EMBER’S POV

The hot spring is exactly where the sign said it would be — a natural thermal pool set into a rocky clearing off the highway, steam rising from the surface into the frozen air, the water glowing faintly blue-green from the mineral content.

It’s deserted because it’s two in the morning and sane people are sleeping, and we are not sane people and have not been sane people for some time.

I strip off Knox’s jacket and the borrowed hospital scrubs and walk into the water in my underwear, and the sound I make when the heat hits my body is embarrassing and involuntary, and I don’t care....