My best friend, Liam Mattison, was born with snow in his veins.
Me? Ice.
Maybe that’s why my eyes are this color. Maybe it’s because I was born in Caribou, where there’s more snow than sun.
I always knew I had a chill within me, but after my time with the army, that chill froze over. I saw and did things most people couldn’t fathom. I made contacts with people who were more beast than man.
I came home altered, and there was no going back.
Except I did. It had to be done, and I didn’t regret it.
But now I’m thrust back into a world where people had forgotten my name. Back into a past I walked away from.
Memories of all the things I’ve done, of the people I’ve left behind, are floating to the surface.
The late-night summons wasn’t really unexpected.
The request was.
Saying no is impossible when you’re the only man equipped for the job. Saying no is difficult when what you really want to say is yes.
So here I am, past and present colliding with a woman I intentionally left behind. A woman who needs me to keep her alive.
I made a promise, and I will keep it.
Even if I die doing it. Even if it means the ice inside me goes subzero.
SUBZERO Copyright © 2018 CAMBRIA HEBERT
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Published by: Cambria Hebert
http://www.cambriahebert.com
Interior design and typesetting by Sharon Kay of Amber Leaf Publishing
Cover design by Cover Me Darling
Edited by Cassie McCown
Copyright 2018 by Cambria Hebert
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Alex
I waited.
I waited so long I actually started to think maybe—just maybe—the phone wouldn’t ring.
Hoping perhaps the whisper of my name went unechoed. Perhaps I’d really been forgotten.
I knew better.
Deep inside me, past the optimism I would be left in peace, I recognized. Once something freezes so deep it falls into negative temperatures not even hope can survive.
I knew the phone would ring. Deep in the drawer where I kept it locked away from prying eyes and curious ears, the sound erupted, shattering the silence.
My hand shot out before my eyes even opened, my mind awake before the rest of me. Halfway through the first ring, I answered, pressing it to my ear and peering through the onyx darkness shrouding the ceiling.
I didn’t have to say anything. Whoever was on the other end knew I was there.
“There’s a job.”
I sat up in bed, the darkness of the room shrouding everything, including the sound of my voice. “You know I’m out.”
“That’s why it has to be you.”
I digested that. My eyes shut. I battled back a thousand feelings, including shadows that could scare away even the darkest of night.
“You owe me.” He reminded.
I did owe him.
I wasn’t the kind of man who let a debt go unpaid. It wasn’t how I was wired. “Where and when?” I asked.
“I’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead.
I pulled the phone down and snapped it in half, pulling the battery out for good measure. That was my only untraceable point of contact, but it was now compromised.
I lay back down, though all traces of sleep had vanished. I was alert, mind churning, reliving some of the past and wondering just how badly this shit was going to leak into my present.
The point of contact might be destroyed, but it didn’t matter.
He’d find me.
I’d take the job, no matter how fucked up it might be.
Why?
It’s what we did.
Sabrina
The unmistakable stink of dirty diaper wrinkled my nose. It didn’t matter how many of these bombs I changed. I still wondered, every single time, how something so small and cute could produce such heinous crap.
Literally.
I worked quickly, locking down that shit (again, literally), and tossed it into a nearby bin that was supposed to suppress the stank.
It still lingered.
“Incoming,” a familiar voice said over me as a new child with an equally horrid “present” was placed before me.
Oh. So maybe the bin did lock out odor. Maybe the lingering scent, which was now a full-blown gag-fest, was due to the fact that there was yet another diaper to be changed.
* * *
I groaned and jolted, rolling onto my back and blinking groggily at the ceiling. It was dark and the movement of the fan overhead was proof I’d been having a dream. Well, more like a nightmare.
Even knowing I was home in my bed, my nose crinkled and I took a tentative whiff as if testing out the air quality, making certain that there definitely was not diaper pollution up in here.
The only scent that greeted me was that of the fabric softener I used on my sheets.
Still groggy, I sat up, pushing the blankets around my thighs and glancing over at the clock on the bedside table. It was the middle of the night. I still had a few hours before I had to be up. Hopefully, that dream wasn’t a premonition of how my upcoming day was going to go.
Before lying back down, I reached for the tall glass of water nearby and took a sip, letting the cool drink slide down my dry throat. Halfway to setting it back down, movement on the other side of the room made me pause.
The liquid in the glass swished around as I glanced over immediately, knowing something was wrong.
The long yellow curtain hanging around the window was moving. Billowing in a breeze that was not from the overhead fan.
Quietly, I slipped from the bed, clutching the glass so tight my knuckles ached. Creeping to the window, my heart jackhammered in my chest but then abruptly stuttered and faltered when I saw the window was partially open as though someone had forgotten to shut it all the way.
The screen on the outside was slit so drastically that it flapped around in the night breeze.
Instinct kicked in then. My brother’s voice filled my head.
Assess then act.
My assessment was there was someone in my apartment. It didn’t matter that I was on the fourth floor of the building and the guy would have to be Spider-man to even get in through the window.
I didn’t cut the screen and open my window.
And since I lived alone, that meant someone else did it, someone who knew I wouldn’t answer the door and invite them in if they knocked.
Get out of the house. Stay calm, my brother’s voice instructed.
There was only one point of exit and entry in my place. The front door. Unless, of course, you were Spider-man, which I was not. That meant I had to walk through my place where someone was probably lurking.
I moved soundlessly over the carpet, pressing close to the wall. After listening for what felt like twenty-five long years and hearing nothing, I risked it and peeked out into the hall. It was empty, so I slipped out, moving with my back to the wall toward the front where the door was.
The end of the hall approached, and my throat was constricted from holding in the panic rising inside me.
Panic later. Get out now.
The white door leading out into the hallway came into
sight. I halted at the end of the hall, still pressed to the side, and debated on my chances if I just made a run for it. It would take two seconds to get to the door, another two to deal with the locks. Once I was out in the hall, I could scream like a banshee and let the neighbors all call the cops.
Plan made, I blew out a breath and started forward.
The second I lunged, someone else darted out in front of me. A hard, heavy hand clamped around my wrist, and a screech built in the back of my throat and leaked out through my still-closed lips.
Instantly, I fell back, forcing all my weight away from the intruder. He wasn’t thrown off balance as I was hoping (and as my brother said would happen), and he didn’t loosen his grip on my arm.
Realizing the glass was still in my hand, I flicked my wrist and threw all the contents at the attacker, drenching him.
A low curse filled the room, but I barely heard it. He’d let go, and I stumbled back but used the momentum to slam the glass into the wall. It shattered, leaving me with a broken shard still clutched in my hand.
Like a hellcat, I lunged, brandishing the glass like a giant knife. This asshole was between me and the door, and the only way I was clearly getting out was to go through him.
I twisted away from my first attempt to slice him, but I rebounded and spun, lashing out to his other side. The glass sliced down his forearm. I felt the tear of skin.
Still gripping the weapon, I ran forward, smacking into the door, and threw the lock.
Just before I could fall out into the hallway, he grabbed me from behind. I began kicking and jabbed the glass into the arm around my waist. “Fuck!” he swore quietly.
I was just about to slam my palm into the glass still sticking out of him when he spoke. “Goddammit, Brina!” he grunted. “It’s me!”
I went slack against him, then stiffened again and spun.
My brother stood there heaving, a hand pressed over his bleeding arm. He was dressed all kidnapper-ish, and even in the dark I could see his glare.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snapped. “You deserved it.”
“Next time, go for an artery,” he quipped.
I rolled my eyes. That was Daniel—forever telling me what I did wrong. It didn’t matter he was the one who broke into my house and scared the crap out of me. It didn’t even matter that I stabbed him with glass… It only mattered that I didn’t do it good enough.
“This better not be some kind of sick teaching drill in home invasion self-defense,” I told him. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“You aren’t going to work tomorrow,” he said, moving so soundlessly it made me feel as if every step I took was like a bull in a china shop. His arm swept around me, and he moved us away from the door, toward some shadows deeper in the room.
“You know how I feel about you bossing me around.”
“Shh!” He insisted, giving me a little shake.
There was a noise toward the back of the apartment. The sound of a door opening and closing.
“Motherfucker,” Daniel intoned, and cold chills swept down my back.
My heart rate, which hadn’t yet recovered from before, was now throbbing against my chest, almost as though it were trying to escape.
I pressed a hand to it, hoping to keep it in.
“Move,” Daniel mouthed, placing his body in front of mine and producing a large black gun with a suppressor on the end from nowhere.
He took aim as he walked toward the door, basically pushing me along with him.
The barest hint of movement across the room was all he needed. Daniel fired, and the sound of a body dropping made my stomach ache.
“Go,” he ordered, his voice tactical and emotionless. I heard him, but my feet didn’t move. I stood there staring at the dark lump on my carpet. It wasn’t moving or making a sound.
My brother just killed someone in my apartment.
He hadn’t even needed a light to do it.
He cursed, reached around us, opened the door, then, still keeping the gun trained on the hallway, wrapped his free arm around my waist and lifted. Out in the hall, he sat me down, giving me a shove. “Move, Brina.”
I started up then, rushing toward the elevator.
“No,” he said behind me.
I veered right and went into the stairwell. My feet hit the first step as Daniel wrapped his arm around me again and lifted, picking me up off the steps and hauling me back.
I didn’t make a sound. I knew better, but when he started going up the stairs instead of down, I rotated and gave him a glare.
Using the long black nozzle on the gun, he pressed it against his lips, telling me to stay silent.
On the next landing, Daniel sat me down, motioning for me to stay, and planted in front of me. Still using his own body as a shield, he crouched and peered through the railings down at the flights below.
The muscles in my neck were so tight pain radiated up the back of my skull and behind my eye. I tugged on my ear as if that would somehow relieve some of the tension. When my brother’s already tight body stiffened further, I held my breath.
He shot off another two rounds, the sound slightly louder in here because of the echoing stairwell.
Something rolled down the steps below… Not something. Someone.
I pressed against the wall and put my hand over my mouth to muffle any sound I might accidentally make. I stared at the back of my brother’s head and remembered all the horsey rides he used to give me and the Barbie movies he endured when I was little and didn’t have anyone else to watch them with.
How could that boy have turned into this?
I knew how. Hell, I didn’t even judge him for it.
But I would be unbalanced if I didn’t sit here astonished as my brother, my best friend, showed me exactly what he was capable of.
I don’t know how much time passed, but after a while, my brother moved, rotating his head on his shoulders, then slowly standing. He kept the gun out but held it down at his side. His free hand reached out to me.
I stared at it, noting the rivulets of dark streaking his forearm and dripping into his palm. I wanted to apologize for it, but my voice wouldn’t work and he’d probably scold me for talking anyway.
Instead, I slipped my hand into his, disregarding the blood that I knew would be smeared on my palm. He pulled me along with him as we slinked down the stairs, having to step over a dead body… and then a second one, which had indeed rolled down the stairs.
On the bottom floor, he pulled me out of the stairwell and into the maintenance hallway leading toward the back of the building. He pushed my back to the wall and stood in front of me as we moved down the corridor as one unit.
Only when we got to the door leading out onto the street did he relent enough to put his gun in the back of his pants.
Daniel moved out onto the street first, gesturing toward me.
There was an unmarked car that looked like a hunk of junk parked beside a giant dumpster. I knew without being told to get in. I climbed into the back and crouched behind the seats so no one would know there was a passenger.
I had no idea what was going on, but I knew my brother well enough to know this was what he would want me to do.
He didn’t look back at me, he didn’t say anything at all as he got in the car and started it up. We drove in silence for a long time, so long my ankles fell asleep and I became increasingly cranky from the crouched position I was in.
The sky was starting to lighten when, finally, my brother, spoke. “Clear.”
Unfolding from the position, I groaned and then promptly fell over because my sleeping lower half was numb and tingly.
“Gumdrops!” I swore as I shoved up, using his seat as leverage.
He snorted at my choice of cussword.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered and climbed between the seats to fall into the passenger side. I made sure to knock into him a few times just because he deserved it.
When I was finally settled, he gave me a look.
<
br /> I sighed. “You saved my life back there.”
“I’m the reason your life needed saving.”
See? I couldn’t even be mad when he never cut me any slack. That was Daniel. He didn’t cut anyone any slack. Not even himself.
“What did you get involved in this time?” I asked, leaning my head back against the headrest. “Shit!” I burst out suddenly.
Daniel glanced over sharply. “What?”
“I’m not wearing any pants!”
He made a sound. “Gee, Brina. Next time I’ll stop the bad guys and ask them if we can have a timeout so my little sis can put on some pants before they shoot her.”
“Jackass.”
“Being nice doesn’t keep you alive.”
I’d heard that so many times it was a wonder I didn’t dream about that instead of poopy diapers.
I watched as we passed a sign. We were heading out of town. I looked at my brother, who was still young but so incredibly old. “How bad is it this time, Bear?” I whispered.
“You can’t go home, honey.”
And that’s how I knew it was bad. Not because he said I couldn’t go home, but because he didn’t even blink when I called him by the nickname I knew he didn’t like.
Alex
I had no clue where I was. Lost wasn’t even an adjective I could use to describe it. Not even the most state-of-the-art GPS system could locate my team and me.
There was no way of knowing what country we’d crossed into because the amount of time we spent on a plane blurred together, as did the last place my feet actually touched the ground. Hell, we were so far off grid this place might not even belong to any country at all. Maybe it was the land version of the ocean, owned by no one, governed only by the ones with balls enough to be here.
I didn’t think of where I was as a place anyway. It wasn’t a destination anyone would ever want to travel. It was why we were here.
We came to places no one knew existed. The armpit of the armpits of the world, where drugs ruled and no one was safe.
Sand was everywhere, creating a gritty crust on everything it touched, including skin. During the day, I knew it was hot as Satan’s ball sack, but we’d be long gone before the sun even came up. Night was colder here. The drastic change of climate between night and day was just one more thing to deter people from coming.
Subzero (BearPaw Resort Book 4) Page 1
