"Ruby? Ruby? Wake up."

Her teeth chattering had woken me from my own frozen sleep. I leaned forward and could no longer make out the shapes of the dark trees ahead of us.

The snow had covered the windshield so thickly I could no longer see anything at all.

While we slept we were slowly getting buried.

My mouth felt like a sock had been stuffed in it and a headache was starting behind my eyes, traces of the whiskey still leaving my system. We'd been in here too long, why had no one come to pull us out? "Ruby, baby, I know it's hard but you have got to wake up, okay?"

She mumbled awake, setting her teeth to chattering at once. "Jesus," she shivered.

"I know."

"How long have we been here?"

"It's still night. I think. I don't know."

"It looks dark."

"I think that's because there's so much snow on the windshield."

I tried to keep my voice light, like 'oh look at that' but Ruby immediately caught the danger in my words. "We're getting buried and no one has found us yet? They won't be able to see us, Jonah, how can they find us...?"

"Okay." The fear was clearing my head, but it still felt like my brain was moving slowly, thoughts stuck in the thick sludge of cold. That was bad, I knew it. "Okay, baby?" I wished I could kiss the cold out of her cheeks. But it was only getting colder. I took a deep breath. "I need you to climb out, okay? We gotta start moving here."

"Jonah..."

"Ruby, we're going to be fine." I was decidedly not fine, but I didn't want her to know just how cloudy my brain was. "We just need to get out of here now and go back to the farmhouse with the blown down tree. We're not too far from it, right? Just have to stay on the road and we'll be there in no time."

She took a deep breath and then shoved her whole weight against the door again. I heard the scraping grind of the metal against the ground, the chuck of a rock glancing off. "Can you squeeze out now?"

"I can try." I could hear the panic in her voice and reached out to squeeze her hand. "I'm sorry," she said with a shuddering breath, pulling herself together. "I have claustrophobia really bad and I think it just occurred to me we're trapped here."

"We're not trapped, not at all, look, your door is open, right? You're just going to squeeze out there and then pull from the other end. I'm going to need you to help get my big ass out of here, okay?"

Asking for her help always did it. That's why I loved this girl. You told her you needed her and she was rock solid there for you. "Okay," she said, taking a wavering breath.

I heard the sound of fabric scraping and then the noise of her foot as she tried to find a place to stand. In the dark I reached out, putting a reassuring hand on her back. "If you need a push, I'm right here."

"Can you... not touch me?"

"Of course." Stupid me, she had just gotten done telling me she had claustrophobia. "You're doing great, Ruby."

"I'm almost out. Yes..." There was a scraping sound. "Ow!" she hissed.

"You okay?"

"Cut my leg. I'm okay."

But she sounded like she was in pain and for a second my rage was enough to surge me forward. "Can you step back baby? I'm coming out now."

I threw everything I had into squeezing through that door, ripping a hole right across the thigh of my designer jeans. I shook my head. Well I looked like a local now.

I blinked but the dark remained total. Out here, the wind was whipping around, stealing the last vestiges of warmth we'd held on to in the car. "Here," I said, shoving my hands blindly out. "Take my gloves."

"You need them, don't you?"

"I have pockets. Let's hurry."

I found Ethel's tire tracks almost by accident, and grabbed Ruby's arm. "Stay close, right here, with me okay? And I want you to keep talking."

"Talk about what?"

"Whatever you need to tell me.

I concentrated on staying in the track until suddenly the ground was solid under my boots and I knew we had hit the road. From the way we'd climbed, it suddenly made sense why no one had found us driving by. We would have been invisible. I heard a far off noise of an engine and froze, but no headlights pierced the darkness. The snow was falling steadily now, but no longer looked like a tornado of white. The worst was over.

"So Kayleigh is a little drama queen," Ruby was saying, babbling. "And she goes whining to her mother who's a kindergarten teacher too, saying that Brandon had shown her his butt when the poor kid's pants just fell down..."

I chuckled. "That's great baby." The tips of my fingers throbbed and I shoved them into my pockets, cursing myself for wearing a leather jacket instead of something warmer. Then I remembered that if I had my hands in my pockets I couldn't hold on to Ruby, so I reached out and grabbed her. "Here, we're just going to walk now, okay? Just a walk?"

Stumbling, blinded by the snow and wind, we walked, holding each other and I tried not to dwell on morbid thoughts like, "I'm really glad I told her I loved her before we died." "What if I made the wrong call? We should have stayed with the car?" "Are we going to die because I wanted to play for an audience again? Am I really the way that Gabe has always claimed I was?

My thoughts swirled like the snow. Ruby's babble had died away and I could hear her teeth chattering violently now. "Come closer," I told her, slinging my arm over her and pulling her close. The tip of my pinky was really starting to hurt now. "I see, I think I see a stop sign, right? That's the intersection, we're not too far baby."

Ruby mumbled something like she was trying to talk but her teeth were chattering too much. Blank fear took over my body. "Okay baby, I'm going to carry you now, ready?" She made no response, so I slung her into a fireman's carry and started to run, my heart pounding out of my chest. I was running blind past the stop sign, when I saw a fuzzy light, snow dancing viciously around it.

"Look baby. Look it's the house. We did it. You did it. Just hold on, not long now. Help!" I shouted. "Someone help!