Frost & Bothered (16 page)

“I can handle it.”

“You shouldn’t have to. Man, this being an adult thing is hard.”

Logan chuckled. “My suggestion is to not worry about it. We haven’t had an official date yet, and I’m not about to rub Nick’s face in the fact we’ve talked about it.”

“You sure you still want to? I’m doing a lovely job of causing you trouble and unpacking all my baggage on you. If I were you, I’d find a girl who’s less of a pain the butt.”

“You’re not a pain in the butt.”

“Thanks. I hope you keep thinking that.”

“Pretty certain I will.” Logan gazed at me for a few seconds. “I really don’t mean this to sound pushy, but I like you. I’m attracted to you, and I want to see what happens with us, since both of those things are reciprocated. Okay?”

Afraid my response would be a squeak, I nodded.

“Good. I’m going to get back to work. Yell,” he tapped his temple with a finger. “If you need me.”

He left me with plenty to think about.

I
spent the rest of the evening avoiding Nick and Patrick while trying to watch my assigned third of the club. For most of it, I seriously thought Nick had cloned himself. He seemed to be everywhere I looked, but at least he didn’t attempt to corner me for a talk.

About one-thirty, I met Dane and Logan at the bar. “Any luck?”

“No weirdness, and I haven’t heard anyone mention a friend disappearing.” Dane polished off his ale and immediately ordered another.

“Same,” Logan said.

“Let’s stake out the exit,” I suggested. “We’ll leave if nothing happens there.”

“I just ordered a drink.”

“We’ll grab the coats,” Logan told him. “But head that way when you get it.”

“Okay.”

In the break room, as Logan unlocked the locker, I laughed. “You know what this reminds me of?”

“What?”

“School. If you had a boyfriend, you shared each other’s lockers.”

He pulled out my coat. “Did you have a boyfriend?”

“No, I was too shy in tenth grade, and then the Melding happened, so you know, Snoozeville.” I slipped into my coat as he held it for me. “I missed out on all that stuff.”

“What else did school girls do when they had boyfriends?” Logan retrieved his jacket and handed me my purse.

“Tried not to get caught holding hands or sneaking kisses in the hallways.”

He grabbed Dane’s jacket, shut the locker, and looked at both doors.

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing if the coast is clear.” He grinned and quickly kissed me. “There. We didn’t get caught.”

“Nope.” Maybe one day, I wouldn’t respond to a kiss from him with my dopiest grin.

“Want to see if we can get away with holding hands?”

“Sure.” The warm tingle returned as we fitted our fingers together. We were so busy smiling at each other while walking to the door, we failed to realize a giant clue had appeared in front of us.

One second, we were in the break room, the next, we were falling into coldness.

“O
w.” I landed on my side in a few inches of snow, which wasn’t enough cushion for the frozen ground beneath it. About eight feet overhead, the circle of light we’d fallen through winked out.

Logan landed in a crouch, and immediately helped me to my feet. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I slapped snow from my coat. “Guess we know what happened to the missing people now.”

“Uh huh.” Logan shoved Dane’s jacket at me. “Hold this. I don’t like the looks of that.”

“Of...” Then I saw the tall, white figure loping toward us, something flapping from its shoulder. “Oh, that. What is it?”

“Golem.”

“A what?” I asked, but he was moving, charging toward the golem. “Dude!”

“It’s ice,” he called back. “I’ve got it.”

“Okay, I’ll just stand here looking stupid,” I muttered, watching as the distance between them narrowed. “I mean, it’s not like I could melt it or anything.”

If I had, I would’ve missed the chance to admire Logan’s fighting moves as he efficiently took the golem down in a fast series of whirling kicks. A few “oohs” and “ahs” may have escaped as I walked closer. “Ooh, big strong tiger man beat down the bad monster. Not that it had much of a chance. You are fast, dude.”

“Thanks. Can you melt the pieces, before,” Logan stomped on a hand that tried to skitter away. “They pull back together?”

“Oh, yeah.” I called on my pyrokinesis, and in short order, was melting the various shards as he tossed them in different directions.

When we’d finished, he dusted off his hands. “Now we need to get out of here.”

“We can’t. This is our best...”

“I meant out of this area. It’s not dead, but it’ll take a while to reform.”

“Oh. Frickin’ golems.”

Logan laughed. “Come on. Let’s put some distance between it and us.”

“Okay.” I picked up the leather bag the golem had been carrying, which was what I’d seen flapping behind it. “This is a big bag.”

“Yeah.” We started walking, and I loosened the drawstring to look inside.

“Looky what I found.” I showed him the strips of black cloth. “I’m going to guess the golem collects visitors.”

“Then we’re on the right track.” Logan pointed to the imprints in the snow ahead of us.

“Yay. We’re so awesome at this stuff.” After putting the strips and Dane’s jacket in the bag, I held it out to him. “Carry this, please?”

“Sure.”

I looked around as we walked. Mountains rose on either side, and they weren’t very far away, but a thick line of trees hid the bottoms of them from sight. We were walking down a clear, flat plain of snow, unbroken other than the golem’s footprints and our own. The plain was somewhere between a quarter and half a mile wide.

“Tell me about golems.”

“Magical constructs. We’re lucky that one was made of ice. Those made of earth or rock are a lot harder to put down.”

“If it’s a magical construct, that means there’s a magic user around here.” Who had to be our bad guy, since it definitely appeared the golem had been sent to grab anyone who dropped in. I giggled. “Dropped in.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Hey, maybe this is Narnia?”

Logan shook his head. “We came through a portal, not a wardrobe.”

“Lewis could’ve changed the details. It was a series for kids.”

“You have a point.”

“I know, and it’s a great point, because it leaves the option for this being Narnia wide open. How cool would it be if our magic user turned out to be the witch?”

“More cool than we’d like. Didn’t she freeze people into statues?”

“I’ll freeze her first.” I wiggled my fingers. They were cold enough that it kind of hurt, and I shoved them into my pockets. We kept walking for what felt like a couple of hours, until it began to snow.

Logan muttered, “Shit.”

“I was just about to say that.” He glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. “Okay, I wasn’t. We can still see them.”

“For maybe ten more minutes.” He kept walking. So did I, until the falling snow concealed the golem’s tracks.

“Now what?” I covered a yawn, wondering what time it was. My cell phone was dead when I pulled it out to check. “My phone’s not working. I charged it before we left the house.”

“I doubt this place has wireless or electricity.” Logan blew out a misty breath. “We better find some shelter.”

“Think there’s an empty igloo around here?” I was much colder than I had been, thanks to stopping, and tired enough to feel a little punchy.

“Don’t know. I do know that I don’t want that golem sneaking up behind us.”

“But then I’ll get to watch you karate kick it to bits again. That was cool.” I wiped snowflakes from my eyelashes.

Logan smiled. “I didn’t think you were impressed by that sort of thing.”

“Are you kidding? I can’t do those kinds of kicks, dude. I’ve fallen on my butt every time Jeff’s tried to teach them to me.”

“Who’s Jeff?”

“Ex-Marine who teaches self-defense.” I made a face. “I’m like his worst student. My coordination’s not great.” Or maybe I didn’t practice enough, which is what Jeff constantly told me. Busy Discord was too busy to fit in extra practice time. I also didn’t care to sweat a lot, because eww.

“Golems aren’t intelligent.”

“Huh?”

“If we move away from its path, we should be okay,” Logan said. “The question is: right or left?”

“We could choose by the time-honored method of Eeny Meeny. There’s even a part about tiger toes.”

Logan focused on me. “You’re tired.”

“How’d you guess?”

He touched my cheek, and his fingers felt hot. “And half-frozen.”

“Yep, that too.”

“All right, shelter’s our top priority. We’ll go right.”

“Sure thing.” I followed him as he turned right.

“C
ordi.”

“Huh?” It was a struggle to open my eyes. Logan began chafing my hands.

“You have to keep moving.”

“I’m not moving?”

He peered into my eyes. “No, sweetheart. You stopped walking.”

“Oh, sorry.” I couldn’t feel my lips.

“Come on.” Logan hooked his arm through mine. I stumbled alongside him, my feet not sending any information up to my brain. I looked down.

“My feet still there?”

“Shit,” Logan murmured before assuring me they were.

“Okay.” I took his word for it and looked up. “Oh.”

“What?”

“It’s Aslan. I knew it.” I tripped, my bleary eyes snapping shut. “Oh, no, gonna fall.”

“No, you’re not.” Logan kept me upright. “And that’s not Aslan. It’s Connor.”

I managed to open my eyes for another look. The huge lion paced toward us, and shook snow from its black mane. “Nope, that’s Aslan.”

“Okay, it’s Aslan. Keep moving. Maybe he’s found some shelter.”

“Told you it was Narnia. Because that’s Aslan. And it’s winter. See the snow?” I mumbled.

“Yes, I see the snow. Hard not to.”

“Hah. I’m right.”

“You’re right,” Logan agreed, but for some reason, I thought he was arguing with me, and went into a long, mumbling tirade about all the ways I was right about the place being Narnia, and the lion, Aslan.

“I
s she going to be all right?”

My eyes crossed, honing in on the tip of a nose.

“If we get her warmed up. More wood, kid.”

Darn, it really wasn’t Aslan. I felt cheated as the nose retreated, and my eyes slowly uncrossed. “Uh.”