Absolute Zero (31 page)

I looked to the sky. Stars went in and out of view like something blocked them from my vision. Then I realized two helicopters, flying almost silently, hovered above us. The wind whipped debris against my ice, and it sounded like battering rams in my mind.

I reached out and streamed ice from my hand, but the netting over me made it splatter. I fired bullets and some got through, but only pinged off the armor of the helicopter.

“Georgia.”

A net flew over her, but her heat instantly incinerated it.

“Ice down, Mandy. I’m flaming your net.”

I turned on the cold and curled into a ball. Heat leaked through my thick protection, stinging my skin so I cranked it up even more.

“Go. Go!” Georgia yelled.

I rolled to my back, then hopped to my feet. Three dark figures darted down from the helicopter, spraying bullets.

I held one hand up and formed a shield while my other streamed bullets back at them. One guy twitched, then dangled limply, no longer descending with the rest of the group.

Georgia screamed, and a wave of heat shot toward the helicopter. The force of it exploding thrust me through the air. I landed on my side, and the breath spewed out from my lungs with a force that left me gasping.

Something landed on my back, and unforgiving arms clamped around me. Metal constricted my chest and squeezed my waist, locking my arms to my side. I began to elevate, and I looked at what imprisoned me. The familiar shiny metal that once held me captive a few months earlier triggered a swarm of dread deep in my gut.

Eager hands hanging from the second helicopter reached for me. I cooled my entire body down. Ice leaked over onto the metal clamps, coating them with a glistening layer of frost.

Colder.
I needed to crack through these. But they were so big!

“Mandy,” Nate yelled.

He ran from the shed looking up at me. I was about fifteen feet in the air and rising quickly. “Stay back,” I yelled at him. I couldn’t let them get their hands on Nate. Refused to be responsible for that.

The metal began to crack, billows of white air plumed from the people’s mouths I neared. I opened my palms and aimed ice bullets at their faces. One fell forward, screaming. The other sagged back into the chopper. The motion jerked to a stop. I hung mid-air, dangling.

A flash of orange approached me.

“Ah.” Nate hissed out a loud breath. Muffled noises rattled my earpiece. I heard him take in a sharp breath and grunt.

“Nate,” Martin yelled. “I gotcha. Hold on.”

“I’m fine. Tim, start picking these guys off! Live ammo. They’ve got Mandy.”

Georgia’s flame reached the chopper, melting some of my protective cover, but I heard the pilot scream. The chopper jolted, and I swayed side-to-side. I iced down and moved my arms. The metal creaked.

I was close, but fighting the heat of the fire now burning inside the chopper didn’t help any. The guy I’d hit with my ice bullet peered over the edge, handgun pointed at me, and blood dribbling from his cheek.

I threw on another layer of ice, hoping it would be thick enough to withstand a direct hit. He was only five or six feet above me.

Not good.

A small, orange ball smacked the guy in the chest, and he erupted into flames. The stench of burnt hair and skin slammed into me. Georgia stood on the ground, arms aimed in my direction. The chopper jostled again, and I swayed.

My sister turned and fired flame in the opposite direction. Another chopper hovered a distance away. That made three.

With impressive force, Georgia’s fire engulfed the chopper like lighter fluid had been sprayed all over it. Three dark figures jumped from the chopper, and it began to plummet to the ground. The only problem, it was headed directly toward Georgia.

“Georgia, run,” I screamed. I flexed my arms and pushed against my restraints with every ounce of strength I could find. They shattered, and I fell.

Opening my palms, I shot a powerful boost of ice. It slowed my descent, but I watched as a blazing chopper landed directly on top of my sister.

Chapter 41

“G
eorgia,” I screamed. My feet landed on the ground, and I darted toward the flaming mess. “Georgia.” I sprayed it down and looked skyward again. It was clear from what I could tell. Where’d that other helicopter go?

“Heads up,” screamed in my earpiece. I looked up and saw blackness, with a little red light flashing, rushing toward me. I put my hands up, and my palms met cold, heavy, steel.

The force was so great, I sunk into the grass a good six inches. A freaking helicopter landed on me? My arms and legs instantly burned. I bent my knees, then thrust them straight and threw the hunk of metal to the side.

But it sucked my energy dry, and I fell to the side. My arms felt like lead. I turned on the ice, maybe I could heal them of their fatigue?

“Georgia?” I yelled.

Shards of fire-hot, red metal landed around me. A burst of fire shot up, but it wasn’t flame, it was Georgia. She stood tall, encompassed in flame, and pushed a massive piece of helicopter off of her and stepped out from the burning debris.

“Mandy. You okay?” she asked, her eyes flaming along with the rest of her body.

I could only nod at the sight as the relief flooded over me. She was safe. Alive.

“A freaking helicopter landed on me,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yeah. Saw that.” I pushed to my feet and looked back toward the house. Martin ran toward us. “Nate? Where are you?”

“Coming behind Martin here. Not running too fast right now.”

I looked at Georgia, then skyward. “It was raining army dudes there for a minute.”

“I never heard anything,” she said.

“I did, but not until it was too late.” I shook out my hand, flinging ice crystals everywhere. They sizzled off Georgia’s heat. “Where’s Andrey?”

No answer. Oh, I’d taken out my molar mic.

“Stay out of sight. Let everyone think the choppers landed on you,” Nate said.

“Mandy? Georgia?” It was Scott’s voice vibrating through the earpiece. “Where are you?”

“Stay back, Scott,” Martin said into his mic as he stood in front of me.

“Do you see them? Are they okay?” Scott asked.

“Negative. It’s raining choppers out here.”

“Mandy,” Zach yelled. He didn’t have a mic, but I heard him from Scott’s.

I turned and saw Nate approaching me. He limped, but looked okay otherwise. I glanced up, but once again, I didn’t see stars. A blast of wind washed over me. In a flash, a bolt of silver shot down and yanked Nate into the air. Martin turned and jumped. His hand nearly caught Nate’s feet, but they slid through.

Nate’s body swayed as the helicopter hoisted him up. He struggled against the metal restraints, but I knew he couldn’t break them with strength alone. I ran beneath the chopper and shot ice at the tail, freezing the blades.

Without its tail blades working, the machine whirled. I faced my palms to the ground. A blast of ice shot from my hands, and I rocketed toward Nate. I collided with his restraints, and we swung like a pendulum.

I clung to his cage as we flew through the air, tugged and thrust in violet jerks as the chopper fought to stay airborne. It still moved away from the house, though. I watched as we drifted away from Georgia’s light.

She screamed my name.

Surprisingly, we still went up, higher and higher.

With my free hand I filled the entire cab with snow. My other hand frosted the metal encasing my boyfriend. “Use your strength while I freeze it.”

I turned on the cold. The chopper lost some altitude, thankfully. We needed to be closer to the ground or the impact would be lethal.

“Won’t break,” Nate yelled.

I put both hands on the cage and closed my eyes, calling ice from the deepest part of me. The coldest. I had to save Nate. I would not let him be taken to The Center or GenCorp.

He was mine.

The metal crackled.

“We’re too high up,” Nate said as he tugged at the arms holding him captive. It was starting to give way.

“It’ll be okay, I’ll soften our landing. On three, push.” I curled my fingers around the frosty arm, ready to pull when he pushed. “One…two…three.”

The metal snapped from around his chest, leaving one more around his waist, just tight enough he couldn’t slide through.

I froze the metal as I gripped it. “Hold on to me, Nate. Use your strength, because this might hurt a little.”

His arms wrapped around my neck. The chopper dipped and swayed to the side, sending my stomach up into my throat.

I ripped the metal apart but held onto it with one hand to keep him from sliding through. “You ready?” I shouted.

He nodded. “I trust you.”

Glad someone did. I’d only done this flying thing a few times, and never with a two hundred pound man attached to me.

This should be interesting.

I released my grip around the metal cage and felt the wind whipping through my hair as we plummeted to the ground. A fireball collided with the chopper and thrust it away from us in a flaming ball.

I faced my palms to the ground and blasted sleet from them. We shot up briefly, then dropped again. The jerk loosened Nate’s grip around me.

“Lock on to me. You won’t hurt me.”

He clamped on almost as tight as that stupid metal cage had.

I blasted more ice from my hands, and we hovered briefly, then fell down. As ungraceful as it felt, and probably looked, it slowed our descent.

But still, the ground came at us fast and furious.

This is going to hurt.

I blasted some soft snow just before impact. The ground met my feet with a jolt that rivaled an electrical shock through my body. Nate groaned, and he released his grip around me.

He tumbled onto his back, and I landed directly on top of him, but the momentum kept me rolling. Two revolutions later, I stopped. A rock gouged my side, shooting pain through my ribs and squishing the air from my lungs.

“Mandy,” Georgia yelled.

She sounded so far away. I turned on the cold and swore I heard cracking sounds.

Probably my ribs.

I rolled to my other side and saw Nate curled up in a heap lying on his side. “Nate.”

“Yeah. Here.” He sounded winded.

I hopped to my feet and scurried to him. I glanced around and saw Georgia’s flame approaching. I threw a cocoon around Nate and myself so thick a tank could roll over us and not even crack it.

I connected my mouth with Nate’s, my cold shooting right into him. I lay directly on top of him and held his face between my hands. I was so sick of him getting hurt. He was strong, fast, and had night vision, but still, around me he got shot three times, snatched up by some mega strong clamp device, and had a helicopter practically land on top of him.

I was beginning to think I should take Georgia away and join a convent. No men, no relationship, no one getting hurt.

My heart couldn’t take this anymore. Look at the havoc I’d brought to Zach’s life.

I yanked my face from Nate’s, and he looked at me with wide eyes. His mouth curved up at the edges as he smiled. He pulled in for a blazing hot kiss. His hands skimmed up my back to my head, and he held me close, delving deeper.

Everything around me faded into nothing. Only Nate existed. He was safe. And he was mine. No convent for me after all. I realized right there that I loved him with everything I had inside me. The connection we had, being what we were, sealed that, as if we’d been made for one another.

“You two okay?” Georgia asked, out of breath.

Pulling away from Nate, I managed a quick, “We’re okay.”

He nodded, and I punched through the igloo. Georgia melted the rest for me, and I hoisted Nate to his feet. He put his forefinger to his lips and tapped his ear. “Choppers landed on us,” Nate said.

Martin nodded and turned and ran away. I swore I felt the ground vibrate.

“Georgia. Can you make that chopper explode? The best fireworks you know how to spray?”

“Sure.” She looked at me. “What’s going on?”

I looked at Nate. “You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?”

Chapter 42

“S
tand back.” I grabbed Nate’s hand and gave one last glance at the lit-up house that felt like miles away.

Over my earpiece I heard muffled voices. Shouting. And even some crying.

“Mandy. No. She can’t be gone,” Zach bellowed.

“Get back,” Martin ordered.

“No. I have to see,” Scott said.

I looked at Georgia. Tears glistened in her eyes and stung mine. “Do it, Georgia.”

She pointed to the helicopter a short distance away. I iced down and stood in front of Nate. A stream of liquid heat ignited the chopper, and then she pulled it in. Above her open palm, she conjured a flaming ball. Her eyes flared orange, her nails flickered an intense, neon-red, then she hoisted her arm back and threw the ball.

The ground shook as the chopper exploded. The main body shot into the air at least twenty feet. Groaning metal creaked, and when it landed, a blast of air sent debris bouncing off my ice.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Nate said.

I looked at Georgia as she approached me. “Flame down, G. They’ll see you if you stay lit.”

“What about Tim and Scott?”

“Tim knows where to meet us,” Nate said.

“But Scott knows, right?” I said, as I let my ice fade away.

“I didn’t tell him, but I mentioned to him earlier that we might have to kill you off.”

“We have to tell—”

“No, Mandy. You can’t have any contact with him, or anyone here, ever again.”

My heart cracked to my feet.

“The book! We have to get that,” Georgia said.

“Tim has your book and the thumb drive you told me about.” Nate tugged at my hand. “Come on, we need to leave now. I can’t speed both of you out of here, so we have to run.”

Tears streamed over my cheeks as I looked at the chaotic house so far away. Did I really want to leave? No. But was it the right thing to do? Yes.

That way Scott would be safe. Jasmine would stay with him. Zach would be safe, too. He’d live with the thought of my and his mother’s death. Eventually, he’d go back to his life, and some day he’d be glad I was gone. No more of this sorted crap to deal with.