"This is it, Frostbite," Bunny murmured, his voice echoing uncomfortably loud in his tunnel. The green turf the warren tended to leak into his tunnels shone with the hope and light of spring, but a wooden sort of manhole blocked the pair of Guardians from proceeding. It was loosely boarded with cracking slats of wood, that looked as if it had been through the fires of hell. When Bunny tapped on the wood solidly with his hind paw, it fell away with minimal cracking noises.

"Thanks, Bunny." Jack clasped his staff firmly, and with a breath it began to glow blue, extending his range of sight. The tunnel into Pitch's lair didn't look too inviting. It was dark and winding, and that never tended to lead to anything good.

"Mate, listen here," Bunnymund clasped Jack's shoulder. He knew he would only listen for a limited amount of time before rushing off to do whatever it was he felt he needed to do — already he could see that Jack's attention was spread thin into so many different directions — so he kept it brief. "Pitch will be ruthless. Don't be proud — call us if you need us."

Jack nodded solemnly. When Bunny didn't move, he cracked a small grin. "He's no match for this," he joked half-heartedly, lifting his staff.

Bunny nodded. "If it's not, we're only a tunnel away."

Without another backwards glance, Jack loped off into the darkness, his staff and the cold wind guiding the way.

I was freezing.

I couldn't breathe, moving hurt, and I was absolutely shivering.

And I knew Pitch Black was anything but a liar.

He'd proven it, hadn't he? I could see Emmett loud and clear now. Suspended a couple feet off of the floor opposite me. Chains like the ones chafing against my skin sprouted from the wall, nabbing Emmett's hands and forcing them up above his head, which drooped between hunched shoulders. His leg, the one he complained about in real life, up at the surface, was twisted at an unnatural angle. His pants were as torn as my clothes were, but his leg… It looked like the blood had welded the shredded jeans to his skin.

I knew I looked the same: little bitemarks sprinkling all over our flesh, deep gouges slicing into our cheeks and necks and everywhere else, and hair matted with our own blood. And I knew we felt the same, too. My throat felt dead, after the squelches and screams that had torn their way through it for what seemed like hours on end. My joints ached, and my hands were completely numb, like they'd just disappeared without a trace. Well, I mean, there was more than a trace of pain encircling my knobbly wrists; it was more like a chainsaw was making its way slowly around them, cutting a sort of bloody tattoo, tearing just the skin. I struggled to breathe, partly because my ribcage collapsed over my lungs — hanging from the wall by my arms made for an uncomfortable position — and partly because of the sand that was circling in my throat. Air came in and out in puffs, blowing the hair off of my face.

The physical pain I could deal with. Pain is just a message. You can ignore that message. It created this kind of fog that buzzed in my ears and twinged along my skin, and it muddled my brain a little, but not nearly enough.

No, it was what I'd seen that I couldn't get out of my head. Pitch's stupid teeth puncturing Emmett, and sharp knives of dark he'd sprout from his wrists, tearing skin and drawing shrieks and helpless flails from the little guy. All I could do was scream and writhe against the chains of compact sand that had long but since rubbed my skin raw. Our screams and his laughter made up a twisted symphony of terror, and when Emmett's eyes would start to slide closed, I'd stop screaming. Maybe if he actually fainted or fell asleep, it wouldn't be so bad.

Then Pitch's amber eyes would turn on me, an insane leer that made me scream again, and it'd be my turn.

Now, I couldn't even fake life in my eyes for Emmett. I couldn't make them look alive. With those bruises and all that blood marring his normally bright features, I wished I was dead.

"Em?" I croaked, lifting my head a little. My lips, sticky and cracking, barely parted around his name.

It took him a minute to answer. "Hi, Will."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Silence. I was grateful for it, so I could catch my breath.

Then: "What are we gonna do?" He pulled apart his eyelashes, which were gooped together by tears and blood.

I sighed, but it just mutated into a huge coughing fit. Once it settled, I murmured, "I don't know."

His head dropped back down again.

"Try to sleep, buddy."

His breathing was shaky. So was mine. He fought to keep down tears, but I fought to make black sand come up. But I still managed to hum a few words, even though it was totally off tempo, and it seemed to soothe him a bit.

Let's get rich and buy our parent's homes in the south of France,

Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance,

Let's get rich and build a house on a mountain, making everybody look like ants

From way up there

You and I

You and I

That last line was just a whisper. Funnily enough, it's hard to sing while stars dance behind your eyelids. My brain felt like it was pulling itself apart. I felt a slow trickle of warmth slide down my neck — the movement must've opened up the crack Pitch had made at the back of my head.

Like the one I'd made in Jason's.

God, that felt like forever ago. I thought back — slowly, mind you, so I wouldn't overwhelm my blended brain — in a frantic attempt to see what had set in motion this whole stupid thing. Was it having that bath? Or maybe Jack Frost coming into work, confusing me? Or maybe his visit in my room. That was it, I decided. Without that whole conversation, I wouldn't have been loud, Emmett wouldn't have woken up, and Jason wouldn't have, either.

But how long would it be before I'd taken enough of Jason's shit, anyways? Another couple of days? I knew he'd hurt Emmett. I'd been naive enough before to think that he hadn't, but now I've seen those bruises. Jason never made it blatant before, but that black and blue smudge poking out from under his boxers, back in his room, as he whooped his friends' asses at Minecraft... How long would it take for the anger to stew, burning and bubbling over, before I snapped?

I gave up thinking. It was too much work. My saliva was working itself into cement, and it was getting harder and harder to swallow. I wanted to follow Emmett into dreamland, but I figured I'd end up having nightmares or something. So I just hung there, throbbing everywhere and trying not to whimper.

Suddenly, I noticed my breaths were kind of puffy. In a visible way. Not that I could see very clearly, anyway, but this was new. Here I'd been thinking I was sick and dying and being cold was a side effect, but maybe Pitch was just playing with me by making the dark cold, too.

But then, amongst the shadows and the greyscale shapes, I heard my name.

"Willow?"

It was a new voice, not the one that had been echoing nonstop since I could remember, cracking into the insane side of my mind. And it wasn't Emmett's. This was a young voice, male, and hushed, and vaguely familiar.

"Willow, where are you?"

I didn't say anything. I wanted to see who was going to "help" my dying body before he saw me.

Pitch's just playing with you, I told myself harshly. Making you think you're not alone, so you'll embarrass yourself more.

"Willow!"

The sudden white was shocking. It seemed to glow, it was so white, amongst all the shadows and lack of light. It appeared from behind what I assumed was a wall to my right, and gave my head a deliberate spin before I registered that I'd seen that tuft of hair before.

From here, I could observe him where I didn't before. His body was slim, shoulders narrow, and limbs slender. His navy hoodie was streaked with what looked like hoarfrost, and in his hands he carried that shepherd's crook. But now it was... glowing. It was so cold, it was glowing a frigid blue.

From his slacky teenage-ish posture, he almost struck me as delicate, until he turned his face to me. Those grey eyes burned fiercely determined, which kind of scared me for a second, before they softened in what I thought was relief. The thin dark eyebrows settled, and his delicate mouth broke into a grin - not a feisty one, like what I'd seen before, but one of genuine satisfaction.

"Hey, there you are," he murmured. His voice seemed too deep for his body, like his demeanour, physical and behavioural, were frozen, but his voice had been affected by time. He stepped silently to the bars disfiguring his face. Crouching, he reached through them to me.

"Jack Frost," I whispered. A sort of drunken smile slid over my teeth. "I figured I'd just imagined you. But here you are. In the Bogeyman's lair." I chuckled a bit - God, I really was insane - but the sudden intake of air sent the sand up my throat, and I began to cough without hope of ever stopping.

"Oh, boy." He touched his staff to the bars, and from its tip blasted a stream of ice, spreading over the blackened bars until they were completely glazed over with blue. Striking them with his staff sent shards flying, and soon his hands were brushing over my forehead. He murmured gently, trying to soothe me as my body fought for air, and focusing on how frigid his hands were seemed to help. Before, so long ago in my room, I'd thought he was cold from lack of protection from the winter. But here, his were like freaking flesh-and-bone icicles. He was winter.

"I don't have a clue what I'm doing," he sang nervously, smiling reassuringly at me as the coughing receded. "You're going to be OK, OK?" I nodded slightly, trying not to make any sudden movements. He narrowed his eyes at me when the air spiralling in the hollow of my throat rattled as I took a shallow breath. "What did he do to you?"

I shook my head. "I'm not entirely sure," I managed. "Emmett…" I looked over his shoulder at the little body.

Jack's gaze followed mine. The angles in his jaw sharpened as he clenched it. "OK. OK," he murmured to himself, nodding. He seemed just as terrified as I was.

"Help him first."

He held up a finger at my pathetic wheezing. "Don't talk," he shushed, so I didn't as he inspected me. His hands were like little snowflakes brushing against my skin, gentle and ice-cold. "You first. You're in much worse shape than he is, thank you very much." His gentle hands reached up, fumbling with the chains, and soon my arms were free. I dropped with a puff, but Jack caught me easily, lowering me onto the floor. It was weird. My arms felt like they were as light as a feather. Jack handled me like I was weightless. In that one moment, I did feel like a snowflake. But I wasn't about to tell him that.

Instead, I complained at him. "My head," I panted, as another bout of dizziness swirled the world around me. In an instant, his hands chilled the bleeding wound, feathering through my hair.

"Oh, man." The white skin of his slender hands was beautifully tinged with red — I'd always thought it a wintry kind of beauty, crimson and white together — and he had to take a steadying breath before looking at me with a fake smile. "You'll be alright. It's just bleeding." His Adam's apple bobbed in a swallow.

"No, really? Head wounds never bleed." I couldn't help myself. I mean, come on. Sarcasm is like my middle name.

My half-hearted, if a bit raspy, attempt at lightening the mood seemed to relieve him a bit. "I honestly would be the wrong person to talk to about things like this." The pressure of the current situation made his comment not as sharp or playful or flirtatious as it normally would be.

"Oh, great. I'm dying, and I'm stuck with a medically inept person."

"Hey, it's not my fault they wanted to plan everything out first. You'd both be dead if I'd listened to them." He held his bloodied hands up in surrender. I thought I knew who he meant by "them," so I didn't ask. The Guardians.

He glanced at his hands, and then at my closing eyelids as he pulled away. "Does it feel better with…" He splayed his fingers. "…you know...?"

"Yeah, keep 'em there." He slid his icicle fingers back through my hair, and my headache lessened a bit, from pain that could split a continent to a throbbing pulse.

"I'm so sorry about this," he spoke softly, glancing around the room. "I wanted a word or two — and maybe even a punch — with your captor, but we need to get you guys out of here."

"Pitch..."

"You've met him, then." He shifted his weight so he was on the balls of his feet, cradling my neck in his hands. "Not a nice guy."

"I'd say." I was drowning on the inside. "Mr. Frost -"

"Hey, woah there." He snorted, jerking his head in a sort of nod of laughter. "Do I look like a mister to you? You've met me before. You called me Frosty, remember?"

"Oh, right. So, Frosty? How are we getting out of here?"

"Don't worry, I've got backup." Smiling knowingly, he pulled a crystalline sphere from the pocket of his hoodie. His fingers slid across its surface, slick from my blood. A thin lacework of scarlet marred whatever it was on the inside.

"Wow." I huffed, partly because I was literally out of breath, but mostly because I wasn't too impressed with this guy. Some rescuer. "A snow globe. Going to shake it till it snows in here?"

"I wish. That would liven the place up." Keeping a hand around my neck, he chucked the glass over his shoulder. Without a sound, it seemed to tear through something, opening up a sort of hole — a time-space-continuum kind of hole. Through it I could see a whole lot of white - and that was it, before everything inside collapsed into a swirling vortex of colour. I had to look away, since my lovely eyes were so accustomed to this perpetual dimness.

"Now, I'm gonna have to move you from here to there, OK?" His eyes were wide, and pleading. He was just as panicked as I was, but he was trying really hard to hide it. I pretended I didn't see the raw fear behind that strength in his eyes, and I nodded with as much fierceness as I could. "It's not far after that, I promise. I know it's gonna hurt, but... Heh, I'd say we'll make it a game, but that won't work with you, would it?" He ran a hand through his hair, streaking it with red. He looked like some sort of gender twisted Cruella deVil.

I mean, a much more attractive Cruella deVil.

"What about Emmett?" I asked.

"He'll be right behind you. I promise." He seemed to get the whole weight of the importance of Emmett making it through this.

"Ok." I tried to swallow. It didn't work. "It'll be fine," I convinced myself. I could feel my pulse slowing in the throb that swelled in my head. "Just get me out of here."

"OK. OK, let's see how long you can stay awake, OK?" OK seemed to be his favourite word. "I'm gonna count, and I want you to keep your eyes open for as long as you can." His timbre cracked a little as my eyelids drooped, but I snapped them wide open.

"One." He slid his hands from around my neck to under my back. I tried to hold my breath. Maybe a vacuum in my lungs would keep the sand still. The skin poking out of my torn clothes felt like they were exposed to a snowbank: he was soft and inviting, but biting cold.

Not that I cared much, at this point.

"Two." He slung my arm around his shoulders. The thick fabric of his hoodie was stiff and chilled.

"Three." That was the hardest part. Don't get me wrong, he lifted me easily. My head didn't like lolling around, though. I felt like throwing up and fainting at the same time.

"Four." He straightened his legs, hooking his staff around his neck.

"Five. Nononono, keep 'em open, or I'm going to have to start over!" He spoke bravely, with the same enthusiasm I'd use for a game of hide and seek with Emmett. It drew a smile out of me, but the sand... it was too much...

"Six." He stepped toward the white, and that's when everything went black.