Embers & Ice (Rouge) (3 page)

FOUR

The
elevator could not have been slower, but Joshua was in no hurry to get back to
his apartment. With his arms full of groceries and the irritating jazz music in
his ears, Joshua was regretting giving up his luxurious suite to move into room
fifty-seven and the lab. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford the apartment
upstairs. It just felt so empty without Hunter living in it. There were too
many touchy memories.

Besides,
living in the trashy room outside his lab – where the furniture still smelled
like damp carpet – was the best way to keep an eye on Eli and… the
teacher.

Joshua
held his breath as he entered room fifty-seven against the pungent smell of
age. It had been over two months since Prom, and still the apartment didn’t
feel like home. It was, after all, only a front for the lab that lay hidden
behind it, just in case the Agents followed him home. No one would think to
lift the picture frame on the mantelpiece of the fireplace where the hidden
lever was that unlocked the secret coded door revealing his sound-proof,
impenetrable laboratory. No one except Hunter.

Still,
it was strange to be living in this room, especially when it was so
uncomfortably homey. Joshua hated anything comfortable. If it wasn’t stiff, it
was cold or modern or disgustingly expensive. That was how he liked it.

Joshua
dumped his groceries on the vinyl kitchen bench, gazed at the small apartment
and sighed.

God.
I’m living in Paul McCartney’s bedroom.

In
spite of the smell, Joshua lingered in the apartment for as long as possible,
unpacking the groceries and making dinner for two. Yes, for two. Joshua plated
up a salad and cold chicken for himself and microwaved a quiche – because he
hated using an oven – and stood behind the kitchen bench, trying to force
himself to open the lab. Truth was, he didn’t want to face her. Not after
yesterday.

Joshua
took his time preparing for the cryonics process, and after combining his old
research with the new formula from the stone, it took another few weeks for
Jennifer Smart to unfreeze. Joshua didn’t expect it to take so long, nor did he
expect to actually succeed. He spent countless hours researching,
re-researching and then doing so again until he was sure it would work. Even
then, he didn’t know for certain.

It
was messy at first. As with any revival from cryonics, very advanced
bioengineering and molecular nanotechnology was needed. Fortunately, Joshua
saved well and had very good connections. Not to mention he could be very
persuasive at times.

The
worst part of the revival was repairing Jennifer’s tissues. After the fire in
the school, her skin was littered with burns, burns that made it that much more
difficult to heal the tissue beneath the skin as well as on the surface. He
worked very hard to balance the temperature and help her cells regenerate. It
would have been easier if the technology was available, but – like always –
Joshua was ahead of time.

Jennifer
soon awoke. The moment her breathing became normal again and her words formed
actual sentences, the screaming started. Some cursing and gibberish that Joshua
neither knew nor cared to know was involved. Joshua deflected her attempt to
punch him with a flick of his wrist and a spray of ice that froze her arm
stiff, but that only made her scream louder. He hadn’t been able to get a
single word in to explain why he had frozen her in her hospital bed. She
wouldn’t allow it.

Since
he couldn’t get a word in, he also couldn’t ask her if she felt any different.
He feared she had lost some part of herself, and he didn’t know her personally,
so he couldn’t determine whether anything had changed. So far, she wasn’t
speaking in Spanish or behaving like a gorilla, so that satisfied him well
enough.

He
hoped that by bringing her dinner and approaching the situation guardedly, she
might actually calm down and listen.

He
was very wrong.

The
moment the door to the lab slid smoothly sideways and Joshua stepped into the
bright environment, a female body collided with him from the left and he, the
female body and both plates of carefully prepared dinner went crashing to the
floor.

Joshua
had no time to suck in even a breath before Jennifer was on her feet again and
stumbling towards the door to freedom.

“No!”
He gasped, rolled over on his stomach and shot his hand up.

A
jet of ice burst from his palm and suddenly Jennifer’s feet were frozen to the
floor, as if she’d stepped in fast-drying cement with one foot in front of the
other. She wobbled for a moment, then became still.

Ignoring
the throbbing ache in his hip, Joshua ducked around Jennifer where he could
close the door and lock it behind him. Then, he turned to face the woman who
stood with her arms folded, her lips pursed tightly together and her chest
heaving up and down.

Joshua
would have felt sorry for the woman and even a little guilty for locking her up
for almost two months, had he not been so shocked – not for the first time – by
how closely Jennifer Smart resembled Liz. It wasn’t her looks, per say, but
more her stubborn and feisty nature. She glared in the same fiery way Liz used
to. Her eyes were narrowed to slits and a string of hair was stuck to her lip
in a way that made Joshua desperately need to flick it away. What’s worse, she
wouldn’t say a thing.

For
some reason, Joshua preferred the yelling.

“I
know you’re still angry,” he said very slowly with both hands raised in calm
surrender. “But if you let me, I will explain
everything.”

Jennifer
didn’t flinch. “You want me-” she hissed through her teeth, “-to stand here and
let
you explain why I’m locked in some laboratory after you
kidnapped
me
and did something really disgusting to my body? You’ve got to be joking.”

“Uh,
see, I’m actually
not
joking,” he replied. “I owe it to you, and I made
you dinner-” He did a double take at the splattered mess that was his quiche
and salad, and then bit his lip. “Well, that
was
your dinner but I can
make you another one. Anyway, my point is that I would not have done what I did
if there wasn’t a very logical reason behind it.”

“Logical?”
she spat. “This is not logical, this isn’t even-” Jennifer froze with her mouth
half open, and then her walnut-brown eyes widened. “Wait. Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You’re
Joshua Harrison, aren’t you?” Her smile widened, but there was no humor in her
expression. “Hunter told me you were weird, but she never said you were
freaking
psychotic.”

Joshua
opened his mouth and snapped it shut again.

“Yeah,”
she nodded, her tone poisonous. “I know all about
you
.”

“Wh-”
he breathed, feeling suddenly faint. He didn’t like being caught off guard,
much less by a woman. “What did she… what did she tell you exactly?”

“How
long have I been here? How are all my burns suddenly completely healed? What
have you
done
to me?!” she shouted, her voice finally reaching that
high-pitched tone Joshua hated.
It’s like nails on a chalkboard.

Joshua
pinched the bridge of his nose and brushed past her, swooping to the floor and
gathering the ruined meals back into their bowls. “I’m going to make more food.
Do you… do you want anything in particular?”

Jennifer
was about to snap back at him – he could see the sarcastic comment forming on
her lips – but instead, she crossed her arms again and nodded. “I’d like
something hot and a really big cup of coffee. Make it a bucket.”

“Fine.”

“Joshua?”

With
his fingers hovering over the keypad, Joshua halted but didn’t turn.

“You
didn’t… did you do something to me, to my genetics? Because I feel… different.”

He
turned quickly, his heart leaping. “Different how?”

“Uh…
I guess I just feel… clean. It feels like all the bad stuff has been flushed
from my body. I wonder if I’m okay.”

Joshua
looked at her thoughtfully. “I can’t tell you that. If you have everything
intact, like your memory and your personality, then you’re going to be fine.”

“That’s
reassuring.”

“I’m
sorry,” he sighed. “I tried everything I could to bring you back. Your body is
functioning. If you feel like yourself, then I’ve done my job.”

She
dipped a sharp nod. For a moment he saw something like relief in her eyes. Then
she fixed him with a small smirk and said, “I look forward to hearing how
exactly you managed to pull this off, by the way.”

“I’ll
get right on it.” He turned back to the door.

“Wait,
one more thing. Where is Hunter?”

An
ache far worse than his throbbing head burst inside Joshua’s chest at the very
mention of her name. He couldn’t bring himself to answer. After punching in the
code, he hurried into the safety of his mold-smelling apartment room, away from
Jennifer Smart’s questions that felt like a stake through his heart.

FIVE

The
only downside to being woken from a cold slumber with a shot of B-12 was that,
after the energy started to fade, things came back to Hunter worse than they
were before. Fortunately she was so distracted by her surroundings that the
aching grip of fear and loss was momentarily forgotten.

The
inside of her prison was exactly how she expected it to be: still the same
milky-gray walls, blinking fluorescent lights and claustrophobic feel, as if
she were buried hundreds of feet below the earth.

The
guards marched her down a corridor lined with cells just like her own – all
empty with their blue blankets folded perfectly at the end of the mattress –
and took a cement flight of stairs down to the floor beneath. There, they faced
another corridor. The stairs took them down again and Hunter wondered how she’d
ever find her way back to her cell without feeling as if she were in some sort
of dream.

At
the bottom of the stairs were two doors. The guard with the tattoo who led the
way opened the right and stepped back to let Hunter inside. She had only a
moment to catch her heart that leapt into her throat at the sounds of mumbled
voices in an echoed room before she was shoved inside.

Dizziness
overcame her for a moment as the giant space almost swallowed her whole. She
blinked in the bright lights, the buzzing of voices and the clatter of plates
on steel tables.

She
was in a room bigger than the gymnasium at her old school. Like everything
else, it was blindingly white. Tables spaced throughout the room were mostly
occupied. On the left was a cafeteria where people were lining up to collect
breakfast on little plastic trays. They, too, wore white jumpsuits.

Hunter
peered around and caught some of them staring. They were all of different ages
and race, some angry and some curious. What they had in common, however, was a
look of sickness and defeat. It made Hunter want to retch.

The
two guards that escorted her stalked off after the tattooed guard clicked his
fingers and shoved her towards the cafeteria line. Hunter noticed other guards
in the same tight suits stationed like palace soldiers around the room, their
feet parted and their hands firmly clasped together.

“I’m
not hungry,” Hunter said to the tattooed man. She lined up behind a girl who
could be no older than eight or nine with ratted blond hair.

The
guard chuckled. “You’ll need it. There’ll be no more of those energy shots for
you, so how else will you get out of bed in the morning?”

“I
won’t,” she hissed through her teeth. They were clenched tighter than her fists
at her side.

“You
will,” he said back just as harshly and left her in the line.

Hunter
stared at the crowded room and wished she could shut her eyes and make it go
away. Suddenly, her cell didn’t seem so bad anymore compared to the looks she
was getting from almost every other child in the room. She should be used to it
after years of torment from her peers at school. But this time was different.
She was the new girl now. She had no powers and no charisma. She probably
looked like she’d been left out to dry in the desert. Not to mention her
detached emotional stability.

She
couldn’t hide. She could only keep her head down and get it over with.

The
line moved forward and Hunter gripped the thin, silver bracelet attached to her
wrist, trying desperately to burn it off. Something about the bracelet stopped
her powers from escaping. Blue ice dug into her skin and faded into her blood.
The most frustrating thing was that the fire raged inside her, but could not
get out. It was worse than no fire at all.

Hunter
stared ahead as the line moved silently. Her stomach rolled over at the sight
of what bubbled in the hot trays. This was certainly not a luxury resort. This
was a prison, where the food looked like the worms that birds cough up to feed
their young.

“Would
you like the last piece of bread?” asked the girl in front of her.

Hunter
glanced down and felt her heart drop with sadness. Big green eyes rather like
Eli’s gazed up at her with an open and welcoming expression. Looking down at
this girl was like seeing someone with a disability on the streets and trying
to avoid eye contact with them. A silver wire much like a head-brace was wrapped
around her forehead, digging into her temples as though someone had drilled it
into her skull. Much of the blond hair on the side of her head was shaved, and
a deep scar lined her cheek. There was a strange airiness to her tone as though
she wasn’t quite… there.

Hunter
didn’t have the heart to decline, so she took the bread and smiled. “Thank
you.”

“You’re
welcome. It tastes a bit funny, but the ice-cream will wash it down. The
ice-cream here is gooooood!” With that, she skipped away cheerfully.

Hunter
glanced back at the counter of food and saw no ice-cream. Dumbfounded, she
began to wonder whether she was not in an institution for mutants, but a
madhouse.

With
no intention of eating her breakfast, Hunter tried not to look at anyone whilst
searching for an empty table. No tables were empty, so she found a long one
where a small group sat at one end. She placed her tray as far from them as
possible and sat down.

Her
food didn’t smell the least bit appealing, but she didn’t want to sit still and
do nothing. She picked up her fork and swirled around the gray mush.
If I
put my face in it, maybe I’ll drown
.

She
was just about to attempt it when someone from the end of the table slid down
the cold bench and sat directly opposite her.

Hunter
looked up.

The
boy was just younger than her, maybe sixteen. He was not at all what she’d call
attractive, with a mop of mousy brown hair, a crooked nose and chubby features.
His eyes were dark and glistening like a bronze coin as he stared at her with
an expression of deep thought. On his wrist, Hunter spotted a bracelet exactly
like hers.

The
boy waited for at least thirty seconds before he pointed a pudgy index finger
right at her face.

“Let
me guess,” he said slowly. “You’re… an earth wielder.”

“What?”

“No
no no, that’s not it.” He shook his tousled curls away from narrowed eyebrows.
“What about superhuman strength? Or x-ray vision? Oh! Oh! Are you one of those
freaks who can like… turn into lizards and shit?”

Hunter
said nothing, her mouth open. The boy laughed at her expression and shook his
head. It was the first remotely pleasant gesture she’d seen in a while.

“Okay,
in all seriousness…” He leaned forward, clasped his hands together and raised
one eyebrow. “Are you a fish?”

Hunter
made a face at him. “Do I
look
like a fish to you?”

“Well.”
He frowned and waved a hand at her. “You are channeling a bit of a mermaid vibe
with… you know, your hair and stuff.”

“So
if I’m a mermaid… that makes you a moose, right?”

“Ha!”
Hunter jumped in surprise. He shook a finger at her. “I like you. You’ve got
some serious attitude. I suppose it’s the hair. Gingers are notorious for their
tempers.”

“Leave
her alone Zac,” said someone from the other end of their table. Hunter glanced
down and saw a beautifully thin girl with golden hair. Her accent was European,
maybe French. Hunter noticed small indents on her cheek like faded scars.
Around her neck was a silver collar and black veins like spider webs splayed
out on her skin as though she’d been poisoned. It was just like Hunter’s
bracelet. “She does not want to talk.”

“God
Chantal,” Zac sighed. “When did you become such a buzz kill? You’d like to know
what Red can do, wouldn’t you Benji?”

Zac
was talking to the only other person at their table sitting opposite Chantal.
He had skin whiter than her own and hunched shyly. His blond hair was shiny and
short, and he had dark purple rings under his eyes.

“W-what?”
he stuttered in a youthful voice. If they all had names and stereotypes, he
would have been stamped with ‘Super Nerd’. “S-sorry I didn’t hear what you
s-said.”

“Forget
it, I’ll just keep guessing. Hmmm.” Zac made a loud, irritating humming sound
as if the answer to his riddle would come through meditation. Hunter groaned
and clicked her fingers at him.

“Stop!
Seriously stop it, you’re giving me more of a headache than I already have.” It
wasn’t exactly the truth; Hunter found she actually liked talking to them. It
took her mind away from all the terrible thoughts that were swirling around in
her head. Plus, getting her questions answered – however horrific they were –
was better than finding out the hard way. “What’s the matter with that girl
over there?” She nodded at Fearne.

Zac
cast a glance over his shoulder and turned back to Hunter. “She’s gone nuts.”

“Zac!”
said Chantal.

“It’s
true! She’s been here most of her life. The scientists love messing with her
brain.”

Hunter
felt a chill go through her. She watched Fearne, the young girl whose mind was
permanently spiked by a metal brace and who had so much warmth in her empty
green eyes. Was she really crazy? Had years in this cold prison driven her to
insanity? Hunter’s eyes dipped back to Zac, whose foot was tapping loudly on
the floor. There was a twitch in the right corner of his mouth. She glanced at
Chantal swirling patterns in her goo and Benji, who never looked up from his
plate. Hunter was beginning to feel sicker by the minute.

“Hey,
what’s your name?” asked Chantal.

“Hunter.”

“I’m
Chantal, this idiot is Zac, and that’s Benji down there but he doesn’t really
say much.”

Hunter
nodded. “Have you guys been here long?”

“Five
years.”

Zac
threw up his hand. “Ten! Ha, I win.”

“Wow,”
Chantal spat, “what an achievement.”

“Wait,
how old where you when they brought you here?”

“Eight,”
he said. “Like most of the sad kids in this place, our parents gave us up
because they were told this was a rehabilitation center. Now they’ll never get
us back, and I’m not sure they even care. We are aliens, after all.”

“We’re
not aliens,” said Chantal. “We’re just talented.”

Zac
snorted.

“And
anyway, I’m sure Hunter’s parents will miss her terribly.”

“My
parents are dead,” said Hunter.

“Oh,”
said Chantal. “Well, you must have someone then, right? A boyfriend maybe?”

“Dead
too.”

Chantal
went pale and Zac bit his lip, smiling at her. “Nice one.”

“It’s
okay,” Hunter lied. “I won’t be getting out of here anytime soon, so it’s
probably a good thing that there’s no one out there looking for me.”

“Yeah,”
Chantal nodded. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

“Is
this… it?” Hunter asked, waving her hand around at the room.

“Well…”
said Zac. “I think some of the little ones are showering… Will’s probably still
in surgery…”

“There
aren’t many in the world with powers like ours, or at least ones that the
Agents have caught,” said Chantal. “So tell me-” She propped an elbow on the table
and rested her head on her hand. “What generation of iPhones are they up to?”

“Uh…”

“Have
they invented Terminators yet?” asked Zac.

“Um,
no-”

“Who’s
president now?” asked Chantal.

“What?
You guys don’t know?”

“We
don’t know anything,” said Zac, “except what all the new kids tell us. The
guards don’t exactly give us the daily news.”

“What
do you do then?”

Chantal
let out a long sigh. “Well, we-”

“I’ll
explain,” Zac interrupted.

“Fine.”

“Okay.”
He shimmied closer to Hunter, glancing left and right at the tables with other
kids like her. They weren’t staring so much any longer. “Basically, the
scientists call this place the Institution for Convalescence and
Experimentation, but to the public it’s just known as ICE Institution.
Although, I’m not sure many people actually know it exists. Anyway, us kids
sometimes call it Death Cave. The name pretty much speaks for itself.”

Hunter
swallowed her fear, and it tasted bitter.

Zac
opened his mouth to continue when movement in the doorway caught his attention.
His expression darkened instantly. Chantal raised her head and was staring as
well. Hunter twisted around and saw two Men in White march through the doorway,
dragging someone in their arms.

He
was very tall. That was the first thing Hunter found distinguishable about him.
As he half stumbled into the cafeteria, guided by the guards whose rough hands
hauled him onto the table beside Fearne, Hunter became aware of the second
thing that made this boy so different from the rest.

His
brown, messy hair was parted in the middle and he hunched his well-built,
muscular exterior. He had no collar or bracelet or entrapment that she could
see. He appeared much older than he probably was. Fearne muttered something to
him and he nodded gently, then he raised his gaze and looked directly at
Hunter.