He squinted at the window and swung his foot forward. His other leg buckled, the world flipped before his eyes, and he landed on the ground, hard. Icy snow shot up his nose, and he coughed weakly, his brain blurring. The snow was warm. Hot. Tom realized he was sweltering all over, like someone had lit him up from the inside. He wanted to tear off his tie, shove off his coat, relieve himself of the unbearable heat, but he gave up on it quickly. He tried heaving himself up again, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. And then he began to grow comfortable, like he was sinking into the depths of some exquisite bed.

Some nameless time later, he was on his side. He stayed there, his face nestled in the crook of his arm, still roasting in the Antarctic tundra, his body so unfeeling, it was like he’d become detached from it. Now even his brain was slipping, slipping out of reach, and Tom realized in a detached sort of way that this was the way it would end. A stupid, pointless death at fifteen, out here all alone. But it wasn’t so bad. The pain was gone.

A strange glow pervaded him. Heat receded into warmth. Lethargy seeped like syrup through his muscles.

Tom couldn’t think of what had been so important about breaking that window. The words were like an afterthought in his vision center, searing into life and then fading: Warning: Critically low body temperature detected. 87.2º F. Transmitting emergency beacon. Frequency unavailable. Emergency beacon not sent. Automatic retry in twenty seconds.

Something about the moment felt so right. He was back in the desert at night, at the side of the empty road, his dad snuggling an overlarge coat around him until his teeth stopped chattering. Then Neil hoisted him up for a piggyback ride, and they trudged farther and farther down that empty, dark road, waiting for the next set of lights to appear in the darkness. Tom wasn’t even shivering anymore.

He didn’t feel the smothering arms sweep him, crush him up against a chest. He opened his eyes dully when he realized it was harder to breathe with his face muffled against a thick coat. He felt entombed in something heavy, and a sense of suffocation made him panic and he flailed as much as he could. A clang echoed through the air, and he squinted through burning eyes to see over a shoulder. The door. Someone had brought him to the other side of the door.