Embers & Ice

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Well-” said Eli as he slipped into the backseat of the car, coffee sloshing over the rim of the plastic lid, and slammed the door just as Joshua skidded away from the curb. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty keen to put Minneapolis in the rear vision mirror.”

He handed Jenny the coffee and she took it wordlessly. Joshua wriggled in the driver’s seat, his eyes – as always – glued to the road. There was tension in the air, and Joshua wasn’t sure if it was his fault or if it had something to do with Jenny as well.

“Guys?”

“Why, did something happen to you last night while you were out gallivanting around the city behind my back?” Joshua snapped. He remembered hearing the boy sneak back into the hotel room at an earlier hour than he expected, but decided to leave it until morning to get furious.

“For your information,” said Eli, “I visited my mother, a mother I haven’t seen nor heard from in nine years since she ran out on me and my dad. I’m terribly sorry if that was any inconvenience to you. I’ll try to be less selfish next time.”

The car went instantly cold. Joshua squirmed in the seat and said nothing.

“Are you alright?” Jenny asked him.

Eli shrugged. “I guess so. It wasn’t worth the sixty bucks I spent in cab money, I’ll tell you that. So did you guys get up to any mischief last night?”

Jenny choked a little on her coffee and wiped a hand across her chin to cover it. Joshua pretended to fiddle with the radio, but his palms were getting clammy. And that never happened.

“Okay… something’s going down that you two aren’t telling me.” Eli leaned forward and tapped Joshua on the shoulder. “Is it something to do with this professor guy you’re taking us to?”

“It’s…” Joshua shot a sideways glance at Jenny, and then he blinked several times. “It’s nothing.”

Eli must have seen the blush that crept into Joshua’s cheeks, for he sat back against the leather seat and huffed a laugh.

“Holy shit. You guys buried the bishop, didn’t you?”

This time, Jenny spat coffee all over the windshield. Joshua let out a yelp and the car swerved, jerking all three of them to the right.

“Hey, watch where you’re driving!” Eli groaned at the sight of half his coffee sloshed on the carpet floor of the car. “Now I have half a laté. Thanks.”

Joshua flicked his wrist at Eli and instantly, his laté turned to ice. Rock solid ice in a Styrofoam cup.

“There. Now you have half a frozen laté.” Joshua stepped on the gas and they all lurched forward. He didn’t have the patience to deal with Eli any more than he wanted to re-live the awkwardly terrifying events of the night before.

“Joshua, I think you need to relax a little.” Jenny lifted a tissue and delicately wiped away the coffee dripping down the dashboard. “Do you want to get pulled over?”

Joshua didn’t like Jenny telling him what to do, but sometimes her voice was like a cool rush of water that moved through his body and commanded the ice to stop whatever it was doing and listen. He eased his foot off the break.

“You’re right. We don’t need that kind of trouble.” Joshua’s eyes sought Eli’s in the mirror. “We did not do anything of that sort, for your information Eli.”

He coughed a clearly audible ‘bullshit’. Jenny hid a smile.

Joshua readjusted his hands and turned onto the highway. “It’s about nine hours to Dickinson. I suggest you both… sleep for a while. I’ll stop for gas in about an hour and we can eat a real breakfast.”

Jenny nodded and opened her book, kicking her feet up on the dash. Joshua didn’t even order her to put them back down. He focused on the road ahead, but his thoughts were miles away. Without realizing it, Joshua drove straight into a bump on the road and the three of them were jolted upright.

And just like that, Joshua was taken by a memory. He and Liz were driving through the mountains in Cuba into town to buy some groceries and visit the hospital for a check-up. He glanced at her sitting in the passenger seat, examining some data he’d printed out earlier.

“Honestly, don’t you think that sometimes these readings have a mind of their own?” Liz asked, turning the paper upside down as if that helped the data appear regular.

Joshua swerved around another bush, cursing the rough terrain. The heat of the mountains was making him jittery. “Not really, yours look pretty-”

“Not mine; Hunter’s. Are you sure you did this right?”

“Liz, that’s my first homemade ultrasound in a power-generated shed out in the middle of nowhere. It’s highly probable I made a mistake.”

Liz groaned and shoved the pages back in her bag.

“What’s wrong? I told you, no one will find us out here. I mean we’re living here illegally, I know, but after the fire I was sure you just wanted to run and-”

“It’s not that, it’s the baby.”

“I promise you, you’re not going to give birth to a demon, alright? Everything will be fine.”

“I just don’t know Joshua,” she sighed. “Everything we’ve searched for here has only led to more questions. And then there’s the heat flushes, the random fires in the shack, the voice, the-”

“The what?” He turned to stare at her and almost swerved completely off the track. “You’re hearing a voice now? When were you going to tell me this?”

“Never,” she said softly. She was biting her lip. “It’s nothing.”

 “Nothing?” Joshua snorted. “Yeah, because I hear a voice in my head all the time.”

“Don’t mock me,” she sneered. “I just get these random thoughts, okay? Sometimes they come in the middle of the night and I wake up in a heat flush, sometimes I get them when I’m in the shower, sometimes when I’m outside lying on the hammock. They’re just… feelings.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” He leaned forward and checked both ways before turning right on the wider dirt track that led to town. “What exactly does your mystery voice say?”

“It…” she began hesitantly, “it says…”

“Liz, you can tell me. I’m here for you, remember?”

“Fine. It says… ‘Take me back to the lake of fire’.”

Joshua slammed his foot on the brakes and they both went lurching forward.

“Joshua! Give me whiplash-”

“You heard a voice tell you that, and you didn’t think it was important enough to tell me? What, so next time you start breathing fire just bring it up over coffee a month later, sound good?”

“You’re freaking out,” she muttered. Her hand clasped over her belly as she eyed him cautiously. Those dark eyes always made his temper calmer and Joshua told himself to relax, but inside his head was screaming. Should he listen to this? Did it mean anything, or was it just the distorted mind of a pregnant woman whispering psycho things to herself? He decided to remain calm – for Liz’s sake, mostly – and investigate later. Whatever it was, it made him feel nervous.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said and pulled back onto the road. “I think we should just forget it and concentrate on the checkup.”

Liz’s smile widened. “Thank you Joshua.”

“I’m here for you Lizzie,” he replied gently.

He gripped the steering wheel and made a mental note to himself: Postpone testing with the formula until further research on side effects has been complete.

Don’t want any creepy voices in my head, he thought and dropped his visor to block out the sun.