Embers & Ice (Rouge) by Isabella Modra Page A

It comes with his powers.”
    “Right,
the… ice thing. Doesn’t that freak you out? I mean if it weren’t for that door,
I’d be outta here in two seconds flat.”
    Jenny
looked at the door, wondering if she would leave as well if she got the chance.
She definitely wanted to when she woke up, but she was afraid and knew nothing.
Things had changed.
    “I
guess everything’s complicated now,” she said to him. “And-”
    Eli’s
hand whipped up suddenly. “Do you hear someone?”
    Jenny
froze, listening. Sure enough, muffled sounds were coming from the other side
of the door.
    “Joshua’s
home,” she sighed. “I hope he has take-out.”
    “No,”
said Eli in a whisper, “Jenny. There’s more than one voice.”
    “What?”
    “Shh!”
Eli got to his feet and lightly crossed the room. He waved her over, and Jenny
shakily followed. “Listen.”
    With
her ear pressed against the steel door, she could just hear soft male voices
coming from the room beyond.
    And
neither of them were Joshua’s.

 
    FOURTEEN
     
    The
sound of the booming gong woke Hunter from a particularly terrible nightmare,
but she felt worse awake than asleep. She rubbed her eyes and winced at the
bright light in the corridors. Her head thumped as though she’d fallen out of
bed in her sleep. Her nightmares worked her so hard that she was drenched in
sweat and heaving. If she hadn’t been wearing her bracelet, she would have set
her entire cell on fire.
    Hunter
needed to shower before she went to breakfast, but the moment she lifted
herself from her hard mattress, her cell door opened and the guard with the
roaming eyes and creepy tattoo – Jamison, his name was – stood there to greet
her.
    “Let’s
go, Harrison.”
    “Give
me a break.”
    “Couple
more days and you’ll get used to the routine,” he said with a smirk. “Besides,
you’re not having breakfast. Dr. Wolfe wants you down in the labs for testing.”
    Hunter
walked beside Jamison to the stairs, her empty stomach in knots. She’d
completely forgotten that Dr. Wolfe had plans to inspect her even closer than
he had yesterday.
    Speaking
of close inspection; Hunter felt Jamison’s eyes on her as they walked. When she
shot a sideways glance at him, his eyes were hungry. Getting looks from guys at
school was one thing – having a sleazy man rake her up and down was ten times
worse. Are the guards that deprived that they have to perve on mutants like
me? Do they live here, away from women and booze and bars and the real world?
    The
corridors were starting to fill with kids waking up and heading down to
breakfast. She and Jamison avoided a bunch of girls crowding around the
bathroom door, pushing their way in. Despite the grime and awkward open space, Hunter
longed for a shower.
    They
marched straight for the elevator and took it down two levels. The doors opened
to reveal a small entryway and a sliding glass door. Past it, she found herself
facing a long corridor. Windows lined the entire right wall through which she
could see a busy science lab almost the size of the breakfast hall. Low
cubicles by the dozen were scattered throughout the room. Men and women in
white lab coats went about their work, testing and typing on computers and
fumbling with papers. Jamison yanked on her arm and she nearly slipped on the
linoleum floors. She made a point to keep her eyes straight. A scientist with a
brown scruffy beard passed them, but did not look twice at her.
    Her
nerves were starting to build. It didn’t help that Jamison led her through a
door marked ‘Surgery Rooms’. Like the room she was in yesterday with Dr. Wolfe,
this one also smelt like sickly anti-bacterial ointment. It was completely
dark, but for the light that shone down on the stretcher and the many blinking
dials on the machines.
    “Dr.
Wolfe and his assistant will be here shortly,” said Jamison. He picked up two
items of clothing – a thin, lycra sports bra and matching bike shorts that
would work better as