Frost's Touch (Book One of the Eternal Warmth Trilogy)

XXXIV. Time Come

XXXIV

Time Come

  Iana singed her heart out until her throat was begging for a break and her voice was more scratched then an abused CD. When she felt like she would drop of verbal exhaustion, did Iana close her mouth and hope that Jack heard.

  A couple of times Gracie would come in and tell her to stop singing, but no matter what, Iana kept going.

  After she stopped, Iana fell asleep for a few hours, dreaming of the ways Jack would rescue her. And once she woke up, she was smiling, though it was short lived, because Gracie instantly slapped her across the face when she saw the smile.

  “Why must you be so annoying?” Gracie sighed, shaking her head in dismay. “Honestly, I’m starting to wish you weren’t here kidnapped. The world would be a whole lot better.”

  Iana rolled her eyes, earning another slap across her cheek. She was getting fed up from all the hitting and verbal abusing. But no, Iana knew she would not give up. She would wait until her last breath in hope that Jack would find her. She was confident, and became short of breath every time she thought of Jack’s arrival.

  Gracie left shortly after verbally abusing Iana, and she sighed in relief. Though Iana would do anything to see her family and especially, Jack again, she didn’t want to deal with Gracie at the moment.

  Iana coughed, and liquid spitted out of her mouth. Looking down at her lap, she saw red. Blood, she thought.

  “Jack,” Iana whispered to no one in particular, “if you heard my song, then come fast. I’m not lasting. Hurry.”

  Of course, nobody replied, so Iana huffed, licking her lips to clean the blood off of them and fell asleep in the uncomfortable chair.

  A while later, Iana woke up to more coughs and blood. She wiped the wetness on her sleeve, happy that Barron let her hands free since he knew she was too weak to do anything. If anything, an attempt to escape wherever she was, would be a suicide mission. Iana wouldn’t make it past the doors, her strength was that dwindled.

  The door that everybody entered open, the only sound in the silence, and Barron came through. He looked at Iana with a shake of his head in disapproval, and dragged the only other chair in the room till it was in front of her.

  “Please tell me Iana,” Barron asked, sitting in the chair, “why were you singing?”

  Iana eyed him with a narrow gaze, “you were listening to me!”

  Barron laughed, pulling his head back and letting the sound reverberate around the room. “I’ve been listening to you since you first came here. I need to know your secrets, your weaknesses, your powers.”

  “I have none,” she spat, and Barron’s expression darkened.

  It was a lie though, but she only had one power. The invisibility Jack taught her. It was a power that kept her from everybody. She’d only used it twice, the first when Jack showed her how to use it, and the second when she walked in on her Dad and Cindy doing… stuff.

  “Now,” Barron started, “I don’t have time for your petty attitude. I need to know why you were singing.”

  Iana shivered, the effects of Jack not being close intensifying as she curled into herself.  “It was my mother’s lullaby.”

  The man drew closer, his hands clasped together, and a curious look on his face. “Yes,” he urged, “but there has to be some other reason you were singing.”

  She shook her head, pretending to be sad, even though she was. “I sing it for comfort. I sing it because it was my Mother’s. I sing it because it helps me survive. It’s helped me for eighteen years already.”

  Barron’s face showed no emotion. But slowly, a twitch of his eyebrow broke his frozen stature, and he rose from his seat. “I will get the truth out of you,” he warned, and withdrew a small but very sharp looking knife, “no matter what I have to do.”

  Right then, Iana wished that she was invisible, so she wouldn’t hurt more than she already was.

  And her wish came true, because right after she wished, Barron’s face showed shock, and anger.

  “You little liar,” he seethed, looking around the room for Iana, “I will find you, and I will take your soul.”

  The girl disappeared before his eyes! So she withheld if she had any powers after all. He knew, with an instinct as old as his soul, that she did at least have one power.

  Barron whipped out his phone and immediately called Hadean, telling him it was a code blue emergency, which to them meant that their prisoner has escaped. Though she hasn’t really escaped, she just is oblivious to every one’s eyes.

  This girl is getting on my last nerve, Barron thought, and right after he wished he took her soul the minute she arrived at his temporary home.

  Oh how he’s longed for the pureness of this soul. The one’s he’d consumed that were from supernatural beings helped him live throughout this lives ninety three years, though he only looked to be fifty. But those souls… were not pure; they were tainted, and left a sickening feel to Barron after he consumed them.

  Barron’s phone rang, and he picked up.

  “Barron,” he said.

  “Sir, we’re using heat cameras to find the girl,” Gracie said.

  “Gracelyn,” Barron growled, “this girl is dying, and once she dies, her soul will be lost again. Find her and bring her to me.”

  Gracie replied, and hung up, leaving Barron in the silent and other than him, empty room. Barron sighed, and stood up, leaving the room. Without knowing, he left the door open.

  Wrong choice.