He slowed down even though his urge was to speed up. Jove's eyes widened as he drew closer and saw what'd happened. A massive hidden crevasse lay before him, mostly obscured by a snow drift which had accumulated along its edge.
Jove slammed on the brakes, his snowmobile skidding to a halt mere feet from the gaping crevasse. His stomach did an unsettling roll as he took in the sheer magnitude of the icy chasm.
The crevasse stretched out before him, a jagged scar in the Antarctic landscape. Its walls plunged downward, disappearing into inky depths where the faintest hints of deep blue ice glimmered. The edges were ragged and uneven, chunks of snow and ice crumbling away with each passing moment.
Eve's snowmobile teetered precariously on the rim, its front-end dipping down at a sickening angle. She clung to the handlebars, her body tense and still as she fought to maintain her balance on the crumbling edge.
"Eve!" Jove shouted, his voice carried away by the howling wind.
She turned her head slowly, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and relief at the sight of him. Her lips moved, but no sound reached him over the roar of the elements and engines.
Jove's gaze darted between Eve and the crevasse, his mind racing to find a solution. One wrong move and she could plummet into the abyss, lost forever in the icy depths.
He killed the engine of his snowmobile and dismounted, keeping low to the ground as he inched closer to the edge. Chunks of ice and snow crumbled beneath his boots, a stark reminder of the precarious nature of their situation.
"Don't move!" he shouted, raising his voice to carry over the wind.
Eve gave the slightest nod, her body rigid as she fought to maintain her balance. "Hurry! I don't know how long I've got here."
Jove could see the fear in her eyes, the realization that a single strong gust of wind might spell her doom. He reached the edge, feeling nauseous as he peered over the crumbling rim. The crevasse was so deep that there was absolutely no question that anything that went in would never come out.
He hurriedly untied the strap connecting the gear sled to his snowmobile. He'd doubled it up originally, and it seemed like it might be long enough to reach Eve and her snowmobile if he brought his right up to the edge.
"Here!" He tossed the end of it to Eve, expecting her to immediately scamper up it to safety. "…What are you doing?"
"I can get it tied off on my snowmobile," said Eve. "If I follow that edge while you pull on a diagonal, we can still get it out!"
"It's a snowmobile, Eve!" he snapped. "It's not worth risking your life over."
"What about all of our lives?" she shouted. There was a sound of moving snow from the force of the echo, a miniature little avalanche adding effect to her words. "We need these to stand any chance at survival out here! I'm not going back to our mother and letting her know we lost another one!"
Jove exhaled a long plume of white. He watched as Eve fumbled with her end of the strap, trying to secure it while still positioning herself awkwardly for the sake of balance.
"Take my skis!" she shouted, pulling the bundle she'd strapped to the side of the snowmobile off and sliding it up over the crevasse's bank.
"Are you being serious right now?" asked Jove, shaking his head.
"Take my fucking skis!" Her words echoed so resoundingly within the crevasse that her voice was like a vengeful goddess, rumbling snow following in their wake.
Jove took her skis for her.
He could only watch as Eve started attempting to tie the strap. She was straddling her snowmobile at a dangerous angle, leaning to keep her weight balanced in a way that would hold it in position. She needed both her hands free for the task, which made both of Jove's hands sweat with sympathy.
"There," she said, finishing the knot. "Hope it holds."
"It'll hold," he said, taking his turn at optimism.
Eve climbed back into the saddle. She let out a gasp as a bit of snow crumbled beneath one of her treads and looked at Jove with real fear and desperation in her eyes.
"On three," he said. "One… two…"
"Three!" shouted Eve.
Jove floored it, while Eve was more circumspect with her acceleration. He felt the strap snag as it pulled taut and steered to the left, away from the crevasse on a diagonal. He couldn't see what was happening over his shoulder with the snowbanks in the way, and he couldn't hear anything either, whether Eve was shouting or even still on the snowmobile at all.
The strap suddenly went slack. Horror stabbed through Jove's heart… right up until he heard the other snowmobile's engine approach his and turned to see her grinning triumphantly, back on safe snow.
"Where'd you put my skis?" she asked.
Jove all but tackled her as he climbed off his snowmobile to pull her into a tight hug. She cackled with laughter and hugged him back. He kissed her on the cheek, feeling how cold her skin was against his lips.
"Thanks, but both of my cheeks are numb," she said, still smiling and breathing hard from the adrenaline.
"Oh yeah?" he asked.
His eyes flicked down to her lips, though even he wasn't entirely sure why. This wasn't Aster, and they were both drunk off adrenaline, not tequila.
"Couldn't even feel it," said Eve. She cleared her throat, still standing close to him. "Thanks. That was really scary for a second."
"You're getting better at thanking me after I save your ass."
"If you keep making it a habit, so will I," she said.