Warning: Critically low body temperature detected. 92.0º F. Transmitting emergency beacon. Frequency unavailable. Emergency beacon not sent. Automatic retry in twenty seconds.

He had to get up. He had to. With strength he didn’t feel like he had, he uncurled slowly, even though his legs were so numb, they felt like they weren’t even there. Standing took so much effort it was like heaving up a ton of granite. He forced the legs he couldn’t feel to move, to jog in place, but it was like moving through a swamp. Everything was dragging, and even his brain was sluggish. He couldn’t feel his face.

The window.

The window. That rock could break the window. He had to get there. It was his only chance.

He lifted his legs and set them down, drawing step by step toward the window. Each minute felt like a year. Several times, he found himself on the ground, fighting for air. He saw that the door had popped open again to spill light onto the snow. Just to taunt him. Just to offer safety and slam shut again. He kept going. He wasn’t going to fall for it.

Then he reached the window and lowered himself clumsily, pawing at the snow, trying to extract that rock from the frost. But it was too late. His fingers weren’t closing. His hands couldn’t grip, they couldn’t hold. He only knew where they were by looking at them. Horrible fear stabbed him, sharp and acrid, as he realized his body wasn’t working anymore.

Tom turned that thought around in his mind, his pulse thready in his ears, because even during the simulated deaths in the training room, it had never sunk in that he could really die. That someone like Joseph Vengerov could come along and simply end him. That he could get so cold, his body would actually stop moving for him. That every shred of will he had couldn’t force his fists to clench. That his life or death could hinge on something so small as his fingers.

He lurched to the window. His blood beat in his head. A strange, unnatural heat began to well up within him as he planned a kick. One good, hard kick. He could do this. He had to do this. It didn’t matter now if he broke every bone in his leg. He’d die if he didn’t get through that window.