Embers & Ice

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The girl was terrified, dirt-stained and desperate for help as her fingers wiggled between the bars.

“Help!” she croaked again, and Hunter was too shocked to move at all. If she ever thought her appearance was gaunt looking in the bathroom mirror, she was sorely mistaken. This girl’s brown hair was shaved nearly to her head, and her teeth were yellow and stained.

Will jumped into action. He reached for her, frantic as he assured her that they would get her out. The door was padlocked, but Will pulled at it anyway. He made a lot of noise.

Run, the fire whispered to her. Pretend you never saw her. You’re going to get caught if you try and get her out.

Will looked back at her. “What are you doing? Help me!”

Hunter looked from the girl with tears of relief pouring from her eyes and then to Will. He read her mind before she spoke. “Hunter, we have to help her.”

“It’s locked!”

“Then we find a way to open it.”

The girl sobbed. “Please get me out of here, I’ve been locked up for months, I haven’t seen another face in days… I’m starving, please.”

Her words made Hunter want to cry. She couldn’t look at her.

“Will, we can’t even get ourselves out of here, how can we-”

“Is… someone there?”

The voice came from two cells down. Hunter and Will left the girl with her hands hanging out and ran down to the other cell. A man stood behind the bars, the room dark behind him. He was much older than any of them, maybe early thirties. As he begged them to help, more voices came from the corridors, more cries and pleads, more dirty hands dangling from between the bars, and Hunter felt panic bubble from her core.

“What do we do?” she asked Will. He was breathing heavily as his eyes darted to all of the bodies imprisoned around him. It was a nightmare.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Hey,” hissed the man from the cell beside them. “Can you get me out?” He stuck his hand between the bars to reach them, only his hand wasn’t there at the end of his arm. It was only a stump.

“What happened to you?” asked Hunter.

“Experiments,” the man said. He twitched his entire head to the side and it cracked, making Hunter jump back in fright. “G-get me out, will you?!”

Will’s hand curled around Hunter’s arm, pulling her back.

“I don’t like this,” she whispered to him. “There’s something wrong with these people.”

“Where are you going?!” the man shouted at them.

“Are we really going to leave them?” asked Will. “There’s nothing wrong with-”

“Argh!”

Hunter shrieked when a man in a nearby cell threw himself against the door, thrusting his arm out towards her and snatching a fistful of her hair. She tore herself away, pain searing her head as he ripped her hair from her skull. Desperate for Will to put his arms around her and make the sounds go away, she fumbled for his arms and he held her from the window and the prisoner. But the sight of the man with no eyes remained glued to her mind even when she turned away.

They ran, passing many more cells filled with people crying and reaching for them. Hunter’s stomach rolled over at the sight of a girl who looked normal in the darkness, but when she pressed her face against the bars, her skin was layered with burns.