Embers & Ice (Rouge)

by Isabella Modra

  First her heart attack and now I’ve got the cops on my ass? What a day this has been. And if the police know we’re here, the Agents can’t be far behind.

  The howling wind had settled to a wispy breeze as he sprinted to the car park, the lights from the street lamps making the pavement shine around him. For a moment he had the feeling he was being followed and spun on his heels with his hands raised, ready for men in black suits to attack. But the car park was empty.

  Joshua put his hand in his pocket to fetch his keys, turned back around and felt his heart leap out of his chest at the sight of a man dressed in a neat suit and red striped tie standing a car length away. He smiled, his hands clasped firmly around the handgun pointed at Joshua’s chest.

  “Joshua Harrison,” he grinned. “Long time no see, eh buddy?”

  Joshua gaped, so shocked he didn’t think to defend himself.

  “Jesus…” he breathed. “Barry?”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The girl was terrified, dirt-stained and desperate for help as her fingers wiggled between the bars.

  “Help!” she croaked again, and Hunter was too shocked to move at all. If she ever thought her appearance was gaunt looking in the bathroom mirror, she was sorely mistaken. This girl’s brown hair was shaved nearly to her head, and her teeth were yellow and stained.

  Will jumped into action. He reached for her, frantic as he assured her that they would get her out. The door was padlocked, but Will pulled at it anyway. He made a lot of noise.

  Run, the fire whispered to her. Pretend you never saw her. You’re going to get caught if you try and get her out.

  Will looked back at her. “What are you doing? Help me!”

  Hunter looked from the girl with tears of relief pouring from her eyes and then to Will. He read her mind before she spoke. “Hunter, we have to help her.”

  “It’s locked!”

  “Then we find a way to open it.”

  The girl sobbed. “Please get me out of here, I’ve been locked up for months, I haven’t seen another face in days… I’m starving, please.”

  Her words made Hunter want to cry. She couldn’t look at her.

  “Will, we can’t even get ourselves out of here, how can we-”

  “Is… someone there?”

  The voice came from two cells down. Hunter and Will left the girl with her hands hanging out and ran down to the other cell. A man stood behind the bars, the room dark behind him. He was much older than any of them, maybe early thirties. As he begged them to help, more voices came from the corridors, more cries and pleads, more dirty hands dangling from between the bars, and Hunter felt panic bubble from her core.

  “What do we do?” she asked Will. He was breathing heavily as his eyes darted to all of the bodies imprisoned around him. It was a nightmare.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Hey,” hissed the man from the cell beside them. “Can you get me out?” He stuck his hand between the bars to reach them, only his hand wasn’t there at the end of his arm. It was only a stump.

  “What happened to you?” asked Hunter.

  “Experiments,” the man said. He twitched his entire head to the side and it cracked, making Hunter jump back in fright. “G-get me out, will you?!”

  Will’s hand curled around Hunter’s arm, pulling her back.

  “I don’t like this,” she whispered to him. “There’s something wrong with these people.”

  “Where are you going?!” the man shouted at them.

  “Are we really going to leave them?” asked Will. “There’s nothing wrong with-”

  “Argh!”

  Hunter shrieked when a man in a nearby cell threw himself against the door, thrusting his arm out towards her and snatching a fistful of her hair. She tore herself away, pain searing her head as he ripped her hair from her skull. Desperate for Will to put his arms around her and make the sounds go away, she fumbled for his arms and he held her from the window and the prisoner. But the sight of the man with no eyes remained glued to her mind even when she turned away.

  They ran, passing many more cells filled with people crying and reaching for them. Hunter’s stomach rolled over at the sight of a girl who looked normal in the darkness, but when she pressed her face against the bars, her skin was layered with burns.

  “Please help,” she moaned. “Please help. Please.”

  “What has he done to them,” Hunter hissed at Will. “What are they doing down here?”

  Will didn’t answer. He started pulling her back the way they came. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “But-”

  “We can’t help them.”

  She stared into his eyes, wondering why Will would risk punishment to save her in the bathroom, but not to save the dozen lives that were locked in the cells around them. It was true, there was nothing they could do, but they had to try anyway.

  “Hunter?”

  She whirled at her name and started running. From down the end of the corridor, she saw a bigger and sturdier cell with an arm hanging out, waving at her. As she grew closer, she knew who it was immediately.

  “Alfie, oh my God!” She grabbed his hand and held it tight. It was ice cold in her grip. “Are you okay?”

  He looked shabby and dirty and there were blood stains all over him. “It’s madness down here,” he said. “I haven’t left this cell in days, and they hardly ever feed me. And guess what: These people don’t have powers.”

  “What? They’re just regular people?”

  Alfie nodded. “He experiments on them. He’s testing our powers, trying to re-create them.”

  Hunter looked back at the cells and saw the girl with the burns on her face. She felt sick and dizzy.

  “Has he tested on you Alfie?” asked Will. “What has he done to you?”

  “Nothing but starve me.” He lifted his wrists and chains jingled. “I can’t turn anymore, not even if I tried.”

  “We’ll get you out,” said Hunter and she looked at Will. “That’s a promise.”

  Suddenly there came a crash from behind the locked door at the end of the corridor. A scream followed it, a scream that chilled Hunter down to her bones.

  “What’s in there?”

  “I don’t know,” said Alfie. “But there’s been noise coming from that way for ages now. Guards and scientists ran in there and they haven’t come out.”

  “Hunter, let’s leave,” Will pleaded her. “Before we find anything else we’re not supposed to.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “You can stay here if you like, but whatever is in there could be the answer to getting us and these guys out of here. Will,” she gripped his wrist. “Are you coming?”

  After only a split-second of hesitation, he nodded.

  “We’ll come back for you Alfie,” she promised him, and with a breaking heart, she ran. When they came to the door at the end, Hunter took note of the number above it.

  “Death Cave 1,” she murmured. Her heart was pounding in her chest as the noise became louder. “Here, help me with this latch it looks heavy.”

  Together, they lifted the metal rod that felt like ice beneath her fingers and heaved it to the right. The latch was oddly soundless, and after unlocking the door, Hunter pulled it open towards them. She ducked her head around the corner and found yet another staircase.

  The lower they climbed, the colder it grew. The stairs led down to a smaller door, this one without a padlock on it. It had a simple old handle, rickety with age.

  Hunter looked up at Will, but it was too dark to see his expression. Instead, she found his hand. And just like earlier in the theatre room, she squeezed it and he squeezed back. It will be okay, he seemed to affirm. Hunter drew in a deep breath, slowly turned the handle and eased the door open. Pearly fluorescent light poured into the stairwell and she pressed her back against the wall beside Will. After she was sure no one saw the door open – because there was too much crashing coming from inside for anyone to hear the
m – Hunter peered through the doorway.

  She saw what appeared to be a circular dark room the size of a small cathedral. The roof stretched further than her eyes could see, enclosed in darkness. The only light was coming from the center of the room, where a glass tank no bigger than her own cell was surrounded by heavy machinery, cords and wiring and equipment like nothing she’d ever seen. There were scientists in white lab coats scattered around the room, hiding behind crates and machines and other various things Hunter couldn’t name to save her life. Men in White – dozens of them – were scattered too, though they were grouped in a strong formation around the glass tank in the middle, all with taser guns aimed at whatever was threatening them. Hunter craned her neck to see over a pile of crates and as the guards stilled, she saw that the glass in the tank had shattered on one side. Whatever was trapped had been freed.

  Hunter knew then and there that she wasn’t thinking logically, because before Will could pull her back inside the safety of the stairwell, Hunter ducked into the room, keeping low so none of the scientists would see, and hid down behind what looked like a bunch of DVD players on a food tray.

  Will hurried up behind her, gripped her arm tight and hissed, “Are you barking mad?”

  “Shh,” she mouthed and pointed at the tank.

  From their view, she could really only see the backsides of the Men in White. They shifted nervously, some of their faces clenched in fear as their eyes were trained on whatever was in the tank. Their fingers were fixed firmly on their trigger buttons.

  “This is some serious X-Men shit,” Hunter muttered.

  Will elbowed her to be quiet.

  “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Your choice,” came a voice as soft and commanding as sin and Hunter and Will peered at the right side of the room where two double doors had opened and Dr. Wolfe strode in with an alien confidence that absolutely no one in the room held. Every person moved not an inch as he marched through the crowd of Men in White to the tank.

  In an irrational attempt to see who – or what – was imprisoned in Death Cave 1, away from even those trapped in the other smaller cells, Hunter stood from behind the tray, ignoring Will’s scrambling hands trying to yank her back, and finally saw him.

  The figure was crouched, like a lion taking a few deep breaths before it pounced. He wore a shredded jumpsuit, muscles straining against the fabric, as though he were transforming into some sort of Hulk. He breathed heavily, skin tanned and hair a dark brown. Hunter pulled against Will long enough to see Dr. Wolfe approach the tank. He bent down, whispered something to the figure – a boy her age, she thought – and then the figure rose.

  The first thing she saw was rage. Pure, incomprehensive rage. The veins across his chest, throat and face strained against his skin. His eyes were almost pure black, no whites at all. His frame was hunched, everything clenched. Hunter would have bet her left arm that he was preparing to explode, and she realized that’s what had happened to the tank. This was why all of the Men in White were called.

  The side of the glass tank was labeled in giant bold letters ‘TERMINAL 1’.

  “Get down!” Will hissed at her and one of the trays rattled threateningly. She worried a scientist would hear them, but their eyes were fixed on the angry boy in the open tank. They all feared for their lives.

  Why don’t the Men in White just put the creature out or lock him in a cell like they did with all the others?

  “You can’t kill me!” the boy shouted in a deep tone and Dr. Wolfe stumbled back. Hunter would have liked to give the guy a high five for scaring the doctor, had he not been so terrifying and unstable.

  “Now calm down, I know you can’t control this rage and we’d like to help you-”

  “Help me?” he growled. “You’ve had me locked up in here for months, shot me with lasers and stuck me with needles and now you’re offering to help me?”

  “Actually, you’re here for a far more important reason.” Dr. Wolfe threw his arms up and stared around the room. “You’re powerful, young man, and I’d like to turn your gifts and abilities into something greater. A weapon.”

  “A weapon?” the boy shivered angrily. “I’ll never do it. You’ll create war.”

  “Oh, dear boy,” he chuckled. “War is exactly what I want.”

  Hunter and Will looked at each other, eyes wide. They were both thinking exactly the same thing: that their situation was much bigger than they originally interpreted. He’s crazy. He actually wants to use our powers as a weapon of mass destruction? Hunter was almost too stunned to hear the rest of the conversation.

  “No way,” said the boy, “I’m not helping you. No way in hell.”

  “You’re already in hell. So you might as well cooperate.”

  In a moment of panic, the figure moved to run to the exit. One of the Men in White took a shot at him with a taser and missed by an arm hair. The boy froze where he stood, turned to the guard and glared with hatred so raw and powerful, Hunter felt the darkness hit her from her hiding spot at the back of the room.

  Then suddenly, the guard who opened fire started to quiver. His weapon clattered to the floor. A few of the scientists around him began to murmur to each other. One of the Men in White grabbed the guard’s collar and shook him, barking out his name, but the guard looked as though he was having a seizure.

  Then, without even a word, the guard exploded.

  Blood, skin, bone, organs and whatever else was in his body sprayed over everyone around him.

  There was mayhem; the scientists were screaming and running for cover, the Men in White were firing at random at the boy in the tank, having a difficult time in keeping him down, and Hunter swallowed the nausea in her stomach long enough to stare at the figure. Her view cleared as the people disappeared, and the boy stepped out of the tank and started walking towards a cowering Dr. Wolfe who had backed up against a large computer monitor and desk. As he moved, a light beam shot across his face and Hunter saw, for the first time, who the psycho truly was.

  Her world spun. She froze, unable to move, unable to blink or take her eyes off him. Everything she’d seen up until that point in the institution could not compare to the horror of what had just occurred before her eyes. Not even the mutant people that cried out for her to help them shocked her even half as much.

  It can’t be him. It just can’t.

  But the words didn’t change what was real before her eyes.

  “Please,” Dr. Wolfe begged, scrambling back as far as he could go. He looked around for help but none of the Men in White knew what to do. They stood there, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. Dr. Wolfe continued to beg and Hunter continued to watch, until suddenly there was a crack louder than the sound of fireworks and the boy collapsed on the ground.

  Silence fell. Dr. Rosenthal stepped into view, and Hunter couldn’t take it anymore. She saw the world tip and fell back against Will, who caught her just as she passed out. It seemed almost like she was waking up again rather than slipping into darkness, because darkness and dreams and nightmares were a billion times more believable than seeing Dr. Rosenthal shoot a murderous Jack Holloway in the back with a shotgun.

  PART 5

  THE ESCAPE

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The chair was the worst thing. Every time Joshua moved, it squeaked like a plastic chew toy in the mouth of a Rottweiler. So he kept his hands – in cuffs – between his legs and literally sat as still as possible. After all, the squeaky chair gave away his every lie, and he wanted nothing given away. Not to the man who leant on the steel desk and glared at him.

  “So why don’t you tell me,” Barry said in that casual, overly-confident tone all agents have when the criminal is safely behind bars, or – in his case – locked in the Livingston police department, interrogation room two. “What have you been up to lately? And don’t flake out on me like you always do. We’re not in Tappy’s bar, old friend. You’re in some deep shit here, and only the truth is gonna dig you out again.”

 
Joshua rolled his eyes. Okay, so Barry had caught him off guard. In fact, off guard was a bigger understatement than if he’d started off with “Nice weather we’re having” and pointed outside to the raging storm that pounded on the window. But did he really think that the whole threatening routine would work on him? Not today Barry.

  “You’ve got all your wires crossed,” he said. “There’s no need for the FBI to get involved in whatever hoodoo you think is going on here. Those two, back at the hospital, are alive. Always have been, and murder or no murder, you can’t prove I was involved at all.”

  Barry smiled down at the table and stood, loosening his tie. Joshua couldn’t help but notice how nicely Barry scrubbed up in a uniform, having been so used to seeing him in tattered jeans, biker boots and bulky jumpers with a case of beer under his arm. He’d shaved, slicked back his thinning hair and actually brushed his teeth.

  “You think I’m pulling you in here because you’re on a happy little road trip with two supposedly dead missing persons? Jeez, I’ve underestimated just how stupid you really are Joshua.”

  “Uh, ouch,” he said sarcastically. “So if it’s not about them, what’s it about? Did I forget to pay a parking ticket?”

  Barry nodded, his eyes sparkling. “Very funny, wise ass. You know you’re a slippery little sucker. I’ve been on your tail since the day you started at Colombia. I searched your apartment. I followed you to work and from work. I bugged your house, and all I could come up with is some silly banter between you and Hunter about a fire and some other ridiculous crap.”

  “And here I thought we were pals,” Joshua smiled.

  “You think I’m friends with you coz I like you?” Barry huffed a laugh and looped his fingers into his gun holster. “Sorry pal, I just tailed your ass to get info from ya.”

  Joshua grit his teeth, but didn’t retort.

  “You see, there’s this case I’ve been working on for… near twenty years now. Missing children have been taken from their families all over the world, mostly in America. A couple from Paris reported their daughter missing a few years ago, saying something about a rehabilitation facility. Two foster boys – who were quite the juvenile delinquents – disappeared from their care center, and all the warden could tell us was that one was bailed out of jail, and the other was adopted that same day. Some families simply… give them up. They won’t tell us why. No one can explain it, not until something very interesting came up a couple of years ago.” Barry’s eyes were glowing, giving Joshua the uneasy feeling that he knew more than he let on. “New evidence arose on a case they re-opened in Sweden. You remember the laboratory explosion, don’t you? It would have been just after Hunter was born and you became her guardian. See, those clever Swedish bastards found something: Your prints.”