His own body was running out.
"Eli," she said.
Her eyes were still closed.
"Eli, look at me."
He looked.
"You are freezing, too," she said. "Your body is going into the same shock as mine. I can see it."
"I'm okay," he lied.
"No, you're not."
Her eyes opened.
There was something in them now that had not been there before.
Focus.
Command.
The eyes of someone who had spent her life telling people what to do in rooms where people were dying.
"Eli, listen to me. We're going to keep each other alive tonight. Do you hear me?"
"We're a team. But you have to do exactly what I say. Can you do that?"
He nodded.
"Take off your coat," she said.
He stared at her.
"Take it off and put it on me. Tuck it tight around my shoulder. The bleeding will slow if I stay warm."
"You keep your blanket and your sweaters. You move. You don't sit still."
"You jog in place. You do jumping jacks. You keep your blood moving."
"We trade off. Every 20 minutes, I'll tell you to stop, and we'll check each other."
"Do you understand?"
He understood.
He also understood that she was lying about one part of it.
The coat might save her life.
It might cost him his.
He took it off anyway.
The cold was beyond cold.
It was a presence.
It passed through the three sweaters as if they were nothing.
His skin shrieked.
His chest seized.
For a moment, he could not breathe at all.
He tucked the heavy canvas parka around her shoulders the way she said.
He pulled the front of it closed across her coat.
She watched him with an expression he had never seen on a woman's face before.
He would not have a word for it until much later in his life.
It was equal parts grief and gratitude, and something fierce and protective that had nothing to do with him personally and everything to do with the simple fact that he was a child and she was an adult.
"Now move," she whispered. "Move, baby. Don't stop."
He moved.
He did jumping jacks in the snow.
He did them until his lungs were full of fire.
He jogged in place.
He ran small, tight circles in the alcove.
He swung his arms.
He clapped his frozen hands.
Every 20 minutes, exactly when she said, he stopped.
She opened her eyes, looked at him, and asked questions.
"What is your full name?"
"Where are you from?"
"What is your mother's name?"
"What was your father's name?"
The questions were not idle.
He understood that.
She was checking him for confusion and slurred speech, for signs that the cold was winning.
He answered every one.
She asked him about his father.
The cold had a way of stripping things down to their essentials.
Eli had noticed that in his two winters on the streets.
The cold did not let you keep secrets from yourself.
The cold made you tell the truth even if you were only telling it to your own ribs.
He sat cross-legged in the snow beside Maggie.
He had done 100 jumping jacks.
Then another 100.
His body was a machine now.
It was running on willpower, and the willpower was running low.
"Tell me about her," Maggie said very quietly.