Frostbite (Touch of Frost) (23 page)

Our gazes connected.

My phone vibrated with a text from Scott,

Do not go up front

Packed in about five seats from the end. Oh, make that four, a name was called, and the kid got up. I frantically scanned the ocean of graduation caps and found Georgia’s beaming face. As soon as our eyes met, her elation vanished.

She obviously read the expression I envisioned was on my face. Tears welled in my eyes. If she was hurt in all this I’d never forgive myself.
Damn it.

“Excuse me,” I whispered to the girl next to me. When she didn’t move I said, “Move. I’m going to puke.”

She bolted to her feet. My phone vibrated again. My foot caught someone else’s, and I landed in the lap of some dweeb with greasy hair sticking out from under his cap.

“Oh, sorry,” I said.

Damn it,
I was making a scene. My phone vibrated again.

“Clear the way, going to puke here,” I said as quietly as I could. I glanced to the front. Principal Edwards eyeballed me.

Crap.

Finally, I made it out of the row and scurried for the side exit. My phone listed two texts from Georgia and three from Zach.

Scott made his way down the bleachers.

“Amanda Smith.” Finally, they called my name. And of course, I wasn’t there.
This is so not fair.
“Amanda Smith?”

I burst through the gym doors into the hallway. Walls stripped of all the posters celebrating graduation the school looked empty.

My churning stomach disturbed the silence. My phone tickled my hand again. A call this time.

“Mandy?” Georgia whispered.

“
Coats
. Gotta go. Stay there. Stay away from us. No one knows about you.”

“No. I can help.” She was talking louder. “Excuse me. Move. I have to get out,” she said.

“Don’t, G. Please.” If the
Coats
were watching, they’d see her get up right after me and think something of it.

Call waiting beeped in. Zach’s phone number.

The doors behind me swung open. Scott’s eyes bulged. Goosebumps formed on his bare arms.

He stomped toward me. “Let’s go.”

“Where? What do we do?” My voice cracked.

Scott tugged me toward the exit. “I don’t know who sent that text or what the hell is going on, but we’re out of here. We’ve pressed our luck enough.”

“I don’t want to go.” I yanked away from Scott.

He whirled around. “We don’t have a choice. I can’t let them get you again. I can’t lose you.”

“I’ll fight. Me and Georgia. We can fight them together.”

“No. They’re too big. Too dangerous.”

I tugged at my hair. “Who sent that text? How—”

“I sent it.” Jess hustled around the corner. “Follow me.”

Scott stepped in front of me. Yeah, like he could protect me from anything. I was the one with powers. Regardless, I cowered behind him. At that moment, I realized how tired I was of running. Hiding. Not knowing.

“Who are you?” Scott’s voice boomed.

“I’m Jess. The
Coats
are in the school right now.”

“He’s the one who cracked Mom’s DVD thing,” I squeaked out.

Georgia crashed through the door with Zach close behind. Clapping echoed through the gymnasium.

Graduation ceremonies must be done.

“Jess?” Zach looked from me to Jess, then back to me.

“Would you tell your girlfriend and her brother to come with me already? I’m sticking my neck out here, man.”

I jumped in front of Scott. “Georgia, get up here.”

She fell in beside me as we led Scott and Zach to the scrawny tattoo-boy.

“I told you not to come. I told you—”

“Shut up, twin. I’m with you, no matter what.”

“Twin?” Zach asked.

“Jess. Where are we going?”

“My office, of course.” His shaggy hair flopped as he all but sprinted down the hall.

“What the hell is going on here?” Scott asked. “I just left Jasmine in the gym and now we’re running with a complete stranger?”

“Jess is my cousin. He’s a computer genius. Hooked into everything. But what’s he got to do with you guys?”

That’s when the baseball bat of realization cracked me over the head.

“Jess watched the disc.” I skidded to a stop. I held my arms out blocking anyone going past me. Anger boiled, but my hands went ice-cold.

Jess’s jaw clenched.

I whirled around and glared at Zach. “I trusted you, Zach! You said I could trust him.”

“What? I—”

“Yes I watched it. Saving your ass right now. You can yell at me later.”

I turned to Scott. I didn’t trust anyone but him and Georgia at that moment. “Your call, big bro. I have no clue, but I’m getting sick of this crap.”

Scott eyed Jess for a long two breaths. “Go with him.”

“Thank you very much.” Jess waved his tattooed arm and turned to hustle down the hall.

Well, at least I’d graduated. Now we just had to make it out of the school without any extra dart holes in our necks.

Jess jammed the key into the door handle and cranked it open. I was about to enter the little office when someone whizzed by me.

It was Zach.

“Jess. What the hell, man? You watched it?” He pushed the scrawny kid further into the room.

Jess shoved Zach, then stepped toward him. “You want to pound me now or hear what I have to say?”

Zach’s fists clenched.

I tossed a snowball at Jess’s chest. “Cool it.”

They both stopped, attention squarely on me.

I shrugged. “Thought that’d get your attention.”

Georgia pointed her hand at the little glob of snow on the floor. It melted into a puddle of water then evaporated to steam.

“Kelvin,” Zach said and faced Georgia. “Blaze.”

“There. Now you know. So, can we wade through the testosterone and figure something out?” I said.

“We’re safe in here for now, and I have to show you what I found.” Jess pushed Zach once more, then made his way to his computer. “Oh, and can someone lock the door, because a shit load of trouble just landed in town, and it’s headed straight for Amanda Hillman.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

“T
he coding on that disc was so sophisticated, I had to take a peek.” Jess glanced at Zach. “And with my little cousin involved, I figured I owed it to him to see what he got messed up in.”

“Damn it, Jess.” Zach’s face turned fire-red. “We trusted you.”

“You can be pissed at me later, if you’re still alive.” He glared at me. “Thanks a lot for dragging us into your effed up world.”

I wiggled out of my blue graduation robe, and tossed it on the floor. Georgia’s pooled next to it.

Zach shoved his hands into his pockets, then glanced at me. Yeah, I saw the hurt in his eyes. I’d dumped him, hadn’t told him about Georgia, and totally accused him of betraying me to Jess. I mouthed the words, “I’m sorry” but his expression didn’t soften.

Not that it mattered. I was out of his life as of right now, anyway. Once Scott, Georgia and I got out of this school, we were gone.

Forever.

“I’m not sure what your mom was into, Amanda, but it was pretty big way back.” Jess clacked away at his keyboard. “As you can imagine, with the security that disc was packing, I found very little online and in my hacking circles. But what I did find, isn’t good.”

“Well, duh. I kind of figured that out after a few tranq darts to my throat and
Coats
grabbing me a couple years ago.”

Zach flinched.

Scott hovered behind Jess.

“It’s like the movies. Seriously. Nanotechnology. Genetic testing. Who knows, maybe looking to create the perfect soldier?” He shook his head. “It’s pretty unoriginal as far as movies go, but real life, now that’s insane.”

“So, Mom wasn’t an accident of an experiment? This was on purpose?” I asked.

“By Zatech.”

“Dad was a scientist there,” Scott said.

Jess looked up. “Searching for the most ‘green’ form of energy, right?”

Scott nodded.

“Well, it’s defunct now. And oh, it had a genetics wing, but it was black bag.” Jess straightened in his chair. “Check it out.”

The screen flashed a picture of my dad. The article heading read, “Zatech employee tells all.”

“Dad squealed?” Scott asked.

“He turned the company in. Probably trying to save Mom. Put an end to the chase, maybe,” I thought out loud. “Remember Mom saying that they could have maybe exposed The Center by telling everyone about her powers? Dad might have been trying to do that when he went public.”

“The article didn’t give too much detail, but it all happened back in 1991. Look at this one.” He clicked a different window. “It’s dated 1988. That’s as far back as I could find. There’s another one from late 1991. Never published, but I hacked through Zatech’s firewalls and found it.” A few clicks later he pointed to the screen and said, “They were doing experiments under the guise of intradermal allergy testing. On the nanobyte level they were injecting extremophilic organisms into their patients. They—”

I put up my hand. “Wait. For those of us with a less than genius IQ…”

“To give you an idea of what they mean by Nano, think of it this way. A sheet of paper is about one hundred
thousand
nanometers thick. Or this one when I was looking things up compared it to earth. If the diameter of a marble was one nanometer, then the diameter of the earth would be about one meter.”

“And…” I waved him to continue.

“If they’re taking organisms, DNA and bringing them down to nanobytes, they can inject them into bodies, Amanda. Injecting bacteria, organisms that can withstand extreme conditions, produce strength…any number of things.”

My legs felt weak.

“And been doing it since the eighties?” Scott asked.

“Probably. But your Mom, she was in the nineties, around ninety-one or so, right?”

Scott nodded. “And from what that video says, she’s more than they expected. More valuable than her weight in gold.”

“Why’d they kill her then?”

“My theory? If she wouldn’t work with them, she was a threat. They needed her gone.” Jess nailed me with a stare. “Or, maybe they thought you’d be stronger?”

“Son of a bitch,” Scott said. “With Mom dead, no one to protect her, easy pickings.”

“You fooled them.” Jess shook his head. “Not quite sure how, but you did. Until now, anyway.”

“When was that video of my mom made?” I asked.

“I couldn’t find a date and time stamp. The technology was so good I’d think it was made yesterday, to tell you the truth. But, these tech-scientist types are pretty advanced, so who knows?” Jess pointed to a computer bag in the corner. “Zach, grab that. Get my laptop. We need to make Mandy, Scott, and Georgia disappear and get the hell out of here.”

Scott leaned forward and said, “But the legal trouble didn’t shut Zatech down, did it? Cuz they were after mom and dad forever. We were constantly moving. I’d always wondered why they freaked about me going away to college.”

“Yeah. A lot of good running and moving did them. They were murdered by those bastards.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

Jess dug into his bag. “I read the obits. Officials said the cause of their deaths was murder-suicide. But with all the gag orders and stuff, finding information is tough.”

“Yeah,
they
labeled it murder-suicide.” Tears stabbed at my eyes. I felt the temperature drop, but I couldn’t stop it.

We were huddled in this crappy little office, rehashing Mom and Dad’s lives, and the
Coats
were here. My mother’s bloody wrists flashed before my eyes. Dad’s eyes propped open, fixed gaze at the ceiling.

“My dad loved my mom. He tried to protect her. They did
not
kill themselves.”

My statement drew another wide-eyed look from Zach. Jess stopped moving, eyes fixed on me.

“Whoa. Mandy. Calm down,” Scott said.

I clenched my fists and pressed them against my closed eyes. Sucking in hiccupped breaths, I tried to settle down. A temper-tantrum wouldn’t help anything right now.

“She’s doing that, isn’t she?” Jess asked. “That’s unbelievable.”

“Mandy,” Georgia whispered.

Two steaming arms wrapped themselves around me, and I broke. I sobbed. My knees weakened. She guided me to the floor, holding me tight.

“I can’t take this anymore. They’re here, Georgia. Probably know about you. Now Zach and Jess are involved, too. I’m going to lose it.”

“No. No you’re not. It’s you and me remember? Kelvin and Blaze. If they’re here to take us, we’ll fight them. We’re strong. You’re strong.”