Ryder

 

Ryder Wolfe scrambled to a sitting position. Looking around, he became instantly and acutely aware that he was in the middle of a blizzard. His head pounded hard, and taking a quick look at his body and moving his limbs slightly, he saw that he’d taken a hell of a beating.

 

He glanced up at the woman standing at his feet. Ryder couldn’t make out her face from the heavy coat hood pulled over her head and the scarf wrapped around her, but her ice-blue eyes were wide with surprise and fear. Ryder realized that she clearly hadn’t expected him to wake up like this.

 

Turning around where he sat, he spotted his bike lying on its side, the chrome facing the road skidded so badly that it made Ryder a little sick to his stomach just to look at it.

 

“Are you okay?” the woman finally managed to yell.

 

“Fine!” responded Ryder, shouting over the wind. “I think!”

 

But he knew that he wouldn’t really find out if he was fine or not until he got to his feet. With a heave, he pushed himself up off the ground. But he didn’t have the strength, and as soon as he attempted to put his muscles to work, he felt them call out in pain. Glancing down under his jacket, he spotted large splotches of blood on his shirt. And on top of everything, he felt as though he might slip out of consciousness again at any moment.

 

“We gotta get you out of here!” shouted the girl. “Can you walk?”

 

“I don’t know!” he called in response, now realizing it hurt even to talk—he felt like someone had taken a golf drive right to the side of his jaw.

 

He tried to heave himself up again, but this proved too much for his battered body to handle. He toppled over to his side, his body singing out in pain as he landed against the ground.

 

“Fuck!” he yelled.

 

“I can’t call an ambulance,” said the girl. “No reception!”

 

“No fuckin’ ambulance!” said Ryder. “Gotta get my bike and get the hell out of here!”

 

He knew how ridiculous his words as soon as they left his mouth, but he didn’t see what other option he had.

 

“No way!” called the girl. “You get on that bike in this and you’re good as dead! You get in my car; at least we can stay warm!”

 

Ryder felt his consciousness slipping away by the moment, his eyes going into tunnel vision as the snow swirled around the figure of the girl who stood before him, her outline illuminated by the headlights of her car.

 

Ryder hissed a “fuck” under his breath, realizing that he didn’t have any option other than to do what this girl said.

 

“I’m … gonna need some help getting up,” he said, feeling ashamed at his request.

 

Ryder wasn’t the sort of man who liked asking for help from even a trusted friend, let alone someone he’d just met. In his experience, asking for favors was an easy way to get into debts that you weren’t counting on. Better to handle whatever you could on your own.

 

But this wasn’t one of those times.

 

The girl nodded and squatted down, slipping her arm under Ryder’s back and helping him to his feet. Once standing, he realized that he’d been in worse shape than he thought—if this girl weren’t here to help him he knew that he’d have dropped like a sack of baseballs right back down onto his ass as soon as he tried to stand. He realized grimly that this meant he’d been one lucky break away from freezing to death out here on the side of some highway.

 

Ryder struggled to the car, the girl helping him along the way. Eventually, she pulled the back door to her sedan open and helped Ryder slide into the interior. The heat hit Ryder’s skin painfully at first, his nerves screaming back to life as the frostbite began to fade. Pain blasted through his body as he settled into the seat, but at least he was out of the cold. Looking out of the window, he watched the snow continue to fall on his bike. He made a silent promise to come back for the old girl, but all he could afford to think about now was getting himself back into one piece.

 

The girl hopped into the car moments later, the wind now nothing more than a moan.

 

“Oh my God,” said the girl, glancing over her shoulder at Ryder, her voice muffled through her scarf. “You look terrible!”

 

“Thanks,” said Ryder. “I hear getting your spirits back up is the first step towards a full recovery.”

 

The girl’s eyes went wide as she realized what she’d said. And Ryder couldn’t help but notice once again just how stunning the girl’s eyes were. They were as cool and frosty as the weather.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you really look like you took a hell of a tumble off your bike. What were you doing out here in a blizzard, anyway?”

 

“I could ask you the same thing,” said Ryder, coughing a little, the taste of blood a coppery tang in his mouth.

 

“I’m in a car,” she said. “You’re driving around exposed to the elements. And not even wearing a helmet!”

 

“Don’t need to hear it,” said Ryder through the fresh wave of pain that pulsed through him. “Don’t need the goddamn safety lecture right now.”

 

“Fine,” said the girl, clearly not expecting Ryder to bite back like that.

 

Outside, the snow died down just a bit. The wind lessened, and Ryder looked up to see that there were no longer whiteout conditions on the road.

 

“We need to shelter,” he said. “Being stuck out here on the road’s like signing our death warrants.”

 

The girl nodded, starting the engine and placing her hands back on the wheel. Ryder suddenly felt dizzy and realized that he was likely about to slip out of consciousness again.

 

“Oh, what’s your name?” asked the girl.

 

Ryder coughed again.

 

“Ryder Wolfe.”

 

“I’m Kara Winters,” she said, pulling down her scarf and revealing a face that was just about as beautiful as Ryder had ever seen.

 

Fitting name, he thought as black flowed over his eyes.