Flutter (The Discover Series) (12 page)

I remembered other Sara and…the other voice then. I decided that it was best if I left out the part about my inner voices.

I second that idea,
Other Sara piped in, and her sudden appearance made me jump.

Don’t do that!

It had been a while since I had heard from her.  I had almost wondered if maybe I had imagined the whole thing. It also made me wonder if
his
voice had really been in my head, or if he had actually been here. Could he have been the one to pull me out?

Wishful thinking Sara
, she scoffed at my idea.
You made us up in your head, to help deal with your crisis. We both know that. I can hear that you know that, in the back of your mind

Leave me alone
, I grumbled. She was right. I knew it.

“Are you okay?” Andres was looking at me with that intense expression, and I flushed.

“Yeah,” I said. “I was just lost in thought. I couldn’t see anything clearly. The light was far too bright. I woke up alone.”

Andres was looking around now. His eyes were darting through the trees swiftly, and I noticed his hand was still flat against the ice.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I started to look aroun
d
too, but I didn’t feel anxious at his behavior. There was nothing to fear. I could feel that much.

“Just seeing if I could see anyone.” he explained. He looked back at me and noticed I was staring at his hand. He quickly pulled it back, like I had caught him red-handed. He stood and brushed his hands on his wetsuit. He did another once through of our surroundings and then looked at me. His gaze dropped lower and so did mine.

“Where did you get that?”

I followed his gaze, and wondered how I could have forgotten. He was referring to the blanket that was twisted underneath me.

“It was wrapped around me when I woke up.” More proof that someone had been here.

He nodded, looking up at the sky and I followed his gaze. I had adjusted to the bright rays and seeing Andres, I had completely forgotten about the weird position of the sun. Andres noticed was noticing it now and frowned. He looked back at me as if I had some explanation for it.

“That’s weird right?” I pointed toward the sky. “It was like that when I woke up.” I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.

We sat in silence for the longest time, and I was hoping he was busy coming up with an escape plan. He had taken to pacing back and forth in front of me, and every once in a while I could see his browns pull together, but I couldn’t tell what emotion was the cause for that. I wished I could hear what he was thinking, but I could see him frowning I was glad that I couldn’t. I probably didn’t want to know what he was thinking.

The wind was starting to pick up, and I pulled at the edges of the blanket until I was securely wrapped inside. It had been neglected far too long on the floor of ice, and the warmth that had been infused inside the fibers was long gone, but it would do for now.

I looked
toward
the sky - it had become a shade darker since Andres had erupted from the ice. My own personal sun had survived for as long as it could, before the angry clouds destroyed its beautiful light.

I was starting to get sleepy. The day’s events had finally managed to creep up on me, and I used the back of my hand to cover a yawn. Could I accurately say
day?
Or was it
days
?
How long had we been down there?
 

I hated all the unanswered questions that I kept acquiring; they seemed never ending, and the worst part was wondering if they would ever get answered. I hadn’t asked Andres any of my questions, but I figured if he had already known the information himself he would have shared it…right? I looked at him, but his face was twisted in that same frown, and I chickened out on asking him anything. I would let him figure out one thing at a time, before I unleashed my long line of questions.

I shivered when I felt the wind whispering against the back of my neck, stirring up the little hairs. I pulled the blanket up higher around me, sheltering what I could of my exposed skin. I could feel my eyes lids drooping, and I swear I could feel every time the temperature dropped half a degree. I didn’t seem to adjust as well to the cold up here as I had when I was actually frozen inside ice. That didn’t make any sense to me, but then what did?

My head felt extremely heavy, and I reached up to touch my hair. I regretted that instantly. Cold air snuck past the confines of my blanket and wetsuit, leaving a burst of goosebumps over every inch of skin it touched, and another shiver followed. When I could focus again, I felt around my head. My hair was cold and slightly frozen in places, making it hard and brittle. Not being able to bear the shooting pain along my scalp any longer, I reached up with my other hand, letting the blanket slide away. I gritted my teeth against the cold that attacked me and tried to finish my task quickly.

Another degree,
I thought.

I felt around until I found what I was looking for. After a few tugs I could feel the trapped strands loosen. A shooting pain ran through the sensitive nerves of my roots as I un-wrapped my stiff hair. The ache was bittersweet as the last of my hair came undone. It hung awkwardly down my back, and I rubbed my scalp soothingly, trying to melt the frost that stuck to the strands. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I reached for the blanket again until I was snuggled into it, blocking out the cold. My head felt ten times better, and I felt like I could focus again.

It hadn’t taken me more then five minutes to mess with my hair, but in that small amount of time I could tell the sky was half a shade darker, and a half a degree colder.

I looked at Andres, hoping he was closer to whatever it was that he was trying to come to terms with. He had his back to me and he was staring at the huge mountain that loomed over us. I didn’t want to be the one to point out the obvious, but seeing as how no one else was here, I was going to have to be the one to tell him that it was getting darker and colder by the second. Unlike me, he seemed completely unaware of the cold.

I wanted to ask him what we were going to do next, but he started talking to me –or himself, I wasn’t sure exactly - before I could.

“We can’t stay here,” he finally said. He was looking at the sky when he continued. “Nightfall will be here before we reach the mountain if we don’t leave now.”

He was right, but I still couldn’t help but ask, “Then what? We don’t know where we are, or where we are going. We don’t know if anyone lives anywhere near us. We won’t survive the night without shelter from this storm coming in.” I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the approaching storm.

“That’s all true, but we have to try. What other choice do we have?”

None

I got up, and without another word, I followed him.

Andres

I turned around to look behind me, for the millionth time since we had started moving.

Sara treaded along behind me, keeping almost perfect pace with me under the conditions. She was still wrapped in the blanket, and only seemed to have a small amount of difficulty with the limited movement it allowed her, but it was better then trying to suffer through the cold. I had never been awake this early and the weather was considerably colder. I could handle it, but I worried about her, so for the millionth and one time, I looked back at her.

“You don’t have to keep checking on me,” she said teasingly. “You couldn’t lose me if you tried. I know you want to get there as soon as we can, so we should probably walk as fast as we can before we lose all the light.”

I exhaled and picked up the pace a little. I looked over my shoulder at her –for what I swore would be the last time, at least for a while-and smiled at her. “It’s shouldn’t be too much longer now.” I realized my mistake as soon as I said it, and I held my breath waiting for her to question my statement, but she just nodded.  When she didn’t say anything, I figured she probably thought I meant to comfort her, and she didn’t find anything out of place in my words.

We had been walking for about an hour now and we still had at least another hour to go before we got to the shed, darkness would beat us there.

“D-d-d-do you t-t-think we’ll f-f-find something s-s-soon?” She asked, her teeth chattering over every other word, and because I couldn’t help it I looked back at her again.

It was getting too dark for me to make out her face clearly, but there was no mistaking the tremble in her jaw or the spasms of shivers that shook her entire body and made her stumble. I gritted my teeth and cursed. It was irritatingly obvious that this was not done by a
Light Fighter
who had experience with defrosting. He was very powerful sure -I could tell that the minute I had seen Sara bathing in the hand delivered sun light- but power or not, the job was sloppy.

I had thought by now that I would have been able to sense the other light fighter. With the mess he had made of almost letting Sara drown, and barely getting her out alive, I didn’t think it would have taken this long before he slipped up and gave away his position. I assumed he wasn’t trying to hide from me, but he seemed to be timing his presence for some reason.

The handprint Sara had pointed out to me belonged to someone else entirely. When I had touched the ice, there wasn’t a trace of energy from our kind, but there had been something else.

I could feel the intense Flutter emanating off of Sara, I hadn’t wanted to admit it was the same current as before, but after touching the ice I knew he was here too. I didn’t know what made Sara respond to him so strongly, but there was no mistaking the feeling. I wasn’t sure if she was aware of the sensation, and I couldn’t ask her, but if she was she had no idea what it meant.

I wasn’t sure why he had come alone, but he was here and he had made contact with Sara. That changed everything now, Sara would only continue to draw him closer, and he would be unwilling to resist the pull. Boundaries had been placed for between them for a reason and he had crossed them.

It was clear, whatever the grounds, this mission had been planned. Thoughtfully? No. Half assed? Yes. But planned out? Definitely.

Inexperienced fools!

“Andres?” She asked, reminding me that I hadn’t answered her question.

“I’m sure we will. Just keeping moving, it helps to keep the blood flowing.”

I looked up the hill and pushed myself harder.

I wanted to tell her about the shed, to give her some kind of peace of mind that we weren’t just walking blindly through the wilderness,
hoping
that we would find something. But that would mean I would have to tell her
how
I knew it was going to be there, which would then lead to
when
had I been there before, and finally
why
I had lie to her. I just wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her yet. I didn’t even know how I was going to explain this to her.

Obviously seventeen years hadn’t been enough time to come up with a plan.

I built the shed the first year Sara and I did the Freeze. She turned five that year, and her powers were getting stronger every day. It was amazing watching her grow, seeing her influences develop, and using them without even meaning too. It came effortless to her, she was strong, a natural. Since she was a baby, she had been very powerful. It wasn’t until after she turned four, that she was using them more and more. When she turned five it was second nature to her, and that was when I knew it was time to start Freezing. It would have only been a matter of time before they would have found her if I hadn’t

I developed a flawless system, and up until now it had worked perfectly. Each year after thanksgiving, just like clockwork, I followed the same routine. For everyone in our town’s knowledge, it was a vacation we took every year to some place warmer. For Sara, it was a sickness she thought she endured; an illusion I created, a way to leave an imprint of a memory she could hold on to when she woke up. She would sleep most of the way on the private airplane I rented to bring us up here each year, never remembering anything about the trip.

Each time she would feel well enough to change into her swimsuit, and sit on the beach with me; but her strength didn’t last long. She would return to our bungalow feeling exhausted and sick. When I was sure she was asleep, I would slip her wetsuit on over her swimsuit, wrap her hair up, and place her water shoes on. I would carry her from the shed, a bungalow to her, to the lake. It had been a whole lot easier to carry her when she was a little girl, but I worked out to make sure I could still carry her where she no longer weighed ninety pounds.

She would sleep most of the walk, waking up once or twice but she was usually incoherent. Once we reached the lake it was a smooth process. The lake wasn’t entirely frozen over by then, so I had to give it a little help. Stepping to the end of the lake, I would tap the surface of the water, once with my foot, and watch as the water quickly transformed into a solid block of ice a pathway leading to the middle of the lake.