Embers & Ice (Rouge)

by Isabella Modra

  “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 drow
n.

  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.

  Doe brown eyes trapped her and she felt a sudden shock in her chest. He was so unnaturally pale. Dark, purple rings circled his eyes. He slumped as though he had no energy in his body. But his gaze was strong and dark and tormented and full of unspeakable pain. It was a different pain to that of the others. Hunter had to look away or she might be sick.

  “He came
out early,” Zac muttered to Chantal.

  “I know,” she replied. “Ryo told me this morning that they want to drag him out for breakfast or he faints during procedure too quickly.”

  “That’s what happens when you don’t eat.”

  “Who-” Hunter began, but it was then that someone squeezed themselves opposite her on the very edge of the bench, shoving Zac aside. She looked at the boy with silky black hair, eyes the same color and a clear thirst for a fight and instantly wanted to be as far from him as possible. His very presence made her uncomfortable.

  “Hello,” he said cheerfully. “I’m Jet.”

  “Jet, piss off,” Chantal glared. “No one wants you here.”

  Jet winced. “Oo, someone has their period.”

  Two more people had joined Jet. One was a girl of her age with long brown hair, tanned skin and beautiful features. But her face was a permanent scowl and she stood behind Jet as though she wanted to claim him as her territory. The other addition was a shorter, stockier boy with the same eyes as Jet, only not as wicked.

  “If it’s okay with you,” continued Jet, “my brother Marcus, my girlfriend Mikayla and myself wanted to ask: has anyone like us … ‘come out’ yet?”

  “What?”

  Jet glanced around at the Men in White guarding the door. They were too far away to hear their conversation, but they were watching.

  “Does the world know about our powers? Or is that why you were brought in? Did you try to save the world?”

  Hunter crossed her arms, trying to think of anything but the fire in the restaurant and the explosion it caused in her life. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Zac was peering at her, looking eager. “Come on Red, tell us!”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  Zac put his hands up and his jaw quivered at the effort it took him to hold back laughter. At the same time, Mikayla bent down and whispered in Jet’s ear.

  “We’re cut off, Hunter,” Jet continued. “We just want to know if there’s any hope. I mean, no one knows we’re here. Even our parents haven’t come looking for us. If there’s more like us, maybe there’s a chance we can get a message to them and…” he leaned closer, whispering. “And escape.”