Heart of Ice

Chapter Forty-Nine

Song: When You Look Me In the Eyes- Jonas Brothers

The moment I wake up, I just know everything is off.

I blink. Once. Twice. I look to the side, and the place where Hunter had been during the night is neatly made and cold to the touch, as if he had never been there in the first place. I just barely catch the scent of him as I roll toward his pillow. My eyes flicker toward the window. It's a dreary, rainy September morning. That's about the only normal I feel as I sit up in the bed and glance around my room. There's no trace of him anywhere. The air feels as cool and empty as it probably feels outside. I toss my legs over the side of the bed and sit there for a minute, trying to figure out how I feel as I soak in the oddness of the morning, and then I decide that maybe I'm just overthinking it, that Hunter just woke up earlier than me, and move out of bed to dress for training.

Once I'm ready, I make my way downstairs to the gym, and as soon as I open the door, I'm hit with an even more odd silence than I felt when I woke up. Yep, definitely not overthinking it. What confirms that is that Hunter also isn't in the gym, and he's always the first in the gym when we train. The only thing that lets me know that I'm not in a nightmare is the fact that the mirror is still broken from yesterday's training. I stare at my reflection, which almost looks like it's an amusement park configuration with the shattered glass, and wait for him to show up. I get the sense that he probably won't.

I wait for probably five minutes when dad casually walks by the open gym door, a determined look on his face. He almost passes by until he notices me, and then he comes to a halt and walks back to the door. He doesn't step inside. "What are you doing?"

"Uh, waiting for Hunter to get here so I can train?" I shoot him a perplexed look, but his determined, yet strangely, distant eyes don't waver. He just stares at me for a moment.

"There's no training today," He eventually replies, and then continues his walk down the hall. I leave the gym and follow him.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You're not training today," He stops walking and turns around. "Why don't you go back upstairs and rest for the day? Hunter gave me good reports on your training yesterday. A break will be good for you."

My mouth forms a wide O. I pinch myself hard, flinching at the shot of pain, and then I narrow my eyes at him. "Alright, Demetrius. You can't fool me this time."

"This isn't a nightmare, Alaska," Dad chuckles. "Just take the day off. Leader's orders."

He turns around once again, heading toward his office. I'm hot on his trail. "But you don't give anyone a day off!"

"I'm making an exception."

"Dad, seriously."

He reaches his office door and hesitates, facing me once again. He finally smiles, but it's a nervous smile, which is something I never, ever see on my dad's face. "Look, honey, there's some things I have to tend to right now. You should go relax and enjoy a normal day for once."

Dad quickly rushes into his office before I can say anything and promptly slams the door in my face. I can't help but to stare in shock. Then, I try to jiggle the door knob, but it's locked, which is something else that is so uncharacteristic of dad-- his office is never locked.

I huff and spin around, making my way to the kitchen. With each room I pass, though, I can't help but to notice the eerie silence that is coating the house. Where is everyone? It's a Tuesday morning. It's never quiet through the week. There's too much going on for it to be quiet. That's even more prominent with the looming of a Bloodbound attack.