missed.
And holy fuck, she felt for the poor guy. She thought her and Dylan’s night had been pretty bad, but Ryan had been stabbed, then forced to accept the werewolf infection from Laura so he didn’t bleed to death, then had to kill their former boss to save himself and the others, only to learn that Chris wasn’t the first and they had to hunt down and kill a child. Yeah that was definitely up there on the top ten list of absolute shittiest ways to end your summer.
After they had killed Silas, Travis had taken both Laura and Ryan back to the lodge, where Ryan had found Emma and Abi locked in the office. The two had apparently been watching Kaitlyn and Dylan on the security feed from the cameras and were able to point Ryan in the direction of the kitchen where they had last seen them go.
It was Ryan who had found Kaitlyn and Dylan huddled together in the freezer and on the verge of death. The police and paramedics, having arrived far later than they should have, came just in time to help get the two of them out and loaded into ambulances.
Dylan was immediately rushed to surgery for his arm as soon as they had gotten his core temperature high enough. Kaitlyn had spent the last 24 hours in and out of consciousness as they worked to raise her temp.
They weren't letting Ryan visit Dylan since he wasn't immediate family, but were more lax with him visiting Kaitlyn since she wasn't in the ICU. Ryan had spent most of his time (that wasn't at the police station or the hotel the police were having them stay at while their investigation was ongoing) in Kaitlyn's room, occasionally trying to get information on Dylan's status from the doctors and nurses.
Eventually the doctor came back in, but he refused to sign for Kaitlyn’s release. Naturally, Kaitlyn did not agree with this, so when he left she bullied Ryan into getting her some clothes while she unhooked the tubing from her IV site. They managed to sneak out of her room and past the staff, but got caught near the ICU.
The doctor was less than pleased with Kaitlyn, insisting she stay overnight for observation, and then had the staff install a bed alarm to keep her from leaving. And Kaitlyn fucking hated it. The damn thing went off every time she got up to pee, and she would exit the bathroom after innocently doing her business and be faced with the disappointed looks of one of the nurses.
Despite her worry over Dylan and her annoyance over being put on the hospital version of house arrest, Kaitlyn did manage to fall asleep that night. She dreamt of guns and cold, of wolves and frozen corpses and an inescapable prison. Kaitlyn woke up to a pounding heart and a dark room. When a nurse responded to her bed alarm, she threatened them to keep the lights Kaitlyn had turned on alone (maybe it was the wild look in her eyes, or maybe they just took pity on her, but the nurse left her be). Sleep was a little easier after that.
Morning took its sweet ass time to arrive, and so did Kaitlyn’s doctor. She was ready to try her luck on escaping again when he finally came and signed for her release. She wasted no time in marching down to the ICU, finding Ryan, and then demanding information on Dylan from the available staff. She was not successful in obtaining that info, but she was successful in getting a good number of nurses on the ICU floor pissed off at her as well.
Kaitlyn took a brief break from prowling the waiting room at the ICU (Ryan begged her to just sit down so that security wouldn't throw them out) to find out where Jacob’s hospital room was and check up on him. The poor idiot had his foot in a cast and was going to have to use crutches for the next several months, and the chances of him gaining full range of motion for that foot again were very slim. But otherwise he was fine, and seeing her childhood friend okay helped to loosen the heavy chain of anxiety gripping her mind.
Her quest for answers was cut short when the police arrived to get her statement. From what Ryan had told her, the police had initially suspected the counselors as murder suspects after finding six dead bodies on Hackett land (seven if Jacob’s story of a body in the lake was true). Fortunately, the evidence they collected, plus the fact that Caleb came forward and ‘confessed’ to having caused everything, had the police retracting their suspicion. As far as the police were concerned, the counselors were victims of an unprovoked attack from the Hacketts and an ‘unidentified wild animal’ roaming the woods.
The police let Kaitlyn go after asking a few questions about the ‘bear’ that had attacked them (she had to force herself to keep a straight face when they first said the word ‘bear’; if only they knew what had really happened). By the time she was free it was late afternoon, and her traitorous body, annoyingly still not fully recovered from almost dying of hypothermia, decided she had done enough for the day. A back and forth series of texts from a new number on her phone had her agreeing to retire to the hotel, but only after Ryan had promised he would call or text her if he heard anything about Dylan.
The next day she woke several hours later than she wanted to with no new information on Dylan’s condition (no news was good news, right? It meant Dylan was still alive, still fighting). When Kaitlyn got to the hospital, the staff were still refusing to let her or Ryan see Dylan, but they weren’t left to wait for long before a nurse came directing a middle-aged woman Ryan and Kaitlyn’s way.
“Are you the two claiming to be Dylan’s friends?” the woman asked when she approached.
“Yeah. We worked with him up at the summer camp,” Kaitlyn replied, mentally gearing up for a fight. If this lady tried to keep them from seeing Dylan, she swore to god …
“I'm Jen Lenivy, his mother.”
Oh. It was probably not a good idea to get in a fight with Dylan's mom, so Kaitlyn mentally shoved her FIGHT instinct back down.
Looking closely she could see the resemblance between mother and son. Both had the same eye and brow shape and the same brown hair, though Jen was significantly shorter than her son.
“I'm Kaitlyn, and that's Ryan.” She jerked a thumb Ryan's way and he awkwardly gave a small wave with an equally small “hello”.
Jen gave them a sad smile and Kaitlyn noticed she had the same dimples as Dylan. She looked as exhausted as Kaitlyn felt and her eyes bore the signs of her having cried recently.
“I'm glad he has friends who are willing to wait in the hospital for him. He –,” she paused briefly, her eyes shiny with wetness. “Would you like to see him?”
“ Yes! ” Kaitlyn immediately exclaimed at the same time Ryan gave an earnest “ Please! ” They shared a quick look with each other before Ryan cleared his throat.
“Uh, yeah, we would very much like to see him. The doctors, um, they haven't told us anything about his condition.”
“Come with me, I'll bring you to his room.”
They followed Jen down a hallway until she stopped and briefly chatted with one of the hospital staff. The man she talked to introduced himself as one of Dylan's doctors and gave Kaitlyn and Ryan a rundown of Dylan's condition and what to expect when they saw him. It wasn't encouraging.
They were asked to don masks and wash their hands before visiting and only two visitors were allowed in the room at any time. Ryan went in first, but Jen pulled Kaitlyn aside before she could enter and Kaitlyn had to force herself not to snap at the woman.
She was so close to seeing Dylan, and every second she was kept from him was like chewing glass. But Kaitlyn's impatience and frayed nerves were not Jen's fault and it wouldn't be fair for Kaitlyn to take it out on the poor woman. Not to mention the fact that she held the power to keep Kaitlyn from seeing Dylan at all. She clamped down on her irritation so that she could listen to what Jen had to say.
“I'm sorry, I know you're anxious to see him, but I wanted to talk with you first,” Jen said. “They told me what you did for him, for Dylan…where you two were found. The doctors said he wouldn't have made it if you hadn't been there with him. So thank you, for saving my son's life.”
Kaitlyn's stomach clenched with guilt. She didn't deserve to be thanked. Dylan wouldn't be in his condition if it hadn't been for her, and she wouldn't be alive if it hadn't been for him.
“Thanks, but uh…” Kaitlyn had to swallow past the lump in her throat. “He saved my life…so many times that night. I should be the one thanking him.”
“It sounds like we both will have a lot to say to him when he wakes up.” Jen smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
“Yeah, when he wakes up,” Kaitlyn firmly agreed and the smile on Jen's face got a little more real.
Jen let her go in after that and Kaitlyn finally entered Dylan's room. The doctor had warned them of what they could expect given Dylan's condition, but it still wasn't enough to prepare Kaitlyn.
She had always wondered why people always described their loved ones in the hospital as seeming small, but now Kaitlyn thought she understood.
It wasn't that he looked small , per se, but all the wires and tubing connected to him, the way he lay motionless and pale in the bed, his skin blotchy with fever, he looked like a poor imitation of her best friend.
Ryan had taken a seat beside the bed, his face expressionless as he stared at the extensively bandaged stump that was once Dylan's arm. For a moment there was only the sound of the heart monitor and steady hiss and click of the ventilator. It wasn't right. Dylan should have been making some stupid joke to fill the silence in that moment. Without it the room felt empty and cold.
Kaitlyn stood near the doorway for several long seconds before grabbing another chair and taking a seat on Dylan's unoccupied side. She couldn’t keep track of how many IV sites he had, the tubing leading to a forest of bags around him. She knew at least one of them contained a strong dose of antibiotics to fight his sepsis. His left arm had more than three-fourths of the forearm removed during his surgery, the tissue having been gangrenous and necrotic. The removal had been necessary to give him a fighting chance.
Even with the surgery, ventilator, and antibiotics, the doctor had given them no guarantee that Dylan would make it. But Dylan was alive right now, and that was all that mattered in the moment.
His face was heavily obscured by the tape holding the ventilator in place and his stillness reminded Kaitlyn of a corpse. She reached out to take Dylan's remaining hand in her own, just to feel his warmth, to reassure herself that he was still there.
“You better fucking make it, shitdick, you hear me? I swear I will drag you back from whatever afterlife gets stuck with you. You're not allowed to die on me.”
She squeezed his hand, hoping that he could hear her in the drug-induced coma he was currently in.
Kaitlyn and Ryan weren't able to stay long. A nurse came in warning them that they would need to leave the room so the team could care for Dylan, but was nice enough to allow them a few more minutes before they had to vacate.
Kaitlyn gave Dylan's hand another squeeze, promising him that they would be back soon. She waited at the door for Ryan, who had taken Dylan's hand in his own and leaned close to say something to the unconscious boy. It was too low for Kaitlyn to make out, but she figured whatever was said was not for her to hear anyways.
As soon as they left Dylan’s room and got back to the visitor’s area, Ryan collapsed into one of the chairs and buried his head in his hands. Kaitlyn was strongly considering doing the same.
“Fuck!” Ryan hissed, his voice quiet in order to not disturb the other patrons around them.
Kaitlyn drew in and let out a long slow breath to gather herself.
“You can say that again,” she mumbled.
“ Fuck! ”
And Kaitlyn couldn't help herself, she snorted. But thankfully it seemed that Ryan had not heard her. She fidgeted in her seat, forcing down the urge to start pacing again.
Despite having finally seen Dylan, the agitated energy inside her was still clawing to get out, to do something . But there was nothing she could do.
“This is all my fault,” Ryan suddenly said, pulling Kaitlyn away from her thoughts of restlessness and giving her something to focus on.
“What's all your fault?”
“Dylan's condition,” he replied, turning to look at her, and she was surprised to see the sheer despair in his eyes. “If I hadn't…done what I did, he wouldn't be in this situation.”
“You don't know what would have happened…”
“It would have been better than this!” Ryan snapped, cutting her off. “ I did that to him. He’s in the hospital because of me. He might die because of…”
“Shut up!” She hissed, and Ryan immediately shut his mouth. “Don't fucking say that! He's not gonna die!”
Kaitlyn closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, willing herself not to completely fucking lose it in a hospital waiting room.
“Look,” she said once she thought she had gotten enough of a handle on the pressurized storm of emotions inside her. Well, enough of a hold that she wasn't at immediate risk of exploding. “This isn't your fault, Ryan. You need to stop blaming yourself.”
Kaitlyn was aware that she was being hypocritical, but whatever, she'd deal with that later.
“Hell, if you're gonna blame someone blame me,” she continued before he could open his mouth and continue his guilt tirade. “I'm the one that pulled him into the freezer, let him get so hypothermic that his body didn’t have a chance to fight off sepsis.”
Ryan lifted his head from his hands, frowning. “You saved his life by doing that…”
“And you could have saved his life by hacking off his hand,” she interjected. “We don’t know what would have happened otherwise.”
More than likely he would have turned, and there had been more than one person running around with silver bullets that night. Any one of them could have been used on Dylan. Hell, if she had made a few different choices she would have had some silver. And if wolf Dylan had been there…
Kaitlyn shook those thoughts from her mind. They were going to need so much therapy, weren't they?
“I…I guess,” Ryan said, running his hand through his hair. “It's just… fuck !”
“Hey, have a little bit more faith in him,” Kaitlyn said, bumping his shoulder with her own. “The dude saved my life by using a crane to drop a car on a werewolf, all with one hand. Dylan's tough, he'll make it.”
She wouldn’t let herself believe otherwise.
Kaitlyn decided very early on that she despised hospital waiting rooms.
She hated the drab colors of all the furniture. She hated the TV that played nothing but shitty house-flipping shows and dateline dramas. She hated the hospital-provided coffee that tasted like burnt rubber and was more sludge than liquid.
Most of all, she hated the waiting. It was like being back in the freezer again, but somehow so much worse. At least then she had something she was able to do. Keep Dylan warm, keep him alive. But here she could do nothing, nothing but wait and see, and the inability to do anything was agonizing. She didn't know how to deal with feeling this helpless.
The hospital was very strict about their two visitor policy, so Kaitlyn traded off with Ryan and Jen on who got to be in Dylan's room. There was always at least one person with him during visiting hours, just in case anything changed in his condition, whether it was for better or for worse.
When not with Dylan, Kaitlyn tried to keep herself busy with other tasks instead of driving herself insane in the shitty waiting room. She checked up on the other counselors to see how they were doing, especially Jacob, who had been released from the hospital and was now recovering at the same hotel everyone else was stuck in. But often her hotel room felt too small, too confining, so she would wander the area until it was her turn to visit Dylan again.
Being in Dylan's room wasn't much better, though it did lessen the anxiety that came from not knowing if something had happened with his condition. But seeing him lie there, still and silent, the only movement coming from the rise and fall of his chest as the ventilator pumped air into his lungs, left a deep ache in Kaitlyn that she couldn't get rid of.
It hurt to see him like that, and it hurt to know that Kaitlyn was partially responsible for putting him in his condition. No matter what she told Ryan about not blaming himself, she couldn't stop her own guilt that came from knowing Dylan would have had a better chance at survival had she not let that fucking freezer latch close on them.
She tried not to think about it, and she tried not to think about how Dylan's last intelligible words to her had been ‘I trust you’.
It felt like she had failed him.
As far as she could tell, Ryan wasn't doing much better. The bags under his eyes told her that he was getting about as much sleep as she was, which, taking into account the worry over Dylan and the nightmares from the incredibly traumatic experience they had just lived through, wasn't a whole heck of a lot.
Ryan opted to spend his free time at the hospital for as long as visiting hours were open. When it wasn't his turn to visit Dylan, he would wait in the waiting room until it was. More than once, Kaitlyn had left Dylan's room to find Ryan asleep in one of the shitty waiting room chairs, earbuds in to drown out the noise.
This didn't sit well with Jen, who seemed to have made it her own personal mission to make sure that both Kaitlyn and Ryan were properly taking care of themselves. After that first day when it became clear that they would be visiting often, Jen brought them breakfast from a local bakery and even stopped by a coffee shop to get them something to drink so they weren't stuck with only the hospital's sludge coffee.
Kaitlyn figured it was Jen's way of dealing with the situation. It was kind of nice in a way, since Kaitlyn's own family was not able to visit her at the moment. She'd only been able to speak with her mom over the phone, getting a promise that they would come as soon as they could.
Her rotating vigil by Dylan's side with Ryan and Jen continued for the next three days, occasionally interrupted when one of the other counselors came to visit. Three agonizingly long days passed with no change in Dylan's condition. And then finally, finally , on the fourth day the doctors greeted them with a smile. Kaitlyn didn't understand whatever medical bullshit the doctors spouted, all she cared about were the words “he's showing improvement”.
The hardened knot of worry and fear and helplessness started to loosen, and on the fifth day, when they took him off the vent, it finally unwound. Kaitlyn went back to her hotel room after seeing Dylan without all the tape and tubing attached to his face and finally cried. It was funny, that this was what pushed her over the edge. But the news that Dylan was gonna be okay was what finally got her to let go.
For the first time since she had woken up in the hospital and saw him in the ICU, he looked like himself. Still sick, still pale and feverish, but no longer like a corpse.
The hospital moved him out of the ICU and into a normal room. Only Jen was there when he woke up for the first time and both Kaitlyn and Ryan were pissed that they missed it. But from what Jen said, he wasn't awake long, and it would be a bit before he was fully conscious. Kaitlyn wanted to stay in the hospital overnight, but there were only two recliners. She wasn't going to try and force Jen away from her son's side and Ryan won the rock paper scissors game to see which one of them would get the other chair (fucker).
On the morning of the seventh day, Kaitlyn woke up to a text sent from Ryan a few hours earlier.
Ryan: He's awake.
In her haste to get out the door, Kaitlyn nearly forgot to put on a bra. She made it to the hospital in record time, walking through the hallways as fast as she thought she could get away with. She only slowed down once she approached Dylan's room.
Jen was gone for the moment, the only two occupants being Ryan and Dylan. Ryan had a chair pulled up to Dylan's right side and was leaning forward on the bed, head resting on his left arm. Dylan had his face turned towards him, his remaining hand intertwined with Ryan's. Both were asleep.
Disappointed at the lack of consciousness from her friends, Kaitlyn took a seat in one of the other chairs and waited. Thankfully she didn't have to wait long.
Less than 15 minutes later Dylan started stirring. The movement immediately alerted Ryan, and he raised his head, blinking the sleep from his eyes. Dylan came to awareness much slower, his movements sluggish. Neither one let go of the other's hand.
Then Dylan noticed her, blinking a few times before his signature goofy grin appeared. Dumbass was probably on all the good pain drugs.
“Who let the hobbit in?” His voice was sleepy and weak, but clear, and it made Kaitlyn want to cry again hearing it for the first time since the freezer.
She flipped him off. “Wow, I help save your life and this is the thanks I get.” But she couldn't keep the smile from forming on her face.
“Alright, move over, fucknuts. You can shove your dicks down each other's throats later,” she said while making her way to the bed, earning a snort from Dylan and a choked sound from Ryan.
Ryan moved out of her way, which was good on his part. Kaitlyn was on a mission and she wasn't afraid of climbing over Ryan to get to her destination.
Dylan made a surprised and indignant noise as she started to crawl into the bed with him.
“How can someone who's like, three apples tall take up so much room?”
Despite his comment, Dylan didn't fight her as she climbed into the bed, lifting his good arm to accept her. She wedged herself into the open space on his right side, mindful of his injury and the tubing still connected to him, and then settled with her head directly on his chest.
The strong, steady thumping of his heart greeted her, a far cry from how weak it had been the last she heard it from this close. Dylan's arm came to rest over her shoulders, giving her a squeeze, and she closed her eyes just to focus on the warmth of his body and the sound of his heart and lungs.
Kaitlyn would tease Dylan more about him and Ryan later. Right now she was content in knowing that they were safe, that they were alive .
They had made it.