Frostbite (Touch of Frost) by Lynn Rush Read Free Book Online

it on its way down.
    It was cold and slippery, but it didn’t bother me. Could I even get frostbite?
    A door slammed. “Mandy?”
    “Room.” I stood up. Scott came into view, and I whipped the ice ball at him. “Catch.”
    He skidded to a stop and shot up his arms. The ball landed in his open hand, then slid out, and he fumbled with it. Finally, he caught it.
    “Check it out.”
    He held the slick ball, looked at me, then to the ice. He poked at it like it was going to bite him. “How’d you do this?”
    “Practicing.” I fell onto my bed and glanced at the clock. Nearly eleven. “Am I packing?”
    He tossed the ball of ice into the air and caught it, then glanced around. “No.”
    I sat up and crossed my legs. “Really?”
    I must have heard him wrong. Staying? Really? I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I didn’t want to leave Georgia or the idea of Zach, but the Coats had come. What if—
    “I thought about what you said.” He sagged onto my desk chair. “They expect us to move like we have every other time. And look what you did tonight with this.” He held up the ice ball. “You’re getting more control.”
    I sighed. No I wasn’t, well maybe a little, but I wasn’t convinced it’d be enough to protect him.
    “You are, Mandy.” He nodded. “Keep practicing.”
    “Scott. What do you do when you go take care of…the human ice sculptures?”
    “Don’t worry about it.” He shifted his attention to the floor.
    “But if we stay, you—I—it’ll happen again. They may expect us to leave, but they’ll stick around to be sure, right? Especially when these two guys don’t check in. Or whatever they do.”
    “I would expect so.” His voice was so quiet. Tense. I could tell he was worried.
    “It’s not fair for you to have to clean up after me.” In the deep, dark parts of my mind I didn’t want to think about, I had an idea what he did. If something’s frozen and it’s hit hard enough to shatter into a million pieces…
    “And it’s not fair for you to have to keep freezing people. Or keep running.”
    So staying might be dangerous, but so was running. And it looked like Scott was sick of the nomad lifestyle as well. Maybe he was right. I was getting stronger. Better at defending myself. I could protect him. Georgia, too.
    He sat up. “Something interesting happened tonight.”
    I hugged a pillow to my stomach. “What?”
    “Fire trucks were there when I showed up. Small fire sparked near some trees on the edge of a field of flowers.”
    “And they didn’t see the Coat sculptures?”
    He shook his head. “Those were further in. I had to wait around, that’s why it took me so long.”
    “Talk about dodging a bullet there.” I let out a long breath.
    “That was some pretty thick ice around them, too.” Scott smiled as if proud.
    Proud of me killing people. Man our world was jacked up.
    “Promise you’ll stay under the radar in town and at school. I want to see you graduate. We’ll take things on a day-by-day basis, okay? Eyes open. Very aware of everything around us at all times. And we’re packing up one bag each, ready for a quick getaway. Hopefully we won’t have to use them, but if we do I’m hoping it’s after you graduate.”
    “Why is my graduating so important to you? I’ve never understood that, Scott. What’s the big deal?”
    He let out a long breath and tossed the ice ball into the trashcan, then looked at the ceiling. “Mom and Dad would have wanted to see you graduate. We owe it to them.”
    I gulped through the knot forming in my throat. Mom and Dad. God, I wished they were here right now.
    “How was the date?”
    “Ugh.” Hopefully that was enough to let him know not to ask any more.
    “That good, huh?” He rested his elbows on his knees. “So, what’s the scoop with Zip?”
    “You mean Zach?”
    He nodded. “You’re home an hour before curfew.”
    “I could go back and stay out all night, if you’d rather me do that?”
    “Jeez,