Scorched Ice

by Erica Stevens

Her eyes shone like the sun, and a halo of light enshrouded her, giving her an angelic appearance. Then he heard it. His heart gave a riotous beat as it banged against his ribs in a pattern that had become increasingly familiar to him again. Around him, gasps sounded as the pulse of a new heart filled the air. The beat didn’t die out, but continued a staccato rhythm for longer than it ever had before.

  Julian’s head bent, his blood pulsed loudly through his veins as he shoved against the door. His shirt tore across his back when his muscles bulged. Pieces of it fell onto the dirt beneath his feet.

  Focused on the strength flooding through him, Julian didn’t realize the door was giving way until a screeching noise pierced his eardrums, and the cool steel toppled away from him. He stood for a second, gazing into the darkened building before him. His shoulders heaved as he inhaled greedy gulps of air into lungs that normally didn’t work. His chest strained with the influx of air, swelling like an over inflated balloon before it popped.

  Like someone pulling a rope from the water, the energy flooding his muscles and system reeled rapidly away from him. He took one last gulping breath before the beat of his heart ceased once more. Turning, he found Quinn’s eyes closed and blood trickling from the lip she’d bitten as she focused on flooding the life she’d borrowed back into those who had willingly given it to her.

  Some of the strength lingered within him, remnants of what she’d taken, and he realized that no matter how much she tried, she never returned everything she took. A little something always remained afterward, strengthening her. Around him, the vampires and Hunters took an unsteady step forward, their bodies brushing against his.

  He glanced over their faces, but none of them cared about him or the open doorway right now. They were all focused on Quinn. In their eyes, he saw something more than awe, something more than fear. The prophecy had stated that if used correctly, she would become the vampire’s greatest ally, their savior.

  All of them now gazed at her as if she truly were their savior.

  ***

  Quinn couldn’t look at the faces turned toward her now. She may be leading them to their deaths, and most of them were staring at her as if she were the greatest thing since peanut butter and chocolate were squished into a cup. Her gaze fell on Julian standing in the center of the doorway, exposed and staring at her from his beautiful, wintry blue eyes.

  It seemed like minutes had passed since the door had been shoved open and she’d funneled the life back into those she’d borrowed it from, but it had only been mere seconds. Seconds for trouble to unfold from within. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted movement within the shadowy interior of the building.

  Grabbing Julian’s arm, she jerked him out of the way as an explosion of something erupted from within. Vern yelped and some of the others screamed as they fell away from the doorway. Julian embraced her against him and pressed her into the wall. Chris, Melissa, and Lou flung themselves to the side, coming up against the building beside her.

  Julian spit out a series of curses. Quinn lifted her head to search the vampires over Julian’s shoulder. More immobile bodies lay on the ground, while some vamps hurried to drag the injured out of the way. She realized the explosion had been an eruption of stakes from within when she spotted the wooden weapons protruding from some of the vamps.

  “They’re going to come for you the most,” Julian said to her. “They’ve seen what you can do. I need you to stay with me.”

  “You can’t get in front of that door again!” she hissed.

  “I think they just shot their load.”

  “Not funny.”

  Across the way from them, Vern turned back toward the door. His eyes were a fiery red, blood oozed from his shoulder, and a large scratch marred his cheek, but he looked ready to commit mayhem.

  “What do we do?” Chris asked.

  “We go in,” Julian replied.

  “We go together,” Quinn said.

  His eyes fairly spit fire when his gaze lowered to hers. Her teeth grated together as she glowered back at him.

  “You said they’ll be coming for me; I assume that means they want me alive. We either go together, or I lead the way. Like many, I’m sure they’d prefer to see you dead,” she told him.

  Some of the others actually chuckled, but she was too intent on making him listen to reason to find anything amusing right now.

  “You have no idea what they’ll do to you if they capture you. I am faster than what they just unleashed on us,” he said.

  “They could unleash something new,” she replied.

  “And I’d still be faster. My age and you have made me so.”

  “Maybe so, but we’re still going together or not at all.”

  His jaw clenched, but he lowered his arms. “Together.”

  Quinn nodded and her body tensed as the two of them turned into the doorway together. She fully expected to be hit in the chest with a stake, but the building was eerily quiet, and no one stood within waiting to attack them. Julian put one arm around her waist while he held the other arm protectively out in front of her.

  “Stay with me, Dewdrop,” he whispered.

  This time, she knew he didn’t mean to stay by his side; he meant not to get herself killed.

  “You also.” She brushed her fingers briefly over the weeping angel on his bicep. Not even the angels would be able to help the people within this building if they harmed anyone she loved.

  She stayed beside him as they inched their way into the hallway. From the outside, the place appeared no bigger than a 7-Eleven, but within it felt much larger. She stepped onto the door Julian had shoved into the building and walked over it to the other side.

  Her eyes pulled out the pinpricks of light filtering in from behind them as they moved further down the concrete hall with doors lining both sides of it. With its nearly foot-thick walls, the building looked like it had been designed to withstand a bomb.

  She saw nothing to indicate where the stakes had come from and realized they must have been from either people throwing them or weapons firing them, perhaps both. The reason the stakes hadn’t fired right away was because the people had probably had to scramble out of the way of the door being thrust at them. That delay had most likely saved Julian’s life and the lives of some of the others.

  Their attackers had fled somewhere else and were preparing to prepare to launch a fresh attack on them. Quinn’s shoulders tensed as her eyes swung rapidly back and forth, searching for any hint of danger in the cool, damp building.

  The silence filling the building was broken by the squeak of someone’s sneaker against the concrete floor. A few of those closest to her jumped at the sound, but they all continued onward.

  The coppery tang of blood and something harshly anesthetic made her nose wrinkle and her throat burn. Beneath that, she detected the odor of earth and mildew. Julian had said The Commission liked to go underground, and judging by the earthy scent, there was far more to this place than met the eye.

  “Smells like they’ve continued their experiments,” Chris said from behind them.

  Quinn’s stomach curdled when she realized the cause of the caustic smell permeating the narrow hall.

  “Yes,” Julian muttered as he stopped her before she could step in front of a closed door.

  Turning her to the side, he settled her beside him with both of their backs against the wall. He reached forward with his hand, twisted the knob, and shoved the door open. He waved his hand in front of the open doorway, but nothing shot out at him. Tipping his head back, he searched the hallway above them. Quinn followed his gaze, but she didn’t see any cameras on the walls.

  Still, she knew they were being watched. Julian waved his hand in front of the door again before stepping into the open. Quinn moved with him, offering her body as a target too. She braced herself for the stabbing pain of wood piercing her skin, but nothing shot out at them.

  Beside her, Julian became as still as stone before turning away from the room. Quin
n’s brow furrowed as she examined the gray room. Wires dangled from the ceiling above the metal table within. Julian had been strapped to a table like this at one point in his life; she’d glimpsed it once when she’d been feeding from him. Fresh rage bubbled within her. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she vowed retribution for all that had been done to him.

  She turned away from the doorway and walked beside him as he made his way further down the hall. Her heart ached for the rigid set of his shoulders and the locked position of his jaw. No matter how vicious he appeared right now, she sensed the distress coiling through him.

  She wanted to touch him, to offer him some comfort, but this was not the time or the place for that. Instead, she sought out the thread of connection to him that Julian had told her about earlier. Like a single strand of a spider web, she felt the fine thread binding her to him with her power.

  Unknowingly, her power had continued to flow between them in a pathway she’d never realized she’d opened. She stroked briefly over that strand, sending a subtle rush of power into him. His head turned toward her, and his eyes flashed with blue before becoming red again. Some of the tension eased from him as he gave her a brief nod.

  Quinn turned her attention back to the hideous hallway and the building. A bead of sweat slid down the back of her neck as she fought against breaking into a run and searching out their enemies in order to just get this over with. She kept waiting for something to jump out and attack them, or some new trap to spring, but it remained strangely calm within the hall.

  They passed two more rooms like the first one, but all they came across was more of The Commission’s hideous torture devices. Arriving at another door at the end of the hall, Melissa strode forward to stand beside them. Melissa pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and bit on it as she studied the door.

  “In the vision I had out on the field,” she whispered, “I saw the mines and I saw this door. I think there may be another explosion tied to this.”

  “Wonderful,” Quinn murmured.

  “It’s not as thick as the first one,” Julian said. “I can get through it on my own. Tell everyone else to move back.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Gripping the handle, Julian braced himself to pull the door open. Glancing behind him, he saw most of the others hiding within one of the rooms off the hall. Quinn stood behind him, unwilling to take safety with the others.

  “Stay behind me,” he said for the tenth time.

  She rolled her eyes, but her foot tapped anxiously against the floor. “I know.”

  Straightening his shoulders, he braced his other hand against the wall as he pulled back on the handle. The hinges of the door creaked as they bent, the metal of the door twisting to give way to his grasp.

  The handle broke off suddenly, causing him to take a stumbling step back before he caught his balance. He tossed the metal handle aside. It clattered against the concrete before rolling to settle against the wall as he stepped up to the door again. Feeling over the cool metal, he wrapped one hand around the twisted frame and slid his other hand up by the hinges. The hinges had given away enough to allow room for his fingers to slip through.

  He used all of his strength to wrench backward, tearing the door free of the wall. Jumping back, he slammed the metal door down in front of him to use it as a shield while he pinned Quinn against the wall behind him. A concussive boom caused the floor beneath his feet to lurch as a wave of fire erupted from the doorway. He almost could have believed a fire-breathing dragon had been unleashed on them as the flames continued to roll outward, snapping at the air before him and nearly reaching the room where the others were.

  The strength of the explosion and the wall of fire pounding against him, pushed him more firmly into Quinn as he labored to keep the door between them and the flames. The metal heated beneath his palm, causing the door to glow a vibrant orange color. His skin blistered and peeled away from his muscles until all that remained were the bones of his fingertips. His arms shook as his muscles strained from the force.

  The tentacles of her power slithered over his skin, an influx of life strengthened him. The skin on his hands began to heal as rapidly as it peeled away.

  “Keep that life for you,” he managed to grate out between his teeth.

  “It’s for us,” she replied before her head dropped against his back.

  “Quinn—”

  “You know it didn’t all go back to them. I always keep some life, whether it’s intentional or not, there is more in me than I need right now!”

  She shouted the words at him, but he barely heard her over the crackling wave of fire battering them. He had no idea what The Commission had used to fuel this fire, but they’d certainly never intended for anyone to walk away from it.

  “We have to move back,” he yelled at her, his voice dry and cracking from the heat of the flames.

  She started to edge her way down the hall toward the first room. “Almost—” Her words abruptly cut off as a twisting, wrenching sound filled the air. The floor beneath his feet shook and heaved before the ground plunged out from under him.

  ***

  Quinn’s head spun. The buzzing in her ears was an incessant noise that nearly drowned out the agony of her battered body. She tried to recall what had happened, tried to understand where she was, but everything around her was too chaotic. Blood filled her nostrils, smoke clogged her throat, and the lump on the side of her head throbbed as if it were a living thing.

  She had to remember what had happened and where she was; if she didn’t, she would die.

  She had no idea how she knew that, she just knew it. Screams resonated in her ears, somehow piercing through the horrible buzzing. If she found that beehive, she’d smash it with her bare hands.

  Julian!

  He was with her somewhere amongst the buzzing and pain and smoke. Fire!

  Her eyes flew open as bits and pieces of the events that had transpired filtered over her. There had been explosions and a fire. Julian had stood before her with a door, and then…

  She blinked against the smoke, trying to clear her vision of the cloying substance as the crackling of flames briefly drowned out the buzzing. Heat beat against her skin, causing sweat to plaster her clothes to her. The smoke was acrid on her tongue and debris coated her lashes when she tried to blink her watering eyes in an attempt to clear her vision.

  Something shifted above her. Whatever it was pressed down more firmly on her chest and caused a startled cry to escape her. She realized she couldn’t see, not because of the smoke, but because she was buried beneath something. Lifting her hands, her fingers fumbled over the rough surface of whatever lay on top of her. Cool and rigid to the touch, it took her a minute to realize she lay beneath a pile of concrete.

  The floor gave way.

  The final rush of memory was a relief that didn’t last long. Julian was down here with her, as vulnerable as she was. The others could also be here, or had it only been their section of floor that collapsed?

  Adrenaline flooded her body at the thought of those she loved trapped in this hell with her. She shoved harder against the rubble weighing her down but jerked her hand back when a piece of metal rebar sticking through the concrete sliced across her hand. Blood welled forth and spilled down her palm. Taking hold of the slab again, she shoved it angrily off of her and blinked as she tried to take in what she could of her surroundings.

  Smoke obscured her vision. When she tilted her head back, she spotted the snapping flames filling the hallway only ten feet away from her. For now, the fire rolled over itself where it was, but if it found something to feed it further, it would spread toward her. Red flashes rebounded off the smoke and reflected crazily around her. The buzzing increased and she realized now it came from a blaring fire alarm and the flashes were lights from the alarm.

  The Commission had set their building on fire, and she had a feeling it hadn’t been on purpose. Something in their design of this place was flawed. The building hadn’t been
strong enough to withstand the wave of flames they’d unleashed.

  Where is Julian?

  Panic clawed at her chest. He couldn’t have fallen that far away from her, could he?

  She searched the rubble for him as she pushed more concrete off her. She finally succeeded in dragging her legs out from under the debris. Bruised and battered, her muscles and bones protested the movement as she rose. Her ankle screamed when she tried to put her full weight on it, but when she gingerly tested standing on it again, she realized nothing was broken this time.

  She staggered to the side and rested her hand against the wall as screams pierced through the buzzing again. She tried to search through the darkness for the source of the screams, but whoever it was remained hidden by the smoke.

  She began to make out words over the roaring of the flames. “Quinn! Julian!”

  Looking up and nearly ten feet away from her, she stared at the jagged hole in the floor and saw the faces of the others as they stood at the edge of it. Fire rolled across the ceiling toward the hole. The flames growing higher as they sought out the oxygen above.

  She tore her attention away from the hole to focus on the rubble beneath her feet. Julian had to be under here, or…

  Had he somehow fallen into the fire while she’d been thrown clear of it?

  A lump formed in her throat. This time the tears pricking her eyes had nothing to do with the smoke burning them, and everything to do with the possibility that Julian may already be gone.

  No, she would know if he was. She’d felt him leave her when Zach had staked him; she would have felt it again now, but where was he? She searched inside herself for the thin thread of her ability that had been linking them before. It took her only a moment to realize it was gone.

  That means nothing! It was a new development you had no idea about it. It could have broken when you were knocked out, or before that.

  She told herself this repeatedly, but her chest felt as if it were being crushed by the terror clawing at her. Staggering forward, her hands scrambled over the concrete as her senses searched for anything other than the smoke, fire, and screams. She was so hot that entering Hell itself might feel cold right now, but the wall was surprisingly cool against her fingertips.