Absolute Zero (29 page)

“Tim. Status,” I yelled, as I cooled my hands down.

“Enemy retreating. Few stragglers.”

I straddled Nate’s limp body, cooled my hands even more and rested them on his chest.

“Nate’s down,” I screamed into my molar mic. “Oh my God. Nate’s down hard.”

I cupped the sides of his face. My nails flickered, and my ice bled out from my fingertips, covering his smooth skin. “Come on, Nate.” I couldn’t feel him breathing beneath me. His chest wasn’t moving.

Tears stung my eyes and tugged at my skin as they froze to my face.

“Please, heal. Just heal.” I leaned forward and pressed my cheek against his. “Please. Nate.”

The ice crackled around me, fusing us together. Thicker ice than I’d ever produced in a healing cocoon. Something pinged against the shelter, but a flash of orange followed shortly after. Georgia’s flame no doubt.

“Oh, God.” I heard Georgia say through my earpiece.

“Nate’s down,” I said again. “He’s not breathing. Georgia, he’s not breathing.”

“I’m here, Mandy,” Georgia said. “Just keep healing him. You can do it. I’ll watch over you.”

“Please, Nate.” Tears stung. Orange lights flashed around me. “Come on.”

“Oh my G—” Tim’s voice said in my earpiece.

“Get back. Just stay back,” Georgia said. “Tim, where’s Andrey?”

“Drugged with enough to knock out a horse. Landry, too.”

“Zach?” Georgia asked.

“Safe. Martin’s got him. He’s asking for Mandy, though,” Tim said.

“Shut up!” I yelled into my mouthpiece. I needed to concentrate. I squeezed my eyes closed and focused on the piece of metal in my ear hoping to short it out.

Either it worked, or everyone stopped talking, because a peaceful silence washed over me.

“Come on, Nate. You can’t leave me. Remember, you said you’d always take care of me.” I squeezed him tighter. More crackling. I zeroed in on the circles of blood I’d seen on his clothing.
Heal. Please heal.

He flinched beneath me. I pulled my cheek away from his, slightly. The back of my head clunked against a wall of ice. Couldn’t move much in the cocoon. “Nate?” White billows of breath shot out from my mouth. What warmed my heart more was that I saw them coming from his mouth as well. He was breathing again.

His eyelids fluttered, and beneath his ice-coated eyelashes, I saw his sweet, brown eyes. “Nate? Can you hear me?”

He turned his head slightly. His bottom jaw twitched, and his teeth chattered. “Mandy,” he whispered. I buried my head in his neck and heard ice crackle as his arms wove around my waist.

I pulled the ice back. “Oh, my gosh, Nate. I thought you were dead.”

“I think I was for a second there.”

Tears stung my eyes as I continued to pull the ice back in. Chunks fell against my skin. A wave of warmth flowed over me, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Georgia’s glowing face. She was helping me along.

The color returned to his cheeks. His lips were their normal full, red color, not pasty and dark like when I found him.

His body rattled beneath mine, and he turned his head to the side and coughed. I hopped off him and patted his back. The dirt and twigs of the forest floor clung to his shirt. I lifted the fabric to see his side, where the blood had ringed, and I saw only smooth skin.

I ran my hand over his flesh.

He coughed again, then rolled to all fours. I checked his shoulder next, only blood remained on the damp shirt. No puncture any more.

“Is he okay?” Georgia asked.

“I think so.” I glanced up at her. “That was close. Where’s Scott?”

“I’m here,” he said, and stood next to Georgia.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good. We should get inside, huh?”

“Tim and Jasmine took Landry and Andrey to the shed,” Georgia said.

“I’ll get Nate inside and cleaned up. Can you warm him up some more, though? He feels so cold.”

Georgia rested her hand on his back, and a wave of warmth flowed out from her glowing skin. He coughed again then looked up. I crawled around to his face. “Are you okay?”

He nodded.

Scott’s arm slid around my shoulder, and he pulled me close. “Thanks, sis.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. “Stay by Georgia and Jasmine if I’m not around okay? I can’t have anyone taking you again.”

“Got it.” He stood and turned to Georgia. “Come on, let’s go check on things.”

Georgia nodded and walked away, holding Scott’s hand. I turned my focus back to Nate. He sat up and looked at me. “Since when did they stop using dart guns?”

I laughed. I wasn’t sure how I could laugh, but I did. He yanked me close to him and wove his arms around my waist. “You saved me.”

“You said you’d take care of me. Had to hold you to your word.” I kissed his lips. “Can you walk?”

“Yep.” I helped him up, and he didn’t let go of my hand once he was steady on his feet. “Where’s Andrey?”

“I think Tim pegged him with a dart or something. He said he had enough to out a horse.”

“I had Tim eagle eye with a tranq gun hoping to get a clear shot. He’s pretty handy with a gun.”

“X-ray vision and all.”

“Zach’s mom?” Nate led me through the trees. “Is Zach in on all this?”

“He seemed surprised as anyone. But when I was at the hotel-from-hell, there was that faceless voice. It matches hers.”

“We got her, right?”

“Yep.”

“Zach must be devastated,” Nate said, as we broke through the tree line and stepped onto the sidewalk near the shed.

“We’ll talk about that later. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Besides being a little damp, I feel great. That felt amazing what you did to me there.” Nate stopped me. “I had no idea you were so powerful.”

“It intensifies when someone I care about is in trouble.”

“You’re so much more powerful than your mother, Mandy.”

I shivered. “So I hear. That’s why I
must be killed
, according to Andrey. Can’t have someone like me roaming around, I guess.”

He curled some of my hair behind my ear. “That’s why, after we find out all we can from Andrey and this Mrs. Landry, we need to kill you and Georgia off.”

I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch. “You’re right, Nate. We need to die.”

Chapter 39

“Y
our security is seriously lacking, Jasmine.” I heard Nate say as I approached the kitchen. “You almost got Mandy killed tonight.”

“Look, Nate. You’re not my teacher anymore, so shut up.”

“Lay off, Nate,” Scott said. “She’s been doing okay.”

“Okay is not good enough. Jasmine, do you have any idea how powerful Mandy is? And how powerful Georgia may become?”

I stopped at the entryway and pressed my back against the wall. I sucked in a deep breath and held it.

“I have some idea. I studied her mother, too, you know.”

“No wonder everyone’s after her. I was almost dead out there, Jas.
Dead
.” A pause followed. “She brought me back.”

“What?” Scott asked.

“Holy shit,” Jasmine said.

I glanced behind me. Jasmine must be too distracted to have heard me sneak up. Wonder where Georgia was?

“Did you ever meet my mom, Nate?” Scott asked.

“Not face-to-face. I studied her mostly through videos and her stats. They brought her in a couple of times, to the facility I stayed at, and I studied her from an observation deck or while she was unconscious, but never personally met her.”

Silence. Someone moved, and I heard shuffling of shoes against the tile floor.

“Just before she was killed, they grabbed her. They threatened her with Josh and Mandy’s lives. Said they’d kill her entire family if she didn’t show them her powers and let them study her.”

“Son of a bitch,” Scott said.

“She showed them all right. I saw it on video. I wasn’t at the facility at that time. She was on her way to me, but they stopped off at one of their mobile sites. She decimated it and disappeared. They didn’t find her again until The Center Agents found her at home in Illinois.”

“That’s when they were killed,” Scott said.

“But that was The Center—”

“We call them the
Coats
. They’ve taken Mandy twice.”

“While I was there, they never got her. I had no idea what she looked like other than a cute, little five-year-old girl. Some Agents—er—
Coats
got a photo. Your parents did a great job protecting you from the
Coats
. And Georgia. She was a surprise.”

“What are we going to do?” Scott asked. “Mandy deserves better than this. She’s only nineteen and has been on the run for so long. It’s not fair.”

“I could kill her and Georgia off, as I did for me and Tim, but we’d have to disappear.”

“Meaning,” Scott said.

“She and Georgia could not come back to you and Jasmine. Unless you two died along with her, but that’s getting very obvious.”

I stared at my feet. There they were planning life out for me again. Instead of getting mad, I almost felt relieved. They were right on. I was so tired of running. I thought Trifle was going to be the spot I could have a normal life after we demolished the hotel-from-hell.

No such luck.

The house suddenly vibrated, kitchen windows shattered. I fell to my butt. Some glass sliced my ankle as it ricocheted off the wall in front of me.

“Mandy,” Nate yelled.

I hopped to my feet and rounded the corner. From the window, I saw half of the shed raining over the ground. “Oh, my God, where’s Georgia?”

I scrambled to the back door with Nate close behind.

Georgia lay on the ground at least fifty-feet away from the shed. Some of her clothing was on fire, and her skin lit up like a Christmas tree. At least she made it to the grass. It was softer than the gravel driveway.

“Georgia.” I skidded to her side. “Are you okay?”

“What happened?” Scott squatted on the other side of her.

“I was watching Tim question Andrey and Zach’s mom.” Tears streamed down Georgia’s face. “He—um—he asked about Mom.”

I grabbed Georgia’s shoulder. “That used to trigger me like crazy.”

“Tim told me to leave because I was looking like a tea kettle about to blow. I ran out, but then I heard Andrey brag about how he sliced her wrists and her throat like butter, and I lost it.” Georgia’s shoulders trembled. “Did I hurt Tim? Is he okay?”

Jasmine jumped up and hurried to the shed. “They’re fine.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“A zap of fire shot out from around me. I was so mad. I felt it bubble and couldn’t stop it.”

“I know how that feels. Can you stand?” I asked.

She grabbed my hand and looked at me, then to Nate. “You okay?”

He gripped my shoulder and nodded. “Mandy healed me up good.”

“Then would you go in there and get some answers for us? I need to know where Lois is and if she’s okay. And what the hell is going on with The Center and this Andrey guy.” Georgia stomped her foot, looking past Nate. “And Zach, what the hell has your mother got to do with all this?”

Zach stepped beside me. “I don’t know. She’s just a secretary at the doctor’s office.”

“Yeah. Not so much,” I said, then looked at Nate. “Come on. Let’s find out.”

We made our way to the steaming shed, or what was left of it, and saw Andrey attached to a chair with steel pipe twisted around his upper body to contain his arms and then around his thighs and ankles. An IV drip with some clear liquids was next to him.

“What’s that?” I asked Nate.

“A little cocktail to keep him calm,” Tim said. “He’s not as strong as you, Nate, or Jasmine, so those pipes will hold him, but I want to make sure.”

“I don’t know, he’s pretty strong.” I rubbed my jaw remembering. “And steer clear of that shiny weapon of his.”

Andrey grunted. His head hung low. Mrs. Landry, on the other hand, thrashed against her restraints, but since she was a measly little human, rope did just fine for her.

“So spill it, Mrs. Landry. Or Dr. B or Whatever you want to be called.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re an abomination.”

“Right back atchya.”

“Mom, what the hell?”

“Oh, Zach. I’m so sorry you got pulled into this. I had no idea you were so involved. That you knew about these people.”

“But Mom, how are you? What—?”

“How do you know Andrey?” I asked.

“Do not speak,
voman
,” Andrey said with a slur, glaring at Mrs. Landry.

“Do you work for The Center?” Nate asked Zach’s mom.

She shook her head and glanced at Andrey sideways. “I’m not the doctor. It’s my sister. She pulled me in once she realized Amanda came to this town. We tagged her and have been watching her.”

“You were in California, when they captured me. You were the voice.”

“Yes.”

“Mom. How could you?” Zach said with a screech.

“You weren’t at the hotel a couple years ago when they got me,” I said.

“No. I heard about that failure. I helped with developing that metal they used on you this last time. I’m not into genetics, but I know a little about containment.”

“So, you help make the handy little things they try to capture us with? Nets and stuff?”

She nodded.

“But you didn’t recognize me the first time you met me when Zach and I dated?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know the subjects, just what they can do. My sister keeps identities from me. Until they found you here. Then she told me who, and
what,
you are so I could help watch.”

“Keep talking,” Scott said.

“The Center enlisted Andrey and his team of mercenaries to track you down.”

“Shut up!” Andrey said. He thrashed against his restraints. The metal groaned as he reached for Zach’s mom.

I darted toward him and grabbed his hand. I didn’t let go until it crackled with frost, then I squeezed.

At least I provoked a scream this time.

“Andrey works for GenCorp. They want to duplicate you, Mandy. And well, now Georgia, too.”

“Where is The Center in all this?”

“Backseat now. GenCorp is running the show. They pretty much shut The Center down once they realized how powerful Amanda was. If they can’t duplicate her, they’ll eliminate her so no one else could get her technology.”