Jackson Pearce - Cold Spell

“What about you?” Ella interrupts my thoughts.

“Hm?”

“Kai plays violin. Larson sings. Lucas tracks things. The redheaded boy did something. What do you do?”

“I…” I trail off. I try to stop it, but my stock response, the same one I gave Mora, falls from my mouth, clunky and awkward. “I don’t really do anything.”

“Don’t do anything,” Ella asks, drumming her fingers on the sofa, “or don’t do anything yet?”

I smile. “Is there a difference?”

“Huge difference,” she says. “People who don’t do anything annoy me. People who don’t do anything yet excite me, because they can potentially do everything.”

“Kai always said I need to find something,” I admit, letting the idea that I can do everything sink in and rattle me pleasantly. “I think it bothered him that he knew he was a violinist, and I didn’t know what I was. He said I should be something.”

“You will,” she says. “When you’re ready. Don’t let anyone rush you. Unless you’re living in your parents’ basement at thirty. Because then I’ll personally show up and rush you. Don’t think you can hide down there. Lucas can track anyone anywhere.”

I laugh. “Don’t you ever go with him, when he’s tracking? Don’t you want to?”

She shakes her head. “He’s good at what he does. I’m good at what I do. But that doesn’t mean that I’m good to have along when tracking. Or that he’s good to have along when meeting the governor, because my god, he’s not. Nor does he like wearing a tux, so it works out.”

I’m not entirely sure if that’s what I was asking. Kai and I have always done everything together, so I assumed all couples in love did so. Not that we had to, exactly, but we wanted to, before Mora showed up. I grimace, thinking about what Kai said to me on the roof, words that make my heart twist uncomfortably.

“What would you be without me, Ginny?”

“Nothing.”

I know it was just Mora, that he didn’t mean it, but the words still sting. We did everything together, because we were in love—but maybe also because I’m nothing without him. I’m just a girl, not a witch or a queen or a monster.

But then, once upon a time, Mora was just a girl, too. She told Kai that she wasn’t all that different from him, but really, she’s not all that different from me . At least, she didn’t start out that way. She’s just already figured out what she does—she steals boys. But right now, I can do everything. If Mora can steal boys, I can bring them back.

So why am I just sitting on the couch, like I’m nothing?

“Ella,” I say, rising. “We have to go look for them ourselves. Or at least follow Lucas.”

She frowns. “He’ll call us—”

“I know, but… I can’t sit here. I have to go. I trust Lucas, but… knowing he’s out there and I’m here is driving me crazy.”

Ella doesn’t look happy as she puts down her book. “We can’t get in the way.”

“We won’t. I just have to—”

“I know. Trust me. I’ve been there.” She shakes her head and laughs a little. “You remind me of me, and I’m not entirely sure that’s a compliment.”

“I’ll take it as one anyway,” I say, smiling.

She nods, rising. “Come on. We should take your car—Lucas’ll recognize all of ours.”

I wonder if Ella wishes she hadn’t said that when she climbs into the station wagon. It takes a few moments for the engine to get going, during which time we beat the caked-on ice and snow off the windshield. It breaks apart in big sheets, as if it’s made of ceramic instead of water. The cold is, however, notably different today. It touches my skin but fails to kiss my bones, fails to make me feel I’ll never, ever be warm again.

I wonder if it means she’s already left.

“Does the engine always sound like that?” Ella asks, looking at me warily. “It sounds like one of your belts is bad.” I back up; something under the hood knocks. “And it needs an oil change. How long has the back window been broken?”

“Since a Fenris smashed it. Do you want to take one of yours?” I ask, exasperated.

“No…” Ella says, though I see her look a little wistfully at the garage that, if memory serves, holds a gold convertible.

Ella guides me down the road, toward town; we pass someone riding on a tractor, and I’m a little envious of how well his tires seem to be gripping the road. I have to give myself a few dozen yards to brake, and we end up almost sliding into a ditch twice. Something about it is less scary than driving alone, like when I first set out—maybe it’s Ella, or the end of that oppressive cold. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that even when you slide off the road here, the worst thing that can happen is you end up in a cow pasture. It’s an hour before we reach Nashville proper; Ella instructs me to pull over at an open McDonald’s.

“There’s no way Lucas would pass this without eating, not after three days snowed in without red meat,” she says, jumping from the car. She wobbles on the ice for a moment and runs inside, and I see her talking to the cashier. Ella returns and points to the left. “The cashier says he went that way. Good thing Lucas took the world’s most conspicuous car.”

“Isn’t that going to make it hard for him to follow Mora and Kai, though?”

“Only if they suspect Barbie is hunting them down,” Ella says, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, Ginny, what was I thinking? It even has pink washer fluid. I don’t know. It was a weird phase.”

We ease along through town; it feels a little like the apocalypse happened while we slept. There are few people in the streets, and most are bundled up so much that we can’t see their genders, much less their faces. We pass parks and little shops that are still closed because of the storm, and an enormous park crowned with a replica of the Parthenon—it’s the liveliest place we’ve seen so far, dotted with kids building snowmen on the lawn.

A few more blocks, back to mostly desolate streets—“There!” Ella yells, so sharp that I almost slam on the brakes and send us skidding into a Starbucks. I whip my head around to see a flash of pink at the end of a cross street. I struggle to turn the car around, tossing snow up behind me, and hurry forward. “Slow down, slow down,” Ella says. “He’ll be pissed if he knows we’re tracking him tracking them.”

“Do you think he’s close?” I ask, and there’s an edge to my voice that surprises me, a hardness that feels stronger than the fear bubbling up in my stomach.

“I don’t know—stop here, he’s parking,” she says, pointing. The pink Hummer slows to a stop in an empty public lot. Lucas jumps out, and for a moment, I think he’s seen us. But no, not yet. He goes into a restaurant, the only one open on this street. Ella and I are perfectly silent as we wait…. He emerges but leaves the Hummer, opting to walk down the street.

“Do I follow him?” I ask, though I’m already putting the car in drive.

“Maybe we should walk,” Ella answers. “I think he’ll notice the car. This place is like a desert.”

I step out into the snow, gritting my teeth in case it’s somehow become the bone-crumbling, painful type of cold again while we were in the car. But no, it’s… it’s just snow. Ella and I trudge along silently. Every now and then we pass an open restaurant, and the patrons stare at us, as if we’re brave for walking in the weather. I want to tell them that this is nothing compared with the cold that Mora can create.

We pause under a covered bus stop, and I notice it’s snowing again—just a little, flurries at the most. Ella narrows her eyes at the street. Lucas is at the far end, walking slowly, with his hands in his pockets. He pauses for a moment, though he doesn’t turn or look around, and then changes directions suddenly, cutting between buildings. Ella and I step out of the bus stop—