Hours had passed.
The panic had dwindled.
No, Joe wasn’t going to die. Not like this. Not here. And not tonight.
Under the blanket, Joe shivered, listening to the silence of Linhart’s cold entrails. The dawn was coming, he knew it, though there would be no light. He felt it like a blind man feels a change of season. What was pulling him through? He thought he’d heard Dubois’s voice before, yes, right above him, screaming his name. But it couldn’t be real, because they had Dubois locked up somewhere in the Icebox, taking turns on him, hurting him, warming their sick bodies to his fire. But it didn’t matter what they did to him, because Joe held him now, inside his hand. He could feel Dubois’s heat there in his palm.
Dubois had forsaken his spirit to him. And so he was its keeper.
When
