YAY! This chapter proved most difficult to write, many versions were scrapped and yadda yadda but the important thing is that IT'S UP! I hope you like it, and I really hope you review.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate the reviews, it's nice to know people are reading what I write, keep them coming
Once upon a time, there was a chapter that refused to end. Yes, this chapter is long, and there will will a part 2...dunno when tho
Chapter Four: Cold As Ice (part one)
It was Jess' favourite spot to sit and watch. Halfway up the church steps, right in the center, you could see the entire plaza. The day care center, the McDonalds, and, if you craned your neck, the front of the firehouse, were all within your view. It was almost in the center of town, which meant that to Jess, who could see through walls and zoom in her vision like a telescope, most of the houses in Perdido Beach were within her view. There was a limit to how far she could see though, if she tried looking too far, she would get dizzy, lightheaded. One time before the FAYZ came, she had tried to see her mother work at the McDonald's from her house. It was too far and she had actually blacked out.
But the church steps had another location plus to it, it was situated right next to the city hall. From her spot, Jess could see inside of the city hall, and all its occupants. But there was only one occupant that interested her, and that was a certain cute, Hispanic town sheriff.
Yesterday-completely by accident, of course-Jess and Edilio found themselves standing beside each other in line for WTF (What's The Fish). They ended up talking and eating in close proximity to each other. Jess got the feeling that it was more like friends chatting to make a disgusting meal more bearable, but with Edilio near, Jess could barely taste her food. It had only been 6 days since they'd really met and in that time, they'd become friends, but Jess knew it from the moment she first really laid eyes on him that she wanted more. Another secret, like her power, and Jess didn't have any plans to reveal either in the near future.
There was power in secrets, a safe feeling you got when all the things that were important to you were locked up in a place no one could reach. Locked up in the safe in your head. But some secrets weighed on you, like bricks in your mind. You want to release your hold, but the fear of what will happen if you do keeps you gripping them tight.
She just wanted to see him again, so she stared right at the wall of the city hall. The wall almost disappeared from her view as she saw past the bricks and mortar into the inside. The outside wall remained a faint shadow as she saw a few kids walking down a hallway. She vaguely registered these kids as members of Edilio's 'army', but they were of no interest to her. She looked past another layer of drywall, insulation and two by fours to find what she was looking for. Sherriff's office.
Edilio was reading something on a piece of paper, he looked tired, worn. She was him rubbing his eyes, looking wearily at the piece of paper which no doubt held a list of things he was supposed to take care of. The job of Sherriff took so much time and effort, Jess felt admiration for the task which he underwent every day.
Jess was startled out of her skin by someone tapping on her arm. As quick as she could, she returned her sight to her location. Jess was relieved to see it was just Angela.
"Hey, Jess"
"Hey yourself, you scared me half to death" Jess replied.
"Daydreaming, again?" Angela had been living with Jess for a little less than a week now, and Jess had been quite surprised at just how easy it had been for the both of them. "There's someone in town looking for you, Jess"
Jess' eyes narrowed, not many people in the FAYZ knew her aside for those who she'd helped fixing their houses. Even then, if they didn't ask her name, she didn't tell it. But there was one person who knew her, one person who about what Jess could do...
"Who was it?" Jess asked Angela.
"She had kind of redy-brown hair. She's about thirteen, I think" Angela described. To Jess it sounded a lot like the person with the power to change Jess' life forever, the person who Jess had been trapped in the same house as Jess when Zil Perry and the human crew had ravaged through Perdido Beach.
"Angela, did you catch a name?" Jess was worried.
"I think it was Sara"
Jess' heart dropped. The way she saw it was that the less she saw of Sara, the better. There was too reasons why Jess felt this way.
One was that Sara knew about Jess' power. She was the only person in the FAYZ, the entire world, come to think about it, who knew. It was Jess' most guarded secret and Sara knew it.
And the second reason, Sara had a power of her own. Like Jess, Sara wished to keep her power a secret to avoid the endless madness and discrimination and fear that came with being 'special'. But Sara's power was much more powerful than Jess', much more destructive and dangerous and...Unstable. Jess had seen it work before, by accident, that night the human crew terrorized Perdido Beach, and she had no wish to see it again.
"Okay Angela, you need to show me exactly where she is, can you do that?" Jess asked.
"Sure, she was in the plaza over there, like standing beside the McDonald's" Sara pointed to a small figure leaning against the side of the run down McDonald's. It was Sara; Jess surveyed her for a moment first, using her power. Her red brown hair was hanging limp in the windless air, she had dark circles around her eyes and she was biting her lip nervously.
Jess got up from her spot and made her way through the kids of the FAYZ to the McDonald's. It was almost twelve, and the plaza was crowded with kids mingling over whatever they could scrounge up for a meal.
Sara looked up at Jess, she would be 5'4" if she was lucky, Jess was nearly 5'8", but they surveyed each other as equals. Sara seemed relieved when Jess arrived; she loosened up her tightly folded arms and let the edges of her lips rise slightly. Jess had yet to catch her actually smiling.
"It's been a long time," Sara said.
"You do well to keep out of sight" Jess replied, "I've maybe spotted you twice in the last four months"
"I try," Sara said. "I heard you took in a little, surprised me, you know, you seem more like a loner than a substitute mother."
"She's pretty low maintenance" Jess replied, and then she smiled at Sara and said, "And Sara, you know I'll always be a loner."
Sara nodded agreeing. Then she looked at the ground, an anxious look playing across her face as she said, "Jess I need your help with something,"
"Something?" Jess asked. "Something to do with...?"
"Yeah, I lost it Jess. I was scared I..." Sara's eyes filled with plead, "Please Jess, you're the only one who knows about me, and I know you can keep a secret."
"Okay" Jess agreed. She wasn't sure if she could call Sara a friend by the traditional Wiktionary definition, but they shared something in common. They trusted each other, they had no other choice.
Sara led Jess back through the streets of Perdido Beach, towards a house on the outskirts of town. It was a relatively small home, but reasonably well kept considering most houses now had little intact glass and maybe a few bullet holes. Sara stopped just before the front door, turned to face Jess and said, "I need your word you will not tell anyone about this. If you do, you know what I'll do, I'll tell, you know I won't hesitate-"
"Sara! What is in there?" Jess asked, starting to get a very bad feeling about this.
"Your word!"
"Okay! You have my word Sara; just tell me what the hell in there?"
"I can't explain it, okay? You just have to see it"
Jess knew exactly what she meant as soon as she opened up that door. There was no words she could think of to say to what she saw, she could only stand and stare dumbfounded at the wonder.
"I was scared," Sara said, "There was someone in my house, a looter. That kid who is always stealing but never gets caught, Michael I think, and he had a gun he...I didn't mean to I just lost all control-you know how it gets when I'm scared it just...goes..."
Jess found her voice again, "Sara, where is Michael now?"
"He's in there"
"He's trapped then"
"Yeah, pretty much,"
Jess, very carefully placed on foot on the threshold, and surveyed the scene before her. Jess had seen some strange things since the beginning of the FAYZ, disturbing mutations, horrible outcomes of kids pushed to the edge of reason. This was something else.
Sara's house entrance had a divided staircase, half which lead to the main area, the other half lead to the basement. At the bottom of the basement segment of the stairs, there was a door. The walls surrounding the bottom segment of the stairs were usually a tasteful shade of olive, now they bore a new color. White. Frosted. Frozen. It looked like the inside of a deep freeze, sparkling with ice. It was unimaginably cold; Jess was standing five feet away from the start of the frost and instantly felt chilly in comparison to the warm May Day outside.
This was the reason why Jess felt nervous about Sara, not because she was a bad person, far from it; it was because of what these powers could do when the wielder was frightened. Powers like Sara's, the power to instantly freeze anything she touches solid. Jess was sure of the fact that if Sara was ever evaluated by Diana, she would be a four bar. Jess could see a handprint, frozen into the wall to her right that must have been where Sara was touching the wall. From there the frost continued down the staircase to the door which leads to the basement. The door was frozen too.
"Michael, he ran down there when he saw what I was doing. There's no way out of the basement, Jess, he's still down there. That's why I needed you,"
Jess only nodded. A boy, looter or not, was trapped inside. It must have been so cold down there now, Jess thought.
"I'll check to see if he's o-"
"You freak! I'll kill you, you hear me?"
Sara and Jess exchanged glances.
"Yeah, he's fine, alright" Sara said, not trying to hide the annoyance in her voice. "Maybe that'll teach you, you thieving, pathetic-!"
"Sara," Jess cautioned.
"What?"
"Why did you ask me here? There's no way he's not going to tell everyone about you the second he's out."
Sara let out a strangled breath and for the first time Jess could see exactly what she was thinking. "I know but maybe when we let him out we can reason with him, maybe we can work something out,"
"That's like, a million to one chance, Sara"
"Yeah, maybe, but you know what Jess? It's the only one I've got right now, and I'm taking it. Now do I have your help or not?"
Jess nodded, "You know you do, Sara,"
In the FAYZ, if you had need of equipment of any kind, you had two options. You could either find someone who already had what you wanted and barter with them, or you could go to Howard. Howard was always for the profit, taking advantage of the needs of others. Now he ran a completely under the radar black market that dealt with...less than approved of materials. Not many people knew about it, Jess was surprised at how long it had survived without getting the attention of Sam and the others. Howard was a real slime, granted, but he was smart in the ways of procuring things others are willing pay through the nose to get. Marijuana, hard liquor, weapons. Howard sold all these things in a market in his backyard every afternoon at three P.M. For those who knew about it, it was a goldmine. And Jess knew about it, not because she was a junkie or a thief or anything, but because Howard needed to replenish his supplies. He had a scam; he would get one of his cronies to distract someone while he raided their house for anything he could sell. Stupid scum thought he could pull that on Jess, one look with her super-vision clued her in. Jess and Howard had made a deal, she gave him her mother's stash of pot, and in return, he did something for her.
That was where she was now, in Howard's backyard, with Sara, in need of something.
"Jess-I-ca Bennett" Howard walked towards her, swaggering slightly, like a power hungry ape.
"Howard" Jess replied. "I need something"
"'Course, you do, why else would you be here?" Howard said, smiling a cocky smile, "Unless what you need isn't, you know, a material..." Howard's smile widened, he let out a piggish laugh.
"In your dreams, Howard, I need something, and you're going to get it for me," Jess said, not the slightest bit rattled by Howard's advances. Howard had been trying to get with Jess since their first encounter.
"Am I?" Howard countered.
Jess nodded. She knew how deal with this dog. She pulled out a scrap of paper and handed it to him and said "You can get me these things, right?"
"Whoa!" Howard exclaimed as he read the list, he eyes Jess suspiciously. "Who's the poor soul you're gonna bash about?"
"For a black market runner, you ask a lot of questions, Howard," Jess said, "do you have it or not?"
"I might just, come in the back with me and we'll see," He said, gesturing to the door that lead to his garage. Jess started to follow him, but he turned around sharply facing Sara and sneered "I don't believe we've been acquainted long enough for me to let you into the garage yet, sweetheart. We have a...policy here against showing the general population our entire stock. But if you want to get acquainted, I'm sure we could work something out-"
"Move it, Howard," Jess said, shoving a chuckling Howard forward not too gently.
"Easy peesy lemon squeezy, I's just teasing," He said as they entered the garage alone.
"Not the wisest move, take my word for it, now about the order,"
Howard grinned a sluggish grin before retreating into the piles of junk behind him, shuffling through random garden equipment and makeshift weapons. "Ah, here we are!" Howard exclaimed with triumph as he emerged from the mess. He brought with him a rail spike and a sledge hammer. "You know whoever your planning on beating up, I feel for them,"
"For the record, it's for construction," Jess said as she reached into her pockets for her money. Buying from Howard wasn't cheap, but sledge hammers where hard to come by in the FAYZ since most of the ready-made weapons had been claimed months ago.
"How much?"
"Well, I'd say hmmm about, 5 Bertos apiece,"
Jess counted her money, mentally cursing Howard in every way she knew. "I can pay you seven now, three next week,"
"I don't think so, Beautiful, cash up front, at time of purchase, you know the drill," Howard's grin widened as he shook his head. He laid the materials he was holding on the ground and stepped over them to Jess. "Awe, don't fret, Gorgeous, I'm sure you can think of several ways to convince me to forget about your lack of monetary payment..."
Jess was thoroughly disgusted as he took another step towards her, closing the gap between them. He laid his hands on her hips. Jess actually found herself smiling, not out of pleasure, but out of astonishment of Howard's sheer stupidity.
"it just so happens there's something I want, have wanted it for a long time...I'm goin to get it" Howard whispered.
"Oh, yeah?" Jess countered.
Jess put all her strength in her knee, bringing it up right between Howard's legs. He screamed and doubled down in pain, Jess wasted no time. She kicked him with her already raised leg, and he fell to the floor, whimpering in pain. She knelt beside him, pushed him onto his back and got on top of him, although in a very different way than he had hoped. She raised a fist up, brought it down hard. She felt a satisfying pain in her knuckles as they made contact with his nose. He screamed harder, blood running from his nose like Niagara Falls. She none to gently pressed her thumb on his nose, he buckled and squirmed harder underneath her.
"Think I broke it," Jess breathed in his ear, "I don't know, what do you think?"
Howard whimpered, "Bitch, I'll kill you...I'll-I'll get you for this, I promise,"
"I look forward to that, but until then, you're not going to touch me, so much as look at me that way ever, understand?"
Howard laughed, or tried to, but all that came was a gurgled choke. "You know Jessica, we're really not that different deep down, we're both just touchy, pathetic loners with daddy issues. You'll see it one day, and you'll wish you didn't do this," He gasped.
Jess clenched her teeth, got up and picked up the tools. Before she left she dropped the seven gold bullets at Howard, who was still lying on the floor recuperating. "I keep my promises, Howard; I'll come by next week to give you the other three,"
"I keep my promises too, Jessica Bennett, I promise you will pay for this!"
Jess found Sara outside, standing exactly where she'd left her. She nodded seeing Jess was carrying the tools they needed.
"I heard a scream, sounded like Howard. I would have come in but I was afraid of making things worse with my..." Sara trailed off.
"It's okay. I want to thank you Sara" Jess said.
"Why?"
"Because since the moment I met Howard, I've been looking for an excuse to punch his face in, that kid sells drugs to ten year olds, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way about him. As it turns out, this day isn't half as bad as I thought it would be," Jess explained, smiling. She caught it there; a smile on Sara's face, the look almost seemed unnatural, but genuine nonetheless.
Back at Sara's house, Jess had everything she needed to get into the frozen door. Michael would starve before this thing melted, but breaking in wasn't going to be an easy task. She was equipped with a rail spike and a sledge hammer held in glove clad hands. She was accompanied by Sara, whose tiny frame could barely hold the sledge hammer, let alone use it, but Jess was grateful for the company. This frozen stairway was an eerie place indeed.
She raised the spike, and used her strength to bury it in the crack between the door and the frame as deep as possible, which wasn't far, but it held there. She then raised the sledge hammer, and swung at the spike with all her strength. She continued like this for a while, she figured her best bet would be to separate the door from its frame, however frozen it was. But she soon got tired, Sara offered some water and they retreated upstairs.
They sat at her eat in kitchen table, her house having a updated 60's look to it, Jess figured it once belonged to some old lady, with the Hummel figurines in the glass cabinet.
"So, you have a boyfriend?"
The question caught Jess so off guard, she almost choked on her water. Jess was less than used to talking about this kind of stuff to others, so she just shook her head.
Sara shrugged, Jess' discomfort of the subject was apparently quite apparent. "Just trying to make conversation," A rather awkward ten seconds passed.
"But you like someone, right?"
"What's it to you?" Jess said, trying not to sound defensive.
"I figure, you're helping me with something, and I want you to be doing it for something other than fear that I'll tell everyone about your power-"
"That's not just why I'm helping you Sara,"
"I know, and I just figure that giving you some advice may be the only way I can help you out in return, so spill,"
Jess sighed before saying, "I like this guy, but he didn't even know I was breathing until last week."
"Uh huh," Sara seemed to consider Jess for about a minute. "I'll give you some advice,"
"That was the bargain," Jess said wryly.
"Life in the FAYZ had taught me many things, Jess," Sara said, "And one of them is that life is short, especially in here. And we waste time being afraid of consequences and outcomes. All that really matters in the FAYZ is the here and now, 'cause we really could be dead tomorrow, and all our secrets die with us if we do. "
"Yeah, like we're ones to talk about sharing our secrets"
"We keep our powers secret to protect ourselves," She argued.
"I keep all my secrets to protect myself" Jess countered.
Sara only shrugged. "It's your life. You have my advice...So, chick-flick moment over?"
"Absolutely," Jess agreed, getting up again.
As Jess began work on the door again, she noticed it coming loose from the frame, but parts were still frozen stuck. It took a couple more swings of the sledge hammer, placing the rail spike in different locations, but finally, the door was free of its ice prison. Jess grabbed a cloth that Sara retrieved for her; certain that any flesh exposed to the door would get stuck. She motioned for Sara to stand back, and she pulled as hard as she could on the door. The hinges snapped off and the door fell forward with a deafening thud.
Jess peered into the opening, curious about why Michael had been so quiet.
"Michael?" Jess called. "It's okay, we're not going to, er, hurt you. We just want to talk; we can work something out,"
Sara stepped along the door to the opening to be side by side with Jess, peering into the basement.
"STAY RIGH THERE!" That must have been Michael, he screamed at them from around the corner, but he soon made himself visible, he was holding a handgun.
A handgun pointed at them.
Jess' heart raced, eyes widened.
"Drop that!" Michael screamed; his eyes were wild with a mixture of fury and fear.
Jess looked down, found she was still holding the rail spike, but she dropped it, raising her hands in front of her. She took a few quick breaths, and stole a glance at Sara. When she did, she found herself ten times more terrified. The fear gripped her like a raging animal clawing at her guts.
Sara was visibly shaking, like she was trying to hold something back, sweat was rolling off her forehead. Jess knew what happened when Sara got scared...
Jess found her voice; she had to do something before they became frozen meat. "Michael, you need to put the gun down,"
"To hell I do, if you do anything, I'll kill you!"
"You don't understand," Jess said exasperatedly, "You will die if you don't put the gun down. Sara! You need to control it! You need to stop!"
Sara's hands were starting to turn blue, she looked at them with terror, her fear of herself was just adding to the emotion which could kill them all.
Michael noticed Sara's hands too, "Make her stop that, make her stop!"
"Sara, you need to calm down!"
Sara burst, "I can't! I can't! I-Leave! Get away from me!"
Jess backed up, and then realized that Michael was trapped with Sara in the way of him and the door.
"Michael, you need to put the gun down, and slowly walk around her," Jess tried,
"I'm not putting anything down! You better stop that, or, I'll-I'll, I start shooting!"
Sara suddenly screamed. She couldn't hold her power back much longer; her hands were producing a cold which Jess could feel.
One gunshot.
It hit its target.
Jess fell back against the stairs, winded and loosing blood...
TO BE CONTINUED...
So the whole Howard's black market thing was a last minute addition. Yay or nay? as always let me know what you think