As Cold As Ice Read online

  Jessica couldn’t help it when her eyes glanced up to see what Soren was doing. He was just standing there as they walked by. He was also frowning down at his clipboard, his thick, reddish-brown brows pulled so tightly together it made several lines on his forehead, and made him look like he had a unibrow.

  This was clearly bothering him, but Jessica didn’t have time to be thinking about what his feelings were on Charles’s barely contained creepy flirting. She had to get out of there, and Soren was taking too long to do it.

  Soren trailed behind them as they walked through the halls. There were guards dressed in white standing at every door. Their guns didn’t have actual bullets in them, just the rubber ones, but those suckers could still hurt like hell. Jessica had never been shot with them before, but she’d seen the bruises left behind on those who had tried fighting back, tried to escape.

  Charles chatted beside her amiably, as if she wasn’t there against her will. He didn’t ignore the subject completely—it was hard not to talk about that fact—but his tone was that of a fine Sunday morning conversation between friends. He sounded hopeful, and even optimistic.

  “I’ve already spoken with the head of the department. He’s reviewed your progress behind these walls, and read over the notes I’ve taken. I think, with all your years of service, that you might get an invitation into the Proxy Program.”

  Jessica nearly stopped. Because of that, Soren accidentally stepped on the end of her heels. She jumped and kept right on going, ignoring the pain in her bare feet as she gave Charles all of her attention. “I’ve never heard of that. What is it?”

  It was definitely something new they’d thought up fairly recently.

  Charles tilted his head, making a slight face as he tried to come up with the nicest way of telling her what she was in for.

  Soren answered her straight-up. “Head office is looking for more paranormals to integrate into the system, people who can use their powers to hunt down other paranormals, or stand in front of a camera and tell the world that hunting paranormals is for the greater good.”

  “I thought we already had that. It was never called the Proxy Program then,” Jessica said. The word we came out of her mouth by accident. She was so used to walking through these halls as an equal that it just slipped by.

  All the better for her to say it and for it to sound natural, because she sure as hell wasn’t feeling like one of them at the moment. Nor would she ever again.

  “This is different,” Charles replied, throwing a half-glare over his shoulder at Soren before his expression softened and he looked back at Jessica. “Now, don’t you worry. It won’t all be that bad, and we’re still ironing out the details, so I’m sure you will be quite comfortable.”

  “What do I have to do?” Jessica asked. She didn’t care what it was so long as it got her out of these damned pajamas, brought her some shoes so she wouldn’t be barefoot anymore, and got these shackles off her.

  “You’ll have to be bound to someone, for one thing,” Charles said. “I volunteered, but they want you bound to another hunter. Someone you can work with in the field.”

  Jessica was quickly losing the whole scared little girl act as she fought to keep control of herself, and her patience. “What do you mean by ‘bound’?”

  “He doesn’t mean it literally. You won’t be tied up,” Soren said. “But you will be partnered with another hunter, someone you can go out in the field with. You’ll bring back other paranormals, like you always did, but this time, there will be the whole proxy thing.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Charles cleared his throat, grabbing Jessica’s attention. “The people on the upper floors realized soon after you came in that you had a tendency to be…picky, I suppose is the right word. Yes, picky. You were always picky whenever you chose the targets to go after.”

  Whenever the paperwork and pictures of recently accused paranormals arrived—be they vampires, werewolves, fae, whatever—well, she only took the files of the people who’d actually killed or hurt other people. She wasn’t the only one to do it, either. Those files were the most sought after. Every hunter knew the more dangerous a paranormal creature was, the higher the bounty for bringing them in.

  “Their bounties paid more. I didn’t want to waste my time with anyone else,” Jessica explained. “Lots of hunters did that.”

  “Yes, well, things are changing somewhat,” Charles said. “You won’t be given a choice on who you’re hunting. You will just receive your file, and you and your partner will bring the suspect in. If you fail, or if your partner decides that you purposely allowed the target to escape, then the target’s punishment will become yours.”

  “Proxy,” Jessica said, and then she rolled her shoulders. “I suppose that makes sense.

  “You don’t seem happy about it,” Charles replied.

  “Should I be?”

  “If it gets you back to working instead of staying in a cell and being watched, then yes,” Soren said, and he was the one who sounded the most irritated. She would rather deal with that than Charles’s limp smile.

  She kept looking straight ahead. She didn’t look at Charles, who was right beside her, and she certainly didn’t turn her head to look at Soren, who was still trailing behind, as if the hallway wasn’t big enough for the three of them to walk together.

  Maybe this had been his doing. He might've had a hand in setting this up after her not-so-subtle threat when she'd first been brought in.

  She could still feel the way his lips quivered when she'd kissed him in there, before the cameras had been brought in, back when she was in a smaller cell that had no two-way mirror.

  Soren had been the one to warn her those were on the way, and he'd been right about that.

  Then she'd threatened to reveal something about him if he didn't help her get out. She had no proof, of course, and she based her assumption on mostly guesswork. However, considering where she was, if she accused him of being anything remotely not normal, he would have eyes on him, and he would be questioned under a hot lamp, possibly thrown into a cell next to hers, until it could be proven otherwise that he wasn't a paranormal.

  She was still trying to figure out what he was, but it was definitely some type of shifter. She'd seen his eyes change; it had been just a quick glance as she'd walked by his office one day a couple of months back.

  His door had been open just a crack; he likely hadn't noticed that as he injected himself with something, right in his arm. His eyes had been golden, which was much different from their usual bright blue. The only way a normal person could have eyes like that was on Halloween after buying a pair of cheap contacts.

  It hadn't been Halloween, and when she'd backtracked, he'd just finished pulling the needle out of his arm. His eyes were normal.

  Supposedly, the needles and constant need to check his watch and test his blood was because he was a diabetic. After that day, she knew it to be different. He was suppressing something, and Jessica had sunk to a new low when she'd threatened him.

  Charles wasn't the only one who had a crush. Jessica had seen a picture of herself on the desktop of Soren's laptop at one time. Other than that little transgression, she hadn't had a clue beforehand that he had any feelings for her at all. He'd been that discreet, barely ever nodding to her whenever they crossed paths in the hall, whereas Charles liked to follow her around like a lost and pathetic dog. Always wanting to show her something he'd been working on, wanting her to approve of him, and never leaving her alone until she did.

  Jessica had kissed Soren in the cell, not because she was attracted to him or wanted him, but because she'd wanted to get her point across that she did in fact know a couple of things about him.

  Of course, she actually was attracted to him, and yeah, she’d maybe fantasized about him a little. He was a good-looking man. Slender without being skinny, blue eyes she could get lost in, with a hint of strength hidden behind that calm reserve.

  The kiss in the cell, however,
had been all about gaining whatever control she could in that situation. As much as she’d thought about kissing him before, there had been no time to enjoy it as she’d threatened him.

  Looking back, she figured she hadn't needed to take things that far. She couldn't imagine herself kissing Charles just to gain sympathy. She could cower and make herself look small and helpless so he could puff himself out and feel good about protecting her, but she couldn't visualize herself grabbing his face and pulling him close, letting her mouth linger on his in an attempt to manipulate her way out of there.

  She barely listened to Charles as they turned the corner and continued on. Then Charles pulled out his card and waved it in front of the black monitor that scanned it. A light beeped, letting them know the elevator was on its way.

  They were taking her out of the lower floors. They'd been serious. She was going to spend time with the other inmates, probably outside, or in the room with the skylight.

  Humans for the Ethical Treatment of Paranormals and their constant shouting and sign-waving in front of the building, and in Washington, saw to it that sometimes paranormals were let out to stretch their legs.

  Not often enough, however. If those protestors knew Jessica had killed three people before Soren and Charles came for her, then she wondered if they would bring more than signs. The only people who ever protested were usually the ones who were related to paranormals who'd been arrested, after all.

  "If I'm wanted in this new program, then why do I have to spend time with the other inmates?" Jessica asked as they walked into the elevator and rode it up.

  She felt like she was leaving her stomach back down in the basement. A shiver of unease rippled through her, growling larger and larger instead of calming down and vanishing like it should have the closer they got.

  Soren answered again. That time, he was standing beside her, since there wasn't much room to hide in an elevator. "We've seen that there's no love lost between you and the inmates you helped to bring in," Soren said. "The guys upstairs just want us to evaluate you, and whether or not you show sympathy to others who were brought in. There won't be anyone in there who should know you. You haven't been seen by anyone else, so it's not likely you'll be confronted. Just sit down, eat your lunch, and we'll judge how well you blend in."

  "Soren," Charles said, as if warning him for giving too much away.

  Jessica stared ahead, looking at the reflection of herself in the metal doors, keeping all glassy-eyed like she hadn't heard or understood what Soren had just said.

  She had, of course. Blending in, whether because she was so common as to be ignored, meant she could also be used to butter up to suspected paranormals, getting them to confess in a moment of weakness, needling them to confide their secret to her.

  It was actually how a lot of paranormals who were law-abiding were found out.

  Jessica had faked her way through a lot of things. She’d spent most of her life getting by on luck. Her parents tossed her out of the house, terrified of her when they found out she could make it snow in the middle of July, but they hadn’t called her in, hadn’t given her name to the authorities. Not even when Ethan went with her.

  It allowed her to live a mostly normal life, and she’d worked for the enemy for years since, walking by men and women who hunted people like her for the fun of it instead of just the money, or because they wanted to keep the streets safe from people who couldn’t control their abilities.

  Jessica had never imagined herself doing something like that. Paranormals who went out into the world, found other paranormals and cozied up to them just for the sake of turning them in, well, that always made her skin crawl in the grossest kind of way.

  She hated how she was suddenly perfectly okay with it if it meant she wouldn’t have to take another cold shower while any number of men watched her from another room.

  The elevator came to a stop, making Jessica sway on her feet a little. It always did that to her.

  The bell dinged, and the doors slid open.

  On this floor, the ground floor, it was a little less cold and a little more on the bright side, and not because of florescent lights that sent off a blue glow over everything. Natural sunlight spilled in through the many caged windows, and though there were still guards, they weren’t dressed quite like stormtroopers up there. They looked like any other security guards who carried Tasers and Mace, nightsticks, and a number of other non-deadly weapons that could be deadly if used with too much force.

  These guys were like some of the men who worked in factory farms, caught grabbing chickens by their legs and smashing them against brick walls. They wanted to fight, were itching for it. It was clear in the way they watched the inmates, shouted at them from time to time just to watch them jump, searching for any little thing they could use as an excuse to use force.

  That was pretty much why, despite being on the ground floor where there was light, where the walls were painted peach, pretty much every inmate in the cafeteria had their head turned down while they sat at the colorful picnic tables scattered around. If was the first thing Jessica noticed when Charles opened the double doors to the cafeteria.

  Jessica shivered at the sight of them. She didn’t doubt that at least half of the people in there had their heads down because they didn’t know how to look up anymore. Either the fight had been taken from them after so long of being trapped in these walls, or they were medicated to the point that they didn’t even realize they were there.

  She kind of wished someone had given her drugs like that while she’d been stuck in her cell. It would have made going to the bathroom a little less awkward for her.

  Soren’s voice was soft, and without looking, she knew it was his hand on her back that gently pushed her forward. Shooing the little sheep to go and mingle with the rest of the flock. “Go on.”

  She did.

  Chapter Three

  It hadn’t been so bad, once Jessica reached the food. There wasn’t a lineup, since everyone had already been there and received their meals and were sitting down, either staring at their plates or drooling over them. She’d still had to grab a tray and walk down the little guarded walkway, letting women behind Plexiglas scoop mashed potatoes, peas, and an assortment of other goopy items onto it.

  She wasn’t about to touch the brown stuff.

  Once she started eating, the rest was a little easier. She just did as she was told, ignoring everyone around her, even the one other person sitting at the table with her. Long, blonde hair that hadn’t been washed in a while hung in the face of the woman she shared her table with.

  There were other available seats, which gave Jessica the impression that this particular paranormal was being avoided. Either she was a powerful paranormal, a scary one, or just liked to steal other people's food. Didn't matter. Jessica didn’t want to look at anyone, or sit with anyone else anyway, since pretty much everyone in the room had the same dirty hair and complexion. This woman appeared a little worse than most, but at least she was the only one at the table, and her face was down. Also, Jessica was fairly sure she could take the girl in a fight if she lost it and started attacking for no reason.

  She wasn’t looking at Jessica, and Jessica wasn’t looking at her. That was the ideal

  The risk that Charles and Soren were wrong, that someone would know who she was, recognize her face, then attack her when she was shackled and surrounded, made her too antsy when it came to everyone else. Had her ‘Employee of the Month’ plaque been in sight when any of these people had been brought in? Better yet, was it still there? She’d have to ask Soren about that. Jessica wasn’t exactly sure if he was going to help her or not, but she trusted him more than she did Charles.

  Though she couldn’t see anyone watching her, she knew there were eyes all over the place, and not just from the other inmates. There were more two-way mirrors in there than in most other places in the building, not to mention the cameras hidden behind the black glass balls on the ceiling. Then there were guards
who walked between tables, fingers held on their nightsticks, waiting for something to start up so they didn’t have to be bored out of their minds anymore.

  None of them paid much attention to her, and she pretended they didn’t exist as she scooped her mashed potatoes onto the last of her bread.

  When she was done with her food, she pushed it away, still determined that she wasn’t desperate enough to eat whatever the hell kind of meat that mashed-up brown stuff was.

  The woman on the other side of her noticed the abandoned tray and her large hands shot out to grab it, yanking it forward with a clatter against the plastic table.

  It happened so fast, and the woman moved so quickly, that Jessica jumped up. Food thief confirmed.

  A guard shouted, but she barely heard him.

  The person she’d just shared a table with wasn’t a woman at all. It was a man. A young, thin man who happened to have long hair. Some of it was getting into the last of Jessica’s meal as he scooped up the mashed meat with his hands and stuffed it into his mouth. His cheeks were hollow, like he’d been starving, and only then did Jessica realize he didn’t have a tray of his own at the table.

  A hard force with the strength of a truck slammed into her. The ground flew up to meet her face and body hard, and the heavy weight of one of the guards stayed on top of her, keeping her down.

  The pained yells of her eating companion followed. Jessica struggled, but she couldn’t quite get up to see with the guard on top of her.

  She didn’t need to see. The sound of something hard smacking against flesh was enough to know that a nightstick had come out, and it was being used on the man she’d been sitting with.

  “Stop it. I gave it to him! I said stop it!” Jessica screamed, flailing beneath the guard.

  He grabbed her wrists and yanked them behind her back. He latched a chain on her shackles that would keep her virtually helpless; she heard the clink of the metal links when he pulled them out.