Embers & Ice

Chapter Twenty-Nine

After the breakfast hall incident, things at DC went back to the way they were when Hunter first arrived: cold, tense and nasty. Dr. Wolfe ordered her locked up in Solitary for forty-eight hours, along with Marcus and Will and anyone else he thought was involved in the dinosaur attack. Hunter stewed over the injustice of it while she rocked back and forth in a strait jacket like some sort of lunatic. Jet deserved to be in Solitary – and he was, for a whole week – but Will did not deserve it, and neither did Mosi or little Sammy, who was only trying to be brave.

While in Solitary, Hunter had time – a lot of time – to think deeply about what she’d seen over the past few weeks. The secret rooms downstairs, the interrogations, the lack in security and the fact that Dr. Wolfe hadn’t been at his most murderous in days felt like puzzle pieces that were trying to form a picture, but all it looked like was one of Picasso’s famous paintings. Nothing made sense, but she knew without a doubt that something was distracting the doctor.

Hunter squirmed on the hard cement floor, staring at the blank walls and the shadow of the light in the silent corridor outside, and couldn’t get her thoughts to shut up. They were choppy like rough waters and didn’t make sense. She argued with the voice in her mind until she dipped in and out of consciousness. At one point she opened her eyes and saw a figure of her own self sitting cross-legged against the opposite wall. Only this figure was on fire, flames dancing lightly over her skin, smiling as though she knew something that Hunter herself didn’t.

You’re going crazy, she said.

“I am not,” Hunter replied, and her voice was hoarse. Her need for water deepened every time she woke up.

Then why am I here?

“I don’t know, to keep me sane?” She wheezed a dry cough. “To help me organize my thoughts?”

Go ahead then, lay it on me. You were thinking about that little black key, weren’t you?

Hunter rolled over and stared at the roof. “It was there the whole time and none of us knew about it.”

And now it’s gone.

“What?”

Well Dr. Wolfe isn’t going to let them anywhere near you, not after what Jet did. Your chances of ever escaping have just been minimized even more so.

“Great. And what about Dr. Wolfe’s secret downstairs escapades?”

I know no more than you do, her double snorted. But it would be worth a look, right?

Hunter stared at her. The flames were entrancing and made her sleepy. “If it means getting out of here, then yeah, it would definitely be worth it.”

What will you do once you get out? Go back to New York? Leave your new friends?

Hunter found herself dreading ever departing from the wonderful people she’d met in ICE. She longed to be with Will in the old quarters, to sit with the others at breakfast, laughing over Zac’s jokes or watching Fearne make strange pictures in her food. Despite her present company, Hunter suddenly felt lonelier than ever, and it was in that moment that she started thinking of Eli again.

Each time she imagined him, they were lying on his bed in the soft glow of his lamps, their legs wrapped around each other, their faces inches apart. Everything was warm and joyful. Eli’s glasses were slipping to the edge of his nose, but he pushed them up just in time. He smiled and a dimple formed in his cheeks. His fingers left goosebumps on her skin as he ran his hand up her arm, to her shoulder and her neck and then to her chin, where he guided her toward him and pressed his lips against hers.