Winter Went | #2 Winter Series

Chapter 13

|| Amelia ||

"What do we do now?" Angie huffs out the words. She's slumped against the side of the building, catching her breath. Being so confined with such little exercise has made her unfit. But then again, I could say the same of myself.

Instinctively, I turn to Josh, and then I scold myself. Before, when I trusted him, when I believed he was on my side, when I thought those brown eyes had been warm, he would have been the first person to turn to. I was thrown into this new world, one of ice and terror; he was like an encyclopaedia to me.

More than an encyclopaedia. A lover.

Again, the scolding comes. I can't remind myself of the past. It's done. I'm never going back to it.

"We go to my house," he says slowly as though we're little children, "and we rest."

"I'm up for that," heaves Angie, and there's a smile on her lips.

Josh leads the way. I take in my surroundings as we walk. The prison is next to a fairly busy high-street with cars whooshing past and buses rumbling by. I eye the nearest bus stop, expecting us to cross the road to reach it, but Josh only takes us all down a lonely side street.

"Why not take the bus?" I ask him. "What are we doing down here?"

He continues walking, and I can see the tightness of his lips, the look of concentration on his face as he glances from side to side.

"Bus would take too long," he replies. "And we don't want anyone to see us."

"Why?"

He ignores me and turns to Angie instead. "Do you know how to travel?"

My friend stares at him like he's delusional. I'd like to think he is. "Of course I do. Who doesn't know how to walk?"

"No, not that travelling. Travelling." He looks impatient. "Travelling with your Power."

At this, Angie looks gobsmacked. "I can really do that?" she squeaks.

"I don't know. Can you?"

Now she looks excited. "Well, I've never tried it before."

"In that case," answers Josh, "it might be better if you don't. You can be a passenger."

I take a step towards him, and then retreat back; I don't know why. "This is a bit strange—travelling with your Power. What's that supposed to mean?"

"You remember when I found in the snow that first time?" he asks. I begin to nod, but then realise he meant it as a rhetorical question because he carries on. "Well, people with the Power can travel around with it. It's like moving around... in a snowstorm. That's how I took you home that night, but you were unconscious so you wouldn't have remembered."

I cast my mind back, not to what he's talking about, but much later, when I was in that tent with Sarah.

And so Josh saved you from that storm—acted the hero. He brought you back using that weird way of his, swirling in a storm and moving in that, Sarah had told me that time in her tent. Before her confession filled the air like smoke.

"I know what you mean," I tell him.

He nods. That's all.

"Gather round me," he orders. Angie huddles closer to him. I do too, reluctantly, because I don't want to catch that whiff of lavender deodorant on his skin or see the ripples showing through his shirt. I pull Maisie close towards me, sandwiching her between myself and Angie lest she tries to escape.