Cryostorm (Touch of Frost)

by Lynn Rush

  I climbed up onto the bed, pushed his arm out as far as I could, and curled up beside him, beneath his arm of protection, just how I loved doing before. I brushed my lips against his.

  “I love you, Nate Ashcroft. I love you so much.”

  Although he gave no hint of hearing me, I decided to believe that he did. And if he couldn’t, then I hoped he could feel it. He wasn’t alone here. I was with him and wouldn’t leave him, no matter what.

  I rested my cheek on his bare chest, letting his body heat warm me, and put my hand over his markings and closed my eyes. Hopefully when I opened them next, I’d find this all to be a horrible nightmare.

  But it was unlikely.

  “Mandy.” Georgia’s voice trickled through my sleep-hazed mind and warm fingers grasped my shoulder.

  I snapped my eyes open and lifted my head. Nate lay in the same position, and judging by the sharp pain radiating down the side of my neck, I’d been in the same position, too. For way too long.

  “Yeah. What’s wrong?” My voice cracked. I straightened out my arm, and it may as well have been trying to straighten crooked steel. “Ow. Ow. What time is it?”

  “Almost eight o’clock.” Georgia curled some hair behind my ear. “You fell asleep.”

  “Why are you waking me?” I sat up, keeping my hand on Nate’s steadily rising chest.

  “Doc will be here in about a half hour. They’re going to get Nate ready for him.”

  “Okay. I’ll be out in a second.” I lay back down.

  “I’ll be right outside. Then I can take you to our room.”

  I nodded into Nate’s chest.

  A few seconds later the door clicked shut. I wove my arm around Nate’s waist and nudged his neck with my face. “Okay, Nate. Here’s how it’s going to go.”

  I swallowed the tears threatening to choke me.

  “They’re going to do their thing in your head. They’re going to yank out whatever Robo Chip is in there and patch you back up.” I drew in a deep breath. “Then, you’re going to sleep it off, wake up, and be back to normal. Okay?”

  Silence.

  “You’re inside there shaking your head in agreement, right?”

  Silence.

  I kissed the soft, smooth skin near his jawline, just below his ear.

  “I love you with everything I have, Nate. Everything. I’m with you no matter what. I won’t leave you. No matter what happens. You hear me?”

  Squeezing him close, I propped myself on my elbow for a better view of him. Chestnut hair rested against his forehead, framing his pale face.

  Tracing my finger along his temple, I said, “Remember how much I love you, Nate. Remember our wedding. That I’m here waiting for you to take me on that honeymoon to someplace warm with lots of sand.”

  I pushed myself up and scooted down the bed until I reached the end. I gave one last look at him, then hopped to my feet. Two steps brought me to the door, and I yanked it open. Georgia stood, leaning against the wall across from the door.

  She smiled a half smile and pushed away from the wall. I fell into her arms. She held me for quite a while before she asked, “Hungry?”

  I nodded.

  Georgia pointed things out as we wound through the halls, but everything blurred into a dull brown haze. Eventually we were at our room. Two beds, one atop the other in a sturdy wooden bunk bed set up. Two desks, one facing the other off to the side. A wall, with the upper half of windows was above the desks.

  It was snowing.

  Great. Let’s get stranded again. Or worse, the doctor. That’d be par for the course, wouldn’t it?

  “So, this is where we’ll be staying? Going to Mutant University?” I said, squatting down in front of the tiny fridge below the TV. Georgia had it filled with pudding packs, soda, and yogurt. I snagged a Pepsi and a cup of chocolate.

  “Yep. We’ll start in January when classes resume. Everyone’s pretty much gone for Christmas break.”

  “Well, actually,” I sat on the edge of her bed as I opened the pudding. “I’m going to need my own room.”

  “Wait… what?”

  “Not my own room… more a room in… married housing.”

  Georgia coughed, and I swore a flame came out of her mouth. “Married… housing?”

  I told her the story of my quickie wedding to Nate, and my deal with Robo Nate. I wasn’t quite sure she breathed… at all.

  “I—well—I’m not sure I know what to say.”

  “I married Nate, the love of my life, maybe congrats?”

  She hurried over to me and yanked me into her arms. Once again, I started bawling. Would I ever be over crying and just… be happy?

  “Georgia?” Jasmine’s voice leaked through the door followed by a loud knock.

  I let go of my sister and went searching for some tissue on her desk.

  “Yeah. Open,” Georgia said as she wiped her eyes.

  Jasmine strode in, followed by Tim, Martin, and Scott. “Hey,” she said. “Doc’s here. He’s getting everything ready.”

  “How long?” Georgia asked while I busied myself with finding tissue. Did she not have anything to use? I was a snot-mess crazy person right now. I sat on the floor, back against the bottom bunk.

  “Few hours. Depends. But Jose says they have enough to move forward on The Center.”

  I turned around. “Who’s Jose? And what do you mean by move forward?”

  “Yeah, his legal eagles are filing papers and junctions and stuff all over the place. But they have a tactical team in place as well, monitoring.”

  “Monitoring.” I huffed. “What about Bev?”

  “Not yet. But with what you told us they’ve narrowed the area down. They’ll find it soon, I’m sure.”

  “Then what. Observe and monitor?”

  “At first, yeah. These guys are good, Mandy. Really good. They’ll get it done.”

  “If not. We will. Like we did in Cali?” I nodded, looking at Georgia, then Jasmine and Scott.

  “I’d rather not,” Scott said. “I don’t want you three in that situation again. Not after I just got you back. You’ve been dead for months.”

  “We have to do something, guys. Look what they’ve done to Nate. Bad enough they created him from a cocktail those psychos threw together. Yeah, it created an amazing person. But then, the chip.” I sipped my soda to help swallow the emotions. “It took over. It made him into a different person. It—”

  “They’ll get it out,” Scott said.

  “If they don’t, then what? I need My Nate back.” I pitched my empty pudding cup and plastic spoon into the trash.

  God, I was angry. I needed to pound something. And hard. I hopped up to my feet and clapped my hands. “Georgia. You want to blow off some steam while we wait?”

  “Always.” She got up, skin glowing already. “There’s a sweet spot out back and down toward the river. They do their training out there.”

  “Training?”

  “Field ops.”

  “Wait, Mandy.” Jasmine stepped forward. “They gave me all of Nate’s personal items.”

  I stopped, staring at the bag she held.

  “What’s this?” She pointed to the wedding band.

  Martin, despite his massive size, stepped further into the room. “Is that what I think it is, girl?”

  Jasmine’s focus dropped to my finger. “There’s an extra ring of diamonds on that since I last saw it.”

  Scott’s eyes popped wide, and Tim smiled. “You married our boy, didn’t you?” Tim stepped forward. “Holy shit.”

  “Mandy?” Scott asked.

  “I can’t do this.” I looked at Georgia. “Will you tell them and I’ll meet you downstairs?”

  She nodded.

  “Jas, do you have an extra phone for me so you can call me when the docs are done?”

  “Take mine,” she said. “I’ll get another.”

  Yeah, I so needed to go knock a few trees down and toss some snow or I’d go bonkers waiting.

  Ch
apter 47

  I leaned into my stream of ice, battling Georgia’s fire. The sizzling heat and steam plumed in the air.

  “Colder,” Georgia yelled. “Come on. Bring it, sis.”

  I turned it on, my entire body went ice age. My cold ate up her flames so fast it slammed against her and launched her up about five feet. She planted her palms out and shot skyward like a rocket.

  “Wow, look at you,” I yelled up after her.

  “Getting pretty good. I was out here a lot while you were gone. Going out of my mind.” She floated downward. I pelted her flaming aura with snowballs, and they sizzled. “Can’t figure out how to shoot flames while flying, though. Need the arms.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “So, how’d they take it?” I conjured another snowball, nervous to hear her answer.

  “Fine. Really, we’re all super happy for you. Just a little scared.”

  “That I won’t get My Nate back.”

  “Yeah. Not scared at all about the being married to him, thing. You guys are epically meant to be together.”

  “Not sure what I’ll do if they can’t get the chip out, G.”

  “We’ll cross that road when we meet it, okay? No use worrying about it until it’s a reality. Nate’s strong. He’ll beat this.”

  A team of snowmobiles zoomed toward us, lights flickering. I immediately tensed. “Please tell me they’re friendlies?”

  “Yeah. That’s how they get around quick.”

  The roar of the engines increased as they neared.

  “Everything okay, here?” A deep voice, muffled by a ski mask hollered. I couldn’t even see his face.

  “Yeah. Blowing off steam.”

  “Pretty impressive.” Three more snowmobiles zoomed past. “You been at it a while.”

  We had now that I thought about it. Damn surgery was taking forever.

  “Where you headed?” Georgia asked.

  “Prepping for The Center mission.” He nodded. “You’re welcome to come. Anything you can tell us would help.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Behind those trees, white shed. Weapons and tactical hold.”

  “Be there in five,” I said. “When you leaving?”

  “On standby. So, could be any time.”

  “Sweet.” I was so going with them when they got the call. Whether they liked it or not.

  Georgia watched me with wide eyes. She knew it, didn’t she? Twin vibe going on? Or was I really that transparent.

  The lead guy cranked up the engine and zoomed around us.

  “No. No. No. I know what you’re thinking. You’re not going. We’re not going. It’s not—”

  “You don’t have to go. But I am.”

  “No. What about Nate? You can’t leave him. He’s in surgery.”

  “I’ve got a phone. You’ll call me.”

  “No. Mandy. No.”

  “Hey. I’m going for him. He deserves to have someone end this thing for him. For all of us. All of the people like us that they’ve tortured.”

  “But we’re getting them legally.”

  “Ah, hell. You know they’ll slime their way out of it, G. They’ve done it for years. Why else would they get a team like those guys up and ready?” I moved back, toward the direction Rambo Guy pointed. “I’m doing this. I hope you come with me because we’re wicked-strong together, but I understand if you don’t want to. This has only been your fight for a few months. It’s been mine for going on five years.”

  Georgia yanked my arm, forcing me to face her. “I’m with you.”

  “Really?”

  “I can see, hell I can feel, how much you love Nate. That means, by sister-twin bonds, I also love him. But we’ll get Jasmine to come, too. Make it official.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.” I started walking.

  “Let’s fly. Make an entrance,” Georgia said.

  I launched myself into the air and pointed my hands further back so I shot forward. Georgia came up beside me. The cool air whipped through my hair and bit at my skin. The thought of being part of bringing down The Center, for real this time, was something that gave me an energy I hadn’t had in a long time. Vengeance for Nate helped light my fire, too.

  I shifted my weight and curved around a tall pine tree and saw the structure. I cut my power and plummeted to the ground but shot out a swoosh of snow before touching down. I landed next to the snowmobile the leader had been on and Georgia landed on the other side.

  “Nice.” The tall guy stepped forward and held out his hand for a high five.

  “So, what’s the deal here?”

  He gestured forward. “Come on in and take a look.”

  “You can show us this already? We just enrolled.”

  “You’re on the advanced track, I think. It sounds like you have a lot of experience.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Experience. Don’t know much, though.”

  “That’ll come.” He held the door open. “Come on.”

  I entered a world of organized chaos. People scurried all over. Cages of weapons lined the perimeter of the room. In the center sat a sea of desks, computers, TV monitors, and more people hunched over them. Pointing, talking. So much stimuli, I couldn’t figure out which to focus on first.

  So I chose our host. “What’s your name?”

  “Robert. You’re Amanda and Georgia Hillman. Code names Kelvin and Blaze. Sweet names by the way.”

  “And you? What’s your power?” Georgia asked our tall, bulky friend.

  “No power. A handful of us have some. Simms has speed. Dillon telekinesis. Samuel strength. But no fire and ice or flying.”

  “Wow.” I shook my head trying to wrap the tired brain matter around this concept of Mutant University. “So, what’s the deal?”

  “We plan our missions from here. Connected here. Out back, where you guys were messing around, is where we train sometimes. Depends on the scenario we’re running.” He moved toward the chaos of people in the middle of the room. “For this one, we’re locating all The Centers.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. Two mobiles that are on the move as we speak. Two brick and mortar structures.”

  “Where are those?”

  “Florida and up north, here in Wyoming. We have a team in place in Florida already. We’re getting ready for Wyoming.”

  “So, Robert. How can we get in on this?”

  “You can’t.”

  “But—”

  “Not cleared for this much, sorry, ladies.”

  “Let me talk to Brandon,” I said.

  “He’s back in Arizona. He’s not ops. He’s book smarts and melting.”

  Shit.

  Georgia’s phone rang, then mine.

  Shit. Shit.

  I yanked the phone from my jacket pocket. It was Scott’s number. I tapped the screen and saw the text.

  Come back. They’re done.

  Dread coiled its cold tendrils around my intestines. Four words. Didn’t say yay or nay just to come back. That had to be bad.

  “Breathe, girl,” Georgia whispered. When had she moved to right beside me?

  I looked at Robert. “See what you can do about getting me and Georgia on your roster, okay?”

  He shook his head. “Not my call.”

  “Then call whoever can make the call. Please.”

  He dipped his head, but I knew that look. No way in hell was he going to put his neck on the line for us.

  “Who makes the call?” I asked.

  “Hudson.”

  “Thanks.”

  He saluted, and I turned on my heel and darted for the door. I catapulted up into the air. Hadn’t done the flying thing a lot, but running through the snow would have been entirely too slow. I was ready to go kick some ass.

  We landed at the side doors we’d gone out and Scott stood there waiting, Jasmine, Tim, and Martin flanking him. Even from way up high, I could see the whites of his eyes they were so wide. Evidently he’d not seen this too much. I angl
ed my hands so I hovered. Georgia was by my side, her heat wafting over me.

  I cut my flow and landed a few feet from them. When I did, I saw the grave look etched into his forehead, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

  I stepped forward, and his eyes confirmed it.

  “Scott?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mandy. They couldn’t get it.”

  Anger bubbled. No, that’d be rage. Coupled with some frustration and hatred for good measure. “It hasn’t been very long. How could he possibly know he couldn’t get it so soon?”

  “He saw the X-rays and imaging on the flight over. Nate was prepped and ready for a scope. Mandy, he tried to work at it. He said it is something he’s never seen nor heard of. Embedded into the tissue itself. It’s bioengineered. Enmeshed in the brainstem so deeply and intricately that even with the most steady hands…”

  My knees shook, threatening to cave. So, Robo Nate was right when he said there was nothing we could do. That’s why he came here. He knew we’d try and fail. Only had to endure a little bit of surgery.

  Oh, and get me to marry him.

  “I want to see him.” I stomped past Scott, and he grabbed my arm.

  “I’m sorry, Mandy.”

  “What happens next? I mean, with Robo Nate? What—”

  “That’s up to you, I guess. He didn’t seem too violent anymore. He had agreed to bring you here.”

  “He likes me.” And is totally married to me.

  “Then I guess it’s your call, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. We know what he wants. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.” I shook my head. “He’ll try and take it, though.”

  “Then we’ll have to look at our options with GEM here.”

  “There’s a trigger phrase, could there be a shut down phrase? Can their computer guys, like, hack into his brain somehow?”

  “I’ll ask,” Jasmine said. “We’ll look at every option, Mandy. Everything.” She grabbed my shoulder.

  Zach stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, watching. Lois was behind him some, hands over her mouth. Both of them had been on the receiving end of Nate’s kindness. Especially Zach. Nate sacrificed a lot to help him, despite him being my ex-boyfriend. My heart throbbed.