When Hell Runs Cold

Chapter Twenty Two

The pair sat awkwardly in the waiting area of the police station. The soft whisper of beat cops and secretaries sounded ghostly in the large hall. Alysia's eyes nervously flitted around the station. She hated police stations.

She had no idea how Nathan could stay so calm and collected. Maybe it was the fact that Lux had a bigger bounty than Whirlwind. Nathan seemed to sense her unease, putting a hand over hers. "Will you relax? You'll be fine." He rolled his eyes before pulling his hand away.

"Shut up." she muttered, elbowing him in the side gently.

"Then stop freaking out." He whispered.

Alysia sighed, frustrated. "You're so annoying and infuriating."

"Same goes for you." Nathan replied, a slightly amused smirk appearing on his face. Alysia scoffed, giving Nathan a look when she saw Ben come out of the forensic lab, a brown leather briefcase in his left hand. He walked with abandon, as if his mind had flown a thousand miles away already, his face tilted up to the rays of weak, evening sun that flooded through the high vaulted windows.

She grimaced as he dropped his briefcase, his papers spilling out over the polished tile floor. Nathan looked at her disbelievingly. "That's Blitz?" he asked quietly.

"Mhmm." she nodded. She understood why Nathan had a hard time believing that Ben Grey, out of all people, was Blitz. From the last time they had spoken, he had been awkward. Hell, even more awkward than a flustered April.

Although, he had looked a lot better than he had back sophomore year of highschool. His face had lost some of its round, boyish chub, revealing a strong, squared jaw line. Talk about a glow up. Nathan stood up. Alysia decided to stay put. Nathan gave her a dirty look, grabbing her arm and pulling her up.

She rolled her eyes. "Rude."

"You think I'm going to talk to that idiot alone?" He shook his head. "You're the one who knows him."

Alysia opened her mouth to say something, but cut herself off when she saw Ben look towards their direction. Recognition sparkled in his eyes, and he walked over to them. "Alysia?"

"Grey." Seeing Ben reminded her of all the times her father had compared her to him. Her lack of powers compared to his 'amazing' ones. She felt the jealousy that she thought had faded with time, rise up in the pit of her stomach.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. "I haven't seen you in years." His lips curled up in a small smile.

Right. He didn't know that she knew about his powers. God, she hated him.

"Cut the act, Blitz." Nathan said in a low voice. Ben turned to him, as if just seeing him for the first time. "You offered us your help. Now, we need it."

***
"You know, out of all the people I was suspecting to be Whirlwind, it wasn't you." Ben muttered, as the trio walked through Selcouth Park. "And Alysia, I didn't think you could be Monarch, Henry said-"

"I know what he said. I have no powers. There's no need for the small talk, Grey." She said coldly. "We need to know if my father had any enemies other than the ones in jail. You're the only one who could possibly know." Alysia kicked a pebble along the path.

"Uh, I can't just think of it off the top of my mind. And how do I know you two aren't going to tell everyone my true identity?"

"Are you stupid? You know our identity too, dumbass. Aren't you supposed to be smart?" Nathan scoffed. "We won't snitch on you if you don't snitch on us. It's that simple."

Ben slowly nodded. "So, Frostbite wants to kill you-" he looked at Alysia, "-in order to get revenge on your dad?"

"Basically." Alysia and Nathan said in unison, rolling their eyes at each other. Alysia gave Nathan a look, to which he shrugged at. "So are you in or not?" Nathan asked.

Ben sighed, . "I guess so."

***
"This is the base." Nathan gestured around as he stalked in, Ben trailing behind. "You break anything, I'll break you." Nathan threatened. "And I know you can heal too, so I'll just do it again."

Alysia rolled her eyes.

"Do you treat all the people who try to help you like this?" Ben asked, shooting Nathan a look.

"Just you." Nathan shot back.

Alysia clapped her hands twice, getting their attention on her. "Gentlemen, can we just focus on the problem at hand? Which, you know, is the supervillain who is killing people with pointy sticks of ice? You guys can fight it out later, but my life is at stake, and so are my friends."

Both of them looked down, mumbling something that sounded like an apology, and Alysia rolled her eyes. "Boys." she muttered. She took a seat at the computer set up, in return getting a glare from Nathan. She opened up the document, looking at the blank white screen.

"So speedy, any ideas?" Nathan asked, leaning on the desk beside her. "Who do you know that has grudges against Inferno?"

"There's Spark. He was one of the worst villains that Henry ever fought. Henry almost died a few times. He's been missing ever since the explosion in the center of the city."  Ben said, and Alysia gulped. He didn't know.

"He's in jail. He couldn't have attacked us from there." Alysia said, "Plus he had electricity not ice. He definitely seemed to be older though."

Nathan leaned in, squinting at the computer. "Go through the database. I know the government keeps a log of most Supers. I'm assuming all three of us aren't on the list. But someone with Ice powers might be. And it'll tell us their location too." He stood up from the chair and offered it to Alysia.

"I- that's illegal!" Ben protested.

Alysia spun the chair towards him, giving him an annoyed look. She pointed towards herself. "Thief." she pointed to Nathan. "Vigilante. We do illegal things."

"I can't condone this, you know that right?" Ben told them, incredulous. "We could go to federal prison."

"If we get caught." Nathan said. "Which we won't. I mean, you didn't catch her when she broke into my house. I couldn't even get her. What makes you think that the police could catch us now?" Alysia smirked, casually tapping the keys.

"Plus, I know a thing or two about getting into government databases. If you do it right, you won't get caught." She glanced over at Nathan. "April taught me that."

"April from highschool?" Alysia could hear the shock in Ben's voice. "The nice one? The one that dated Jules?"

"Yeah," She confirmed, hitting the return key with bravado as she finished. Ben seemed to wilt, his shoulders slumping in horror. "We did a lot of illegal things in our spare time while you and my father were running around saving the city. Also worked for Gevasi, did you know that?" Alysia leaned back as the virus she had placed into the government database wormed its way past the firewall. April had created it in years prior, in order to get rid of some information about them from the database, but then re-coded it, making it more versatile.

Once the virus had worked its way through the database, she could finally scroll through the list of Supers. She didn't have much time. Two minutes. Two minutes was all she had before the virus protection software noticed something wasn't right.

Tick. Tock.

Her eyes skimmed through the database, scanning for the words 'ice', 'freeze', and 'frost'. "Okay, Flynn Cross, Lucy Smith, Connor Lawson, Richard Jones, and Eva Scmidt for ice. For invisibility, Frank Locke, Kathryn Lovell, and Christina Richardson." Behind her, she heard the scratching that meant Nathan was writing it down.

She looked at the timer. Thirty seconds. She quickly closed out of everything. "That's all the database has." she said, turning off the computer, and shutting it down for good measure. "So, where do we start?"

Happy Saturday! I know this update is super late, but I've been busy with school and all (you know how junior year gets) but I'm back now!

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and feel free to vote, comment and share if you enjoy reading When Hell Runs Cold!

QOTD: What's your favorite sport?

Mine would probably have to be soccer, because my younger brother is a soccer player, and my dad and him are huge fans, so I occasionally watch some games!