Embers & Ice (Rouge)

by Isabella Modra

Benji was chuckling to himself in that cute way only nerdy kids do. And then Hunter was thinking about Eli and how much she missed his laugh.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Ryo.

  “Nothing,” she replied. “Rematch?”

  “I could beat you with my eyes closed.”

  Hunter scoffed good-naturedly. “So… what else is there to do here?”

  “Not much. I mostly hang out here, or in my cell, and I go down to the labs when I need to. There’s the fitness room, but only Marcus and Mosi bother to use that.”

  “Can you show me?” Hunter asked, eager to keep moving and wanting to know more about the prison she was in.

  Ryo jumped up. “Sure! You coming Benji?”

  “Uh, n-no I think I’ll just stay h-here…”

  Without caring, Ryo grabbed Hunter’s wrist and they went marching to the door. Out in the corridor, Ryo led her behind the stairs to a smaller door with a wonky handle. As she entered the room, Hunter was hit with the smell of cement and stale sweat. It was somehow refreshing in comparison with the salty, bacterial smell everywhere else.

  Jet’s brother Marcus was lying on a bench press lifting weights, with a very large figure that looked to be about thirty spotting him. Only his features gave away his youth. The tortured look in his dark eyes from across the room hit Hunter in the chest. He had dark, almost black skin and the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen.

  “That’s Mosi,” whispered Ryo. “He hasn’t been the same since he accidentally killed another kid in the Orb.”

  Hunter glanced down at her, shocked. “He killed someone? How?”

  “He crushed a boy. His power is Terrakinesis – he controls geological matter, and he has diamond-tough skin. He worked in the mines in Africa.” As they watched the two boys, Ryo lowered her voice. “It was an accident, and a very unfair fight. Most fights in the Orb are unfair anyway. One thing you should know about this place: it’s not separated by age or the level of your powers. There are kids here who can rip people apart with their bare hands or kill you with a single spark of kinetic energy. But there are those with a power not even worth their imprisonment.”

  “Why do they do such horrible things?”

  “To maintain authority and fear. To give the scientists a way to study us in action. You’ll get used to the fact that the men here are monsters. They have no regard for humanity.”

  Hunter watched Marcus and Mosi in silence with Ryo, wishing she could close her eyes, go to sleep and wake up anywhere else but there. And if she could choose, she’d choose to wake up in Eli’s arms.

  “I have to go,” said Ryo suddenly. “I’m due in the labs for my daily tests. Are you staying here?”

  Hunter eyed the punching bag and suddenly had the irresistible urge to beat someone up. There was only a torn yoga mat and a rusty bike left in the corner. “Yeah, thanks Ryo.”

  “Have fun.” She smiled and was gone.

  Some of the strength she lacked after losing so much blood that morning had returned after eating and sitting down for a few hours. In order to keep herself fit, she needed to remain active even when it hurt. After what Mikayla had said in the bathroom, she couldn’t bear the thought of looking so gaunt.

  Hunter approached the punching bag. It was easy to imagine Dr. Wolfe or Joshua’s face in the center. Mosi watched her, his black eyes deep and sharp like a hawk. She found herself thinking that he and Marcus were the most unlikely friends, but there were a lot of things that didn’t make sense in ICE Institution – or Death Cave, as Zac had called it – so Hunter saved her thoughts for more important topics.

  Like escaping.

  Deep down, she knew it wouldn’t be possible without her powers. The fire cheered its approval inside her, more excited than ever to escape, but Hunter scolded it. You’re not much use inside me, are you?

  Her fists pounded into the punching bag, pain zapping all the way up her wrists, but it felt real and not numb like the rest of her body. She broke out in a sweat and was so consumed in her thoughts that she didn’t see someone sneak up behind her and stand on the other side of the bag. His hands curled around it and held it steady for her.

  “You are holding your fists wrong,” he said in a deep voice, his accent thick and as powerful as her punches.

  Hunter stopped and breathed heavily, peering around the bag. Mosi wasn’t wearing a shirt, and immediately her eyes found a device that stuck out of the skin on his left peck. It flashed 35, then 39, and back and forth. It was measuring his heart rate.

  “How am I… s’posed to hold it then?” she asked defensively, dizziness breaking down on her again.

  He grabbed her wrist and before she could yank it back, his calloused hands were curling her fingers and bending her thumb over the top. She was surprisingly frozen, feeling as though he might scatter away like a frightened gazelle if she moved. He was much bigger up close, and more muscular than a heavyweight wrestler. Hunter wondered if he preferred living as a prisoner in the institution to living outside as a slave.

  “Punch here,” he said, “and you won’t hurt your knuckles as much.”

  She flexed her wrists and shot a glance at Marcus, who was sitting on the bench with his hands clasped between his knees and his face impassive as he watched her.

  She turned back to Mosi. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “In my home country, there is much fighting. I learn a lot of things because I listen and watch.”

  “Well thanks for the tip,” she replied, not sure what to make of his cryptic talk. Mosi backed away from her slowly.

  “You are welcome.” With that, he sauntered to the door, Marcus not far behind him.

  THIRTEEN

  “If you show me another picture of this girl, Jenny, I’m going to strangle you.”

  Jennifer Smart bit her lip and clicked out of the photo viewer on the computer screen. Eli sat back in the swivel chair, his face in his hands. A long sigh fell out of his mouth.

  “I’m sorry Eli, I thought that one of these might jog your memory.”

  “Why do you think showing me pictures of this girl will help me remember her? Why is she so important, anyway?”

  “Because–” Jenny stood and walked over to the tray of coffee, pouring herself her sixth cup and ignoring the buzz throughout her body. “That benefit was the night you met. Hunter told me all about you when she visited me in the hospital. You went to Prom together.”

  “Remind me again how this happened? How did I suddenly fall so in love with this girl, I mean she’s not my type at all. Guys fall all over her at school. We’re nothing alike.”

  Jenny turned off the computer and put a hand gently on his knee.

  “A girl like Hunter needed someone like you. You were a nice change. Trust me, Eli, Hunter would have done anything for you.”

  “Then where is she? Does she think I’m dead or something because that freak put me to sleep and took away my memories?”

  Jenny fiddled with her fingers. I am so not the right person for this conversation, she thought.

  Eli stared up at her through narrowed eyes for a long time. “Did you ever see a man while you were asleep?”

  Jenny’s heart started beating fast. She thought the figure was just part of a dream. In a hollow voice, she whispered, “You saw him too?”

  “I saw something. It was a man I think, but he flickered… I never got to see his face. That’s when I woke up. I thought it was just my imagination.”

  Jenny wiped her hands down her face. None of this makes sense. I’m healed, Eli has no memory, and we both saw the same figure just before we woke up here in the lab. Could it be an angel, or was it just… a dream?

  “I don’t know who it was Eli, but I think that’s what brought us back. You have no idea how completely rare it is that we survived cryonics; it’s near impossible to recover all emotions and mental characteristics. If you ask me, Joshua just barely got by with us. But,” she added in a small voice, “he feels terrible about it.”

 
“Are you guys in love or something?”

  Jenny looked at Eli and laughed. “Not even if hell freezes over.”

  “Then what’s his deal?”

  Jenny really didn’t want to attempt to describe Joshua’s deranged actions to someone who hardly knew him at all – even she couldn’t say she understood Joshua – but the poor boy was helpless without his memories.

  “He… he loves Hunter. More than anything. But there’s a part of him that isn’t exactly human. It comes with his powers.”

  “Right, the… ice thing. Doesn’t that freak you out? I mean if it weren’t for that door, I’d be outta here in two seconds flat.”

  Jenny looked at the door, wondering if she would leave as well if she got the chance. She definitely wanted to when she woke up, but she was afraid and knew nothing. Things had changed.

  “I guess everything’s complicated now,” she said to him. “And-”

  Eli’s hand whipped up suddenly. “Do you hear someone?”

  Jenny froze, listening. Sure enough, muffled sounds were coming from the other side of the door.

  “Joshua’s home,” she sighed. “I hope he has take-out.”

  “No,” said Eli in a whisper, “Jenny. There’s more than one voice.”

  “What?”

  “Shh!” Eli got to his feet and lightly crossed the room. He waved her over, and Jenny shakily followed. “Listen.”

  With her ear pressed against the steel door, she could just hear soft male voices coming from the room beyond.

  And neither of them were Joshua’s.

  FOURTEEN

  The sound of the booming gong woke Hunter from a particularly terrible nightmare, but she felt worse awake than asleep. She rubbed her eyes and winced at the bright light in the corridors. Her head thumped as though she’d fallen out of bed in her sleep. Her nightmares worked her so hard that she was drenched in sweat and heaving. If she hadn’t been wearing her bracelet, she would have set her entire cell on fire.

  Hunter needed to shower before she went to breakfast, but the moment she lifted herself from her hard mattress, her cell door opened and the guard with the roaming eyes and creepy tattoo – Jamison, his name was – stood there to greet her.

  “Let’s go, Harrison.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “Couple more days and you’ll get used to the routine,” he said with a smirk. “Besides, you’re not having breakfast. Dr. Wolfe wants you down in the labs for testing.”

  Hunter walked beside Jamison to the stairs, her empty stomach in knots. She’d completely forgotten that Dr. Wolfe had plans to inspect her even closer than he had yesterday.

  Speaking of close inspection; Hunter felt Jamison’s eyes on her as they walked. When she shot a sideways glance at him, his eyes were hungry. Getting looks from guys at school was one thing – having a sleazy man rake her up and down was ten times worse. Are the guards that deprived that they have to perve on mutants like me? Do they live here, away from women and booze and bars and the real world?

  The corridors were starting to fill with kids waking up and heading down to breakfast. She and Jamison avoided a bunch of girls crowding around the bathroom door, pushing their way in. Despite the grime and awkward open space, Hunter longed for a shower.

  They marched straight for the elevator and took it down two levels. The doors opened to reveal a small entryway and a sliding glass door. Past it, she found herself facing a long corridor. Windows lined the entire right wall through which she could see a busy science lab almost the size of the breakfast hall. Low cubicles by the dozen were scattered throughout the room. Men and women in white lab coats went about their work, testing and typing on computers and fumbling with papers. Jamison yanked on her arm and she nearly slipped on the linoleum floors. She made a point to keep her eyes straight. A scientist with a brown scruffy beard passed them, but did not look twice at her.

  Her nerves were starting to build. It didn’t help that Jamison led her through a door marked ‘Surgery Rooms’. Like the room she was in yesterday with Dr. Wolfe, this one also smelt like sickly anti-bacterial ointment. It was completely dark, but for the light that shone down on the stretcher and the many blinking dials on the machines.

  “Dr. Wolfe and his assistant will be here shortly,” said Jamison. He picked up two items of clothing – a thin, lycra sports bra and matching bike shorts that would work better as underwear and were almost see-through – from the chair beside the door. “In the meantime, he’s instructed you put this on.”

  Hunter fumbled with the flimsy set he threw at her. Jamison vanished and the door was locked behind her.

  Using the privacy of the surgery room, Hunter stripped off. Her eyes roamed the empty space and caught site of a pin-up board on the far wall. Immediately and without thinking, she went over to inspect them. Amidst pages of information, there was a mix of children’s drawings that made Hunter frown. Dr. Wolfe didn’t seem to be the type of man to care about a child’s messy pictures. Hunter peered at the closed door and then started rifling through papers, even though she was sure he wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave important information out on display.

  Hunter lifted up a graph and found a glossy image of Dr. Wolfe on a busy street in New York. He was getting into a yellow cab. The photo was taken in the middle of the day from a distance, like something a detective might snap for a case.

  And as she gazed at the photo, it hit her. She had met Dr. Wolfe before; they shared a cab on a windy night after she almost set Eli on fire. The man on the other side was Dr. Wolfe. She recognized the smell in the lab and those oyster-gray eyes.

  He was watching me even before Eli knew. How long was he watching me, watching us?

  Feeling sick, Hunter stepped back and ran to the door. It was locked, as she expected. Hunter looked around for some means of escape, unable to rid herself of the image of Dr. Wolfe in that dark coat sitting beside her in the cab. He saw the fire in my veins, she thought as she recalled their conversation. What did he say, that I had a blood deficiency? Then he said something about… being different. Urgh, he knew!

  A key turned in the lock. Hunter’s heart rate picked up speed. Dr. Wolfe strode in, followed by an older woman with ratty brown hair and wrinkly skin. She couldn’t have been more than forty.

  “Good morning, Miss Harrison,” said Dr. Wolfe. He placed a tray of steel utensils on a bench beside the surgery bed – laced with straps like the other – and turned to face her. They both wore the standard white lab coat, hospital shoes and mask around their necks. The woman had absolutely no emotion as she stood beside the doctor, and in the light from the surgery table they looked like Dr. Frankenstein and his robotic wife. “I trust you slept well.”

  Almost in spite of herself, Hunter smiled. She pointed to the wall where the photo still hung. “You were watching me, weren’t you?”

  The doctor rested his cool, all-knowing gaze on hers. “I’ve been watching you for a while now. Joshua did well to hide you away for most of your life, but not many can escape my watchful eye. I know how to find people like you.”

  “But you took your time, didn’t you? When I shared that taxi with you, it was months before the Agents came. Why?”

  He shrugged and crossed his legs, leaning back against his chair. “I was interested in the way you lived your life. You had just recently discovered what you could do, after all. I wanted to observe you from an outsider’s perspective. To see how you reacted to your emotions, to see whether you acted the hero or stood back as I’m sure Joshua instructed you to.”

  “I don’t regret my actions.”

  “Oh but I’m sure you waged a war with yourself about rescuing that girl locked in the freezer, am I right?”

  Hunter frowned at the doctor’s elated expression. How did he know that Kate was locked in the freezer? Wait… Hunter recalled the moment she heard the young girl’s screams and saw the padlocked freezer door, remembered the wonderful heat and the adrenaline. She never questioned why Kate had been
locked inside, nor did anyone else. Not until now.

  “It was a test,” she breathed, gazing in horror at the doctor. “You locked Kate in and started the fire, didn’t you?”

  “I may have initiated the blaze,” he said smugly. “And you needed a challenge, my dear. It’s a part of discovering what kind of hero you want to be.”

  Feeling suddenly sick, Hunter eyed the door.

  Dr. Wolfe tutted. “We have work to do this morning,” he said. Then he indicated to the woman. “This is my wonderful assistant and colleague, Dr. Hosking. Today we’re going to hurry through the basic check in procedures and hopefully have you out by lunch. We’ll start immediately with the X-rays.”

  As Dr. Hosking marched over to the large and harshly modern X-ray, Dr. Wolfe opened a screen that seemed to pop out of nowhere. Hunter couldn’t even see the monitor. The image was as clear as life itself, the calculations and numberings so small she could hardly read them. Was this some kind of new technology she hadn’t seen yet? I’ve only been here a few days and look what I’ve missed out on. It’s a freaking scene from Iron Man.

  Dr. Wolfe grumbled. “Yes, I see you didn’t have much luck sleeping last night.”

  Hunter cautiously approached the screen beside Dr. Wolfe. The image she saw was her cell from a camera in the top right corner of the room. She was tossing back and forth rather quickly, as if the tape were on fast-forward, but the time went by as normal. Letters and numbers and heart-rate lines squiggled beside the images. Dr. Wolfe remained very thoughtful as he watched the screen.

  “Do you remember any of your nightmares, Hunter?”

  Though she couldn’t bear to talk about it, she wasn’t sure she had enough energy to think of a convincing lie. Dr. Wolfe didn’t know that Joshua killed her one reason for living – at least, she hoped not. Her nightmares were of Eli lying in a blanket of snow while Joshua stood by laughing wickedly like a villain in a cartoon movie. Though that was not the same as the broken, desperate man she walked away from in the warehouse, it was the only way she saw him in her dreams.