Prologue
The world was changed when the plague hit. It was quiet. Unseen until the kid died or got powers beyond their control. It was incredibly contagious, but no one knew how to recognize it or stop the contagion.
Rayven Blackwood remembered the panic. The heartbreak. She remembered her friends dying around her, with nothing she could do. She didn't know she too was soon to be a victim of the plague. All she knew was loss.
The few of the kids she knew who didn't die were carted off to the camps, their newfound abilities making them too dangerous to be part of regular society. Rayven didn't know why. All she knew was the icy, black emptiness inside her where her friends used to be.
When the plague hit, most of the world's kids were gone. When the plague hit, the natural order of things was ripped off its hinges. When the plague hit, survivors became the disaster, and powers beyond control made the world crumble.
Chapter One
The group playing cards was mostly ignoring the TV until the distinctive music of a plague announcement played.
"This is a public service message about IAAN," the TV blared. "Many of you know that the various categories of children are classified as Greens, Blues, Yellows, Reds, and Oranges, in order to keep them separate for their own safety." Pictures flashed of each classification as the TV continued.
"Greens have heightened mental skills. Blues have telekinesis. Yellows have electrokinesis. Oranges have mind control." The men playing cards nodded impatiently.
"But we are here to talk about is a common misconception that Reds can only control fire. In truth, Reds control temperature. Until now, we thought the only way Reds can control temperature is by increasing it." The men exchanged glances. What was coming?
"But, in fact, there is a rare form of Reds. We only have one example of this extremely powerful group, which has been classified as 'White' by officials. Rayven Blackwood, nicknamed 'Snow Queen', can control ice and snow. She is incredibly dangerous, and we are currently keeping her in a classified location, where we are kept safe from her."
One of the men fell backward in his chair. While the others helped him up, he wept into his hands. "Rayven," he whispered. "My poor Rayven."
Chapter Two
Six Years Later
Rayven Blackwood was not who one pictured when one thought of the Snow Queen. The image that sprang to mind was pale eyes, hair, and skin. While her silver-blond hair and glowing blue eyes (so light they were almost clear) fit the bill, her skin was most certainly NOT pale. Rayven's skin was the color of chocolate- rich, smooth, and beautiful.
Rayven sat inside the concrete box that had been her home for the last six years. She had a bed. Two sets of white clothes and a dumbwaiter where she put her dirty clothes to be washed. A second dumbwaiter lowered her meals every day. She had a tiny bathroom with a shower, a toilet, and a sink. She got five minutes of water every day in the shower, plus shampoo, conditioner, and a bar of soap. Each was exchanged every month. There was a dumbwaiter for toilet paper and to clean the two towels in the room, the large one and the tiny one for drying hands, as well as to bring replacements for the box of Kleenexes, soap, shampoo, and conditioner. A brush was on the counter of the sink. A broom closet was set into one wall.
If she was sick, medicine came in the food dumbwaiter. If it was bad enough that she needed a real doctor, the pills were sedated and she woke up again in the concrete box.
The endless repetition was enough to make a weaker person crazy. But Rayven Blackwood was not weak. She found ways to keep herself busy. She obsessed over keeping the box neat. She cleaned every day with the minimal supplies in the broom closet. She put everything back where it went. She made the bed.
When that was done, she practiced her abilities, crafting things of ice and snow and then making them disappear. When she was bored of that, she stretched. Did pushups, sit-ups, and wall sits. She did pull-ups from the steel beam in the ceiling. She ran laps around the room, even though there wasn't much of it. She sometimes received gifts in the dumbwaiter along with her food. A book. Paper and pencils. A puzzle. Each gift was a welcome distraction from the tedium of day to day life. Once, Rayven was sent a slim laptop. The only thing she could access was an email system with one contact, and news, but she was ecstatic when she got it.
The items on the laptop made her realize that her unseen benefactor was not part of the system that imprisoned her. The news stressed repeatedly the importance of keeping the victims of IAAN oblivious to the country's condition, and that was the opposite of what she now had. The email sent her constant little tips on keeping the system unwary, news on the way the kids in the camp above, Cedarwood, were being treated, and that the Children's League just wanted to help her.
The first of her gifts had come with a note to open them and use them away from the camera's eye, so Rayven sometimes spent hours on end inside her tiny bathroom, watching the news. One day an email came to her. Frowning, Rayven opened it.
Dear Rayven,
Stop using your powers where the camera can see it. Before you start doing it in the bathroom, pretend to mess up and create something weak. They think you're too dangerous, and they are already making plans to dump poison gas into your air supply.
Rayven scrambled back. Where her hands touched the floor, ice spread. Her abilities hadn't gotten out of control like this since- no. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head, trying to block the flashback, but it was too late.
Rayven had been lying awake. She got up to get a glass of water, and heard voices.
"Momma? Dadda?" she called. The voices went silent. She climbed down the stairs to the kitchen, where strange men were standing with her mother and father.
"This the girl?" one of them asked her father.
"Yes," he said, "But we told you she hasn't shown any side effects! She's fine!" One of the men snorted.
"None of the kids are fine. The rest are either dead or in the camps already." Her mother turned pale.
"Are you saying…" The man nodded.
"Your daughter is either unique, doesn't know she has side effects yet, or is hiding them from you." Rayven's parents turned to her.
"Sweetie, have you been hiding anything from us?" her mother asked. Rayven shook her head.
"You taught me not to lie to you! I would never!" As she grew more scared of what her parents and the strange men would do, the air around her grew colder. The men pulled guns out of their belts, and the terrified Rayven held her arms up as if to block the bullet she thought was coming.
A beam of ice shot from her fingertips, grazing her mother's head and hitting one man squarely in the chest. He staggered back, and the ice quickly spread. Within seconds, he was solid ice. Rayven's mother was more lucky, but she collapsed, unconscious. Furious, the other men fired their tranquilizers at her and all was black.
Rayven shouldn't have survived six doses of tranquilizer, but she woke up in the concrete box nonetheless. Shaky, and back in the present, Rayven saw strips of ice radiating away from her in the floor of the bathroom. She waved her hand, and they faded. Calming herself, she opened the bathroom's door and stepped out.
Rayven waved her hand in the air, and tiny snowflakes formed. She screwed up her face in concentration, pretending to try to do something big, but in reality making a tiny pop of snowflakes. She opened her eyes. Perfect. She fixed a look of dismay on her face and returned to the bathroom, where she finally let herself smile.
Chapter Four
Commander Gordon Warren of the PSFs strode into the meeting and took his seat. "Gordon," said the man at the head of the table. "We were just about to start." Commander Warren nodded his respects.
"I came to discuss the White, sir. Rayven Blackwood." The leader of Cedarwood Camp nodded.
"Our plan is to execute the girl. She is becoming too powerful. Unless you have another suggestion?" he said, his tone daring. Commander Warren smiled.
"Yes, sir. While I know that your solution is excellent, I have another." This prompted a raised eyebrow. " I suggest, sir, if I may, that we use the girl to fight the Children's League." The men around the table burst out laughing.
" And how on earth do you suggest we control the girl?" said one of them.
" We don't need to. She'll take the path of least resistance, and we just make that happen to be through the Children's League. Men around the table were starting to nod in agreement.
" All right then , let's say we do that. How do we recapture her?" Commander Warren shrugged.
"We don't need to. She can't take out all of the Children's League. We just let her thin their ranks and let them put a bullet through her head. Both problems solved." The men nodded. The leader smiled and shook Commander Warren's hand.
"We've got ourselves a plan."
Chapter Five
Rayven's next gift was a leather satchel, and soon after it an urgent email.
Rayven,
They decided not to kill you. Instead, a man is coming to try and use you as a weapon against us. We are the Children's League. When you overpower him, if you decide to, there will be an elevator shaft. Don't bother trying to find some way to call it down, it operates from above. Use ice as an elevator, and break through to the top. Once you're there, destroy the Calm Control emitters and all restraints. Help others escape. Take the laptop and necessities, but don't take anything else. We'll try to find you on the outside. We would help you get out, but our spies only have enough clearance to access the security room and the other ends of your dumbwaiters, we don't know where you are.
Good luck, Rayven.
Rayven immediately began stuffing the laptop, her extra set of clothes, toilet paper, soap, conditioner,shampoo, and Kleenex in the satchel. Next came the day's packaged food from the dumbwaiter and the bottle of water. She folded her blanket tightly. She had room for one more thing, so she picked a book she hadn't yet finished, laying it neatly on top of the rest before closing the satchel.
Suddenly, a muffled voice came from behind the door.
"Rayven Blackwood," it said. "Put yourself in the restraints."
After hiding the satchel in the broom closet, Rayven went back to the main room and set her arms and legs into the steel restraints that had been lowered from the ceiling beam. She'd noticed them years ago, but had given up on using them to escape. The open metal bands clamped shut, trapping her arms and legs to the wall. Metal cuffs completely encircled her hands.
A door in the padding that Rayven had given up opening swung open, and a cocky man stepped through.
"So this is the Snow Queen," he said. He squatted down in front of Rayven. "You are going to be my weapon in fighting the Children's League." Rayven laughed.
"Sorry, I don't fight for fools." Her restraints frosted over for a split second, then shattered. In one swift movement, Rayven stood up and froze Commander Warren in ice all the way up to his chin. She retrieved her satchel and stared at him. "I'm always unconscious when they see me, idiot."
She left, closing the door behind her and freezing it in place. Out of her cell for the first time in six years, she suddenly felt dizzy. The concrete elevator shaft around her was dark. Rayven crouched, concentrating on her goal.
Ice pushed up under her feet, slowly at first and then faster once she had gotten into it. She shot up on her column of ice, her feet buried about six inches deep in it for traction. Rayven suddenly hit the elevator itself. Without pausing to think, she created a jagged cut in the elevator's floor with ice and wedged its edges apart with more. Once the opening was wide enough for her to get through, she waved her hand and the ice disappeared, her column pushing her up into the elevator. Rayven wedged open the elevator doors with more ice, and stepped through.
She was in a deserted room full of computers. Each computer showed the feed from a security camera. A hidden panel in the wall had been slid aside, and through it Rayven saw the room she had lived for the last six years. Commander Warren was still trapped in the ice, and Rayven finally took pity on him and waved it away experimentally, wondering if it would work. It did.
She looked down at her hand, surprised. Evidently her powers needed sight to work, and it didn't matter if that was through a security camera. She sat in the desk chair facing the wall of computers and took a deep breath. Bracing herself, she sent out her power. Every lock, weapon, Calm Control emitter, and the fence were frosted over before shattering from cold.
Her work there done, Rayven ran from the security room and out into the camp, grabbing the first kid she saw, a Yellow.
" Listen to me. Tell all the kids you see to grab all the necessities that they can, and to help each other. We're escaping. Tell any Oranges to control the most guards they can to help us. Tell the other Yellows to fry any of their weapons that I missed. Tell Blues to transport supplies and fight the PSFs. Tell Greens to organize. Tell the Reds to burn the PSF buildings once all kids are out." The kid nodded.
"What are you going to do?" he asked. "Who are you? Why don't you have an X on your back like the rest of us?" Rayven grinned. "I'm Rayven. I've been trapped down there for six years. Let me show you. "
Rayven saw PSFs recovering from their shock and releasing the attack dogs on the escapees. Growling, she shot ice beam after ice beam at the dogs and their masters, but they just kept coming. She crouched, pressing her fingers into the dirt. She sent ice through the ground, to freeze all the PSFs and their dogs that she saw. Hundreds turned to sculptures of ice, toppling. She looked up, seeing just how much she had done. Seeing just how many she had killed. Rayven collapsed.
Chapter Six
"Is she okay?" Rayven heard a small voice ask over a rumbling noise. "How did she do that?" said another. "I've never heard of powers like that." said a third. "And that much… no wonder she passed out. That was hundreds of PSFs, and she'd already taken out all of their weapons and White Noise emitters beforehand." said the first. "What could she do to us?" a fearful voice asked.
Shaking her head, Rayven sat up to little shrieks. She was in a stolen PSF Jeep, which explained the rumbling noise. Several of her companions had backed up hurriedly, but one of them, a Yellow girl, stayed by Rayven's side. Rayven smiled tentatively at the ones who were afraid of her, and they scooted a bit closer.
"You don't have to be afraid of me," she said. One Green girl smiled a little back.
"It's just that… we've never seen anyone with your powers in the camp," she said. Rayven sighed.
"They kept me underground," she said. " I was too dangerous, they thought," she frowned. The girl nearest Rayven smiled a little.
"Could you show us?" she asked eagerly. Rayven shrugged, before flicking her fingers. Tiny snowflakes popped from her fingertips to hang lazily in the air, slowly falling to gasps from the kids in the Jeep.
"How?" one whispered. Rayven grinned.
"I'm a fluke," she explained. "Every other Red can send temperature up. Instead, I send it down," she explained, to appreciative murmurs. Suddenly, the Jeep lurched to a stop. Rayven frowned. "Why are we stopping?" she asked, confused. The driver, an older Green, turned around in the seat.
"We're looking for someone out in a rural area to ask for help," he said. Rayven nodded. "I'll go," she said. "My clothes are less distinctive for kids who had IAAN, and I'll be able to protect myself better if the person we see is hostile," she explained, to nods of approval. Looking around their Jeep, she frowned. " Where's everyone else?" she asked, confused. "Didn't we free the whole camp?" she continued. The Yellow girl spoke up.
"Yes, we did. It was awesome, but we all thought we should go in smaller groups," she explained. " Five thousand of us would've drawn some attention traveling together," she added. Rayven nodded, understanding, then opened the door.
"I'll be back soon, hopefully with some help," she told her companions, before climbing out of the Jeep. They were parked on a long, gravel road leading to a small house, tucked away in a small clearing. All around that was forest. Rayven walked up to the house and knocked on the door. It was opened by an unkempt-looking man, swigging from a beer bottle. He obviously didn't expect to see a beautiful girl standing there.
"Well, hello, darlin'," he drawled. "What's your name?" he asked. Rayven heard the television blaring something, but she ignored it.
"Rayven," she said, crossing her fingers that he would help them.
"Pretty name," he said. "Like you," he added, winking. Rayven forced down her disgust. We need this guy, she thought. Suddenly, the TV's sound changed.
"We interrupt your program for a public service message," it said. The man looked back at it, irritated. " An inmate in Cedarwood Camp has organized an escape. This girl freed five thousand highly dangerous individuals from where they were safe. Not only that, but she is also highly dangerous, more so then the others," it continued. "Rayven Blackwood is a rare type of Red, the only one that we know of. Instead of sending the temperature up, like a normal Red, this girl, nicknamed 'Snow Queen' sends it down, creating ice and snow." The TV showed a picture. Rayven was glaring at the camera, crouched down. Her arm was extended, shooting out ice. "Any to find and capture the Snow Queen will receive a reward of twenty thousand dollars," the TV speaker finished. The man turned toward Rayven.
"You're stayin' right there, darlin'," he said, slowly approaching her. Terrified, Rayven frantically looked around before remembering. Squinting her eyes shut, she shot ice at the man's feet. He was quickly frozen up to his chest.
She ran back to the Jeep, slamming the door and yelling at the driver to get them out of there. They sped away, and Rayven settled down into her seat, visibly shaken. The Yellow girl asked what happened, and Rayven turned to her, a haunted look in her eyes. "They hate us," she responded. "All of them."
Chapter Seven
The group parked the Jeep in a field. Rayven gestured for the others to move back from her, before crouching and touching her fingers to the grass. Slowly, she pulled her arms up, and a wall of ice followed. She widened it, then made it taller. After one wall satisfied her, she repeated the process three more times to make a boxy outline of walls.
She ran her hand over the wall in an arch, then pressed it from the inside, causing the six-inch-thick pane of ice to fall out on the other side. Rayven waved her hand to make the pane disappear, leaving a tall doorway. She flicked her hands upward, and the walls grew taller, leaning in towards the center until they met at a point.
The finished shelter was about ten feet tall, with about the same length of each side. She covered the floor in snow, and stepped outside. Her companions were standing there, staring in awe at their new shelter. About ten feet from the shelter in all directions, Rayven formed an encircling wall of ice, about twenty feet tall, around their shelter, before finally deciding their meager group was safe.
Looking around, Rayven realized there was only seven of them, counting herself. They pulled their supplies from the Jeep, storing the food, water, and extra clothes in one corner while bringing their bedding to the middle, spreading out their blankets on the floor and laying on top of them with a second. It wasn't very comfortable, but it was the best they could do. Their Red, a boy about Rayven's age, worked with Rayven to warm the space as best they could while keeping the ice hard enough that the second floor didn't collapse on top of them. Rayven discovered how she could make her ice remarkably hard, and how it would stay frozen at a relatively high temperature. It was due to this that they fell asleep. Falling asleep would put their lives in danger.
Rayven woke up to a blade inches away from her face. At first, she panicked, thinking that they'd gotten in her shelter. But no, the blade was simply poking through the ice. Many of them, in fact. All of Rayven's companions were now awake, staring at the blades in horror.
"Blackwood!" came a horribly familiar voice, that of Commander Warren. "We have you surrounded!" Rayven pressed her hand against the ice wall, sending enough cold through it to freeze and snap in half all of the blades. She heard yelps as the men dropped their freezing weapons. Rayven crossed her arms and flicked them outward, causing the entire shelter to disappear in a puff of snowflakes.
Before the soldiers could react, she fell to the ground, pressing her fingers into the snow and concentrating with all her might to freeze them. She didn't see Commander Warren flee before he was frozen. Frost spread up the men's clothing, quickly followed by ice. Within seconds, all were statues of ice, terror frozen on their faces. Rayven stared at her fingers. Before she'd collapsed after killing someone with her powers. She hadn't done so many this time, so she felt the full force of her guilt. She turned to her companions. "We have to get out of here," she said.
Chapter Eight
Rayven paced in front of the Jeep. They'd parked in a pine forest. It would have been beautiful if they weren't so terrified. She grabbed her hair in frustration, drawing away in horror when the strands were coated in frost. She was losing control.
"You have to leave," she told the others. "They're coming after me, and you're just going to get hurt." The Yellow girl protested.
"We can't separate!" she complained. "We'll be safer with you, and you'll be safer with us," she said. Rayven shook her head.
"They're be more of them coming after you if I'm with you," she responded. The oldest Green nodded.
"You're right, Rayven," he said. The Yellow turned on him, glaring.
"She'll be safer with us!" she hissed.
"But we'll be safer without her," he argued.
Eventually, there was a vote. Five people, including Rayven and the Green boy, voted that they should separate. Two people, including the Yellow girl, voted that they should stay together. So Rayven took some food, water, and what she'd had before escaping. She refused their offer of the Jeep, saying she could steal a car or walk. And then it was done. The others drove off, leaving Rayven more alone than she'd been underground in the tiny concrete box.
Rayven pulled out the laptop and typed into the email,
I'm out. Some others were with me; we got ambushed. They're gone now. Can you find me?
-Rayven
Seconds later, the reply came.
Dear Rayven,
I'm so sorry. Yes, we can find you. Wait there.
Rayven curled up with her back against a tree, waiting and alone.
Chapter Nine
Rayven heard a faint noise, and she raised her head. The noise grew louder: the sound of an engine. She scrambled to her feet, and a truck skidded into view. It stopped in front of her, and the engine died away. There were two people in the truck, a man and a woman. The woman had dark red hair, and the man had brown hair. The woman climbed out of the truck and ran over to Rayven.
"Are you okay, Rayven?" she asked, concern filling her voice.
"I- yeah, I think so. I don't know."
"We came as soon as we could. I'm the one who's been talking to you, my name's Mia," she said.
"So- what do we do now?" Rayven asked
"Right now, we just get you to a safe place, Rayven," said the man.
Rayven nodded hesitantly. "Does that exist anymore?"
Mia and her friend's reassuring tones didn't comfort Rayven, but she left in the truck with them anyway. She leaned against the truck's wall and fell asleep.
Chapter Ten
Rayven woke to the truck stopping. "Why are we stopping?" she asked.
" We need more gas," replied Mia. They'd stopped next to a deserted gas station.
"Will there be any here?" Rayven asked, surprised. "I thought that there wasn't any in gas stations." Before Mia could reply, a rustling sound came from the bushes behind them. The man stomped over to the bushes and reached inside them. Rayven heard someone scream.
The man pulled a boy no older than seven from the bushes. He was kicking and shrieking, but the man looked furious.
"What were you doing there?" he shouted, shaking the boy.
"I wasn't spying, I promise! Let me go!" the boy sobbed.
Rayven noticed the green X on his back. He was a Green. "Let him go!" she shouted.
"He was spying on us. He needs to pay," said Mia.
"He just said that he wasn't!" Rayven replied, flabbergasted at their cruelty.
"Rayven, you don't know what you're talking about. Leave this to us," the man responded coolly.
"Let me go!" he cried.
"Let him go!" Rayven shouted.
Mia started to pull out a gun. Panicking, Rayven shouted "NO!" and ice exploded around her. Both Mia and the man froze solid instantly, shocked expressions on their icy faces. The gun frosted over.
Shocked, Rayven fell to her knees. She vaguely heard the crack as the boy jerked free from the man's icy arms, snapping them off. They shattered against the ground. She barely heard as he walked over to her, and crouched next to her.
"You saved me," he said softly.
"I killed them," she whispered. "Just like I killed so many of the soldiers."
"It wasn't your fault," he said gently.
"How would you know? I froze them solid. I froze hundreds of them solid."
"I know that you saved me," he said. "You don't even know me, yet you saved me."
"Who are you?" Rayven asked, wiping a tear from her cheek.
"I'm Eli," he responded. "Who are you?"
Rayven smiled a little. "I'm Rayven."
"Oh, so you're the Snow Queen everyone's been talking about!" he said excitedly.
"What?"
"I ran into some kids from a place they called East River. They said that there's a girl with powers different from anyone else's! They said that they wanted to bring you back, if they could find you, 'cause the Slip Kid said you're a myth and they wanted to prove him wrong. I thought you were a myth too!"
Rayven stood up. "Nope, not a myth," she laughed. Eli's cheerful, reassuring optimism had cheered her up. She scanned the area. The only vehicle around was the truck, which now held too many bad memories. "We'll walk," she decided.
"Okay! Where?"
"Anywhere? Let's head along that road and see where it takes us!" she announced, grinning. She scooped up her satchel, grabbed some supplies from the truck, then headed towards the road. Eli bounced after her.
They kept walking along the road, playing various games to pass the time. Soon it was nightfall. Rayven built a quick shelter of ice for Eli. He wriggled inside, made a bed with Rayven's blanket, then paused. "Aren't you coming in?" he asked. She shook her head.
"I'll stand guard out here tonight. You get some sleep," she replied.
Eli tried to protest, but she playfully shushed him.
"Go to bed!"
He huffed, but laid back down. Within minutes, Rayven heard him snoring. She smiled and looked up at the stars. It was a good place to be.
Chapter Eleven
When morning came, Rayven snapped her fingers. The shelter disappeared in a puff of snow, and she smiled. She was getting better at using her powers. Eli turned over in his sleep and mumbled something incomprehensible about letting him sleep in. Rayven smiled
"Wake up, sleepyhead!" she called. He opened his eyes blearily, then snapped awake and leapt to his feet.
"I was awake the whole time," he lied.
Rayven laughed. "Sure you were."
"I was!"
"Riiiiight."
He huffed, and the two of them set off. She grinned, then shot upward thirty, forty, fifty feet in the air on a column of ice.
"Hey! No fair!" he called up.
"Yes fair!" she shot back. She sat, dangling her feet over the edge and grinning down. After enjoying his complaining for a bit, she stood up again and rapidly lowered the column. When she hit the ground, she ruffled Eli's hair.
He huffed. "That wasn't nice!" he complained.
She was about to respond when she heard a rumbling noise.
"What was that?" she asked, suddenly alert.
"What was what?" he replied, confused.
She peered back down the road the way they'd come and shoved Eli behind her.
"Get down!" she shouted. "Bounty hunters!"
Eli dropped to the ground, terrified. Rayven made a wall of ice to protect him.
"Stay down!" she called.
The truck came within range, and Rayven shot ice at its left front wheel. The wheel froze, locked up, and the truck skidded. Three bounty hunters leapt out of the truck and started firing. Rayven shot up ice walls for herself to hide behind, and crouched behind one. Bullets pinged against ice. She touched the concrete and sent ice jetting through the concrete. All three hunters froze solid, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
"All clear now!" she called to Eli. He popped up from behind the ice. Suddenly, a fourth hunter rolled out of the truck. It seemed to happen in slow motion. The hunter raised his gun. Rayven raised her hand. The hunter fired. Rayven shot a bolt of ice at him. The bullet missed her, and a split second later, the hunter was frozen solid.
"We did it, Eli!" she called, turning around. Eli wasn't standing there, cheering. She ran towards the ice barrier. "Eli?" she said, concern filling her voice.
"Rayven," came the weak call from behind the wall. Rayven ran to his side, and saw the worst.
"No," she said. "No no no no no no no." The bullet that had been meant for her had hit Eli in the chest. He was lying in a pool of his own blood. "Stay alive, you have to stay alive," she sobbed. Eli closed his eyes and coughed weakly. He was trying to say something. Rayven put her ear to his mouth.
"Wasn't- your- fault," he said, his eyes opening.
"Just stay with me!" she pleaded. His eyes closed. His chest rose once, then fell. It never rose again.
"No!" she cried. "No!"
Chapter Twelve
Rayven sat beside Eli's still body for what felt like hours. She couldn't believe that the energetic little boy who'd been making her laugh just minutes before was now lying dead in front of her. The ground froze around her in a perfect circle. A tear made of glowing ice slid down her cheek. She sat there, perfectly still and silent. He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to have his cheerful, optimistic self cut down by the world's cruelty.
But she deserved it. She deserved a thousand times the pain she felt. She'd failed to protect the one thing that mattered. She'd even told him it was safe. It was her fault that he was gone. Her fault that he was lying dead in front of her, in a pool of his own blood. She wiped the tear off her cheek and gently picked Eli up. She walked slowly into the woods, tears coursing down her face. The ground where she stepped was coated with frosty footprints.
She reached a beautiful, sunlit circle surrounded by pine trees. He would have loved it so much. She gently set the boy who'd become her little brother down onto the soft carpet of pine needles. Reaching out into the air, she created a shovel out of ice and started to dig a grave. The shovel's handle was sharp, and its edges cut into her hand. She didn't notice. She didn't care. She deserved more. She deserved so much more.
Her blood dripped down the handle and froze into it. She dug until the grave would comfortably hold him. She dug until the shovel was covered in red dapples all the way down. She climbed out of Eli's grave and picked him up, kissing his cheek before laying him in his grave. She found beautiful orange flowers nearby and laid them on his chest. She filled in the grave and created a gravestone out of ice, so clear it looked like crystal. She carved letters into the gravestone, then filled them with blue ice.
Eli
He deserved a thousand times more
Rayven stared at the gravestone. It wasn't enough. It didn't express how much the world had lost in his death. It didn't show his joyful face. It didn't show how he could cheer up anyone with a smile. With trembling fingers, she carefully created a playful lamb on top of the grave marker. She gave it his eyes. With one last look at his last resting place, Rayven hardened the gravestone more than she'd ever hardened her ice before. She poured every last ounce of her energy into making the ice hard as diamond, made to last forever. She could give him that much.
She ran. She didn't care where she was going. She didn't care that branches whipped her face and limbs. She didn't care that her bare feet bled from the rough ground. She ran for hours, ignoring the superficial pain from hundreds of cuts which bled and froze over. She didn't care that she was leaving frosty footprints behind her. She ran and ran, hardly noticing the ice and frost and pain. She tripped over a branch, scrambled to her feet, then kept running. She entered a suburban neighborhood. She didn't notice. She just kept running straight.
Finally, her legs gave out. In her last moments of consciousness, she saw a figure come out of a house. He's going to kill me, she thought. She no longer cared. Everything went to black.
Chapter Thirteen
Rayven woke up, but didn't open her eyes. She was lying on something soft and warm, with a blanket over her. It was startlingly familiar, but she couldn't name why. For a moment, she wondered why she didn't hear Eli snoring. Even though she'd only known him for a brief time, he'd become so familiar. Then she remembered. A wave of grief washed over her. Am I dead? she wondered. If so, why is it so comfortable?
She opened her room was also familiar to her. She didn't know why. Suddenly, the door opened and the man she'd seen earlier stepped through. Immediately, she threw off the blanket and stood up to face him. She glanced down at her clothes and realized with some shock that they were covered in blood. Her blood. She also had bandages all along her arms. "Why?" she asked him bleakly.
"Why what?" he responded gently. His voice was familiar. He looked familiar. She didn't trust him, still. "Why didn't you kill me?" she said.
"Are you talking about the bounty…?" he started.
"The bounty doesn't matter!" she screamed. "I don't care what they want. You should have killed me!" Rayven fell to her knees. "I'm a monster," she whispered. "Let me die!" she shouted. Tears ran down her face. She closed her eyes.
The man squatted beside her. "You are not a monster, Rayven," he told her gently.
"You don't know me," she sobbed.
"Yes, I do," he said softly. Rayven opened her eyes. "You were so young when they took you away…" he whispered.
Rayven realized then who the man was. He was her father. "You were so innocent then. Rayven, what did they do to you?" he said sadly.
She shook her head. "I was in a box for six years. Now I know why. Eli-" she sobbed. "I told him it was safe," she wailed. "I told him he could come out,and they shot him," she screamed.
Her father hugged her fiercely. "It wasn't your fault," he reassured her.
"I couldn't even give him a good enough grave," she cried.
A tear ran down her father's cheek. "Who was he?" he asked softly.
"He was so young… we banded together. I swore to protect him and I failed."
Her father hugged her tighter. "I'm sorry," he murmured. They sat there for what felt like hours. Finally, Rayven shook off her father. "They'll come here soon. We have to get you out of here," she said.
"What about you?" he asked, surprised.
"I'll come to protect you," she said shortly. "There's no other use for this ice."
He hugged her one last time, before standing up. "What should I bring?" he asked.
"Food. Clothes. Soap. I've already got everything I need, so pack what you can carry for yourself."
He nodded, squeezed her hand, and left. Rayven grabbed her bag and stepped into the bathroom. She pulled off her bloodstained clothes and filled the sink with soapy water, stopping it up and dropping her clothes in it to clean them. Then she stepped into the shower and let the hot water take her away.
Rayven stepped out of the shower and dried off, pulling on her clean set of clothes before pulling the other set out of the sink. The blood had washed away, so she rinsed them off and wrung them out tightly before packing them back in her bag. She stepped out of the bedroom. The work meant nothing to her. She did it for her father. She lived only to protect her father, now.
She walked down the stairs of the house she remembered from so long ago. A tear slid down her cheek as she remembered all that she'd lost. Her father was at the table, stuffing clothes and food in a duffel bag. He zipped it closed and glanced up at her. "Are you ready?" Rayven asked. He nodded and hefted the bag. Rayven glanced out the window. It was about eight in the morning. "Let's leave." He nodded, sad at what his daughter had turned into. Rayven and her father left the house. They walked straight west, perpendicular to the way Rayven had come. That way, they wouldn't run into anyone searching for her. They walked quickly. Hours passed.
When the moon, a slender crescent of silver, rose, Rayven and her father stopped at an abandoned warehouse. She ushered her father inside and reinforced the inside with ice. No one was breaking in. She sealed the entrance, leaving only a hole to breathe. She silently stood watch while her father slept. She didn't need to sleep. She didn't deserve to sleep. She sat there for hours, still and silent.
Chapter Fourteen
Rayven waited until her father woke to unseal the doorway. Silently, they left. They kept walking west. Sometime in the afternoon, Rayven and her father were walking through a completely deserted town.
Suddenly, the rusty door of a house to their left opened and a few chattering kids stepped out. Rayven immediately shot up a wall to protect her father and readied her hands to freeze them solid.
"Who are you?" she demanded. The kids froze in place.
"Um…" one little girl said, backing into the house.
"Whoa, there," the oldest said, putting his hands up. "We're not gonna hurt you!" he exclaimed.
"How do I know that?" Rayven demanded, not lowering her hands. The little girl started whimpering.
"You're the White," the oldest boy said softly. "Rayven." She growled.
"And who are you?" she demanded.
"Damian. I'm a Yellow," he responded calmly.
"What about them?" she said, jerking her head towards the kids hiding behind Damian.
"Mostly Green, one Blue," he responded, slowly stepping towards her. She rapidly stepped back.
"Stay away!" she yelled.
"What did they do to you?" he asked carefully. No kid he'd ever met had been this messed up by the PSFs.
"Where did you come from?" she shot back.
"We escaped from one of the camps a while back. Recently, we came from a place called East River. It's kind of a sanctuary for kids like us," one of the girls piped up timidly.
Rayven sneered. "I don't think so. There is nowhere in this world for us."
"We could give you a clue, if you want!" the little girl called from behind Damian. "They'd protect you!"
Rayven frowned. "Would they take my dad?" she asked.
"I don't think so," Damian responded, frowning a little.
Her answer was immediate. "No."
He sighed. "Okay, then. The Slip Kid would love to meet you, though," he suggested.
"I don't care," was her response.
The kids left. Rayven never took her eyes off of them until they'd gotten into their van and driven away. She never lowered her hands.
Chapter Fifteen
When they made camp that night, Rayven asked her father something.
"Where did Mom go?" she asked quietly.
Her father sighed. "A few days after you were taken, she got sick. Very sick." he recounted softly. "The doctors did everything they could, but she was suffering from serious brain damage. She wasn't herself. She was hypothermic in the warmest room. When she was awake, she was screaming 'Don't let them take her away.' She would sleep for weeks at a time. Eventually, she never woke up. I- I couldn't see her like that, lying in a coma. She had nothing left. I had to take her off life support. That wasn't a life."
A tear slid down Rayven's cheek. Her father wiped the tears off his own face. Suddenly, Rayven froze. "I hit her," she said numbly.
"What?" he asked.
"When they took me away, I hit her in the head with the ice."
He shook his head. "Honey, it wasn't your fault-"
"I KILLED HER!" she screamed. "JUST LIKE I KILLED ELI!" she sobbed. The ground around her froze solid. Winds started to blow, harder and harder. Something the size of a golf ball hit the ground. Hail. Rayven leaped to her feet.
"Rayven, you need to calm down," he told her, scared.
Blinded by her grief, Rayven didn't hear him. The winds blew, harder and harder. Snow was blown around by the wind, faster and faster. She was the center of the storm. All around her was a sea of whirling snow and hail and wind. She fell to her knees. The storm pulled into her and shot outward at blinding speed. Suddenly, all was perfectly still. The ground was coated in frost. Rayven heard a groan and suddenly remembered. Her father. "No," she prayed. "No, no no no no no NO!"
She could see the scene horribly clearly. Her father, lying on the ground. The ice had hit him in the chest. His face was covered in frost. She rushed to him and frantically felt for a pulse. He was alive. She scooped him up and ran, leaving everything behind. There was no time.
She ran back the way they'd come. She'd never ran as fast in her life. She ran until she reached the neighborhood they'd left. She ran, remembering the way to the hospital from her injuries as a kid. She ran and prayed there would be doctors there. She reached the hospital and burst through the doors, causing people to look up in alarm. She gently laid her father on an empty gurney.
"Save him!" she screamed at the frightened people there, then fled before anyone could gather their wits. She ran and she prayed that they could save the only thing that mattered. She didn't care where she was running to, or which way. She eventually emerged in an open field. She fell to her knees and cried herself to sleep, not caring what happened to her now.
Rayven woke to a gun barrel pressed against her head.
"You've been difficult to find," heaved Commander Warren.
"I suppose you're going to try and kill me," she said icily. She thrust upward and twisted, blasting the Commander in the chest. He fired, but it flew far over her head. She grabbed the gun and froze it, tossing it far away. His breath was labored, and blood was trickling from his mouth. He grinned.
"You still have hope," he laughed. "Which means one thing. You don't know."
"Don't know what?" she asked, dread filling her chest.
He cackled. "The doctors did their best. But the Snow Queen's ice is too strong."
Rayven shot him with an icy blast. It spread rapidly. Just before it closed over his face, he spoke his last poison. "Your father is dead, Snow Queen. You killed him." Frozen solid, Commander Warren died.
Rayven fell to her knees, numb. Everyone she'd ever tried to protect was dead by her hand or gone. Her powers caused nothing but cold and fear. How could anything good come from that? How could she have been so naive to believe that it could? Rayven screamed, and it carried everything she felt. Pain. Fear. Rage. Desperation. The ground shattered with the ice of her agony. She stared out at the glittering wasteland, unfeeling. Why was she afraid? She was the Snow Queen. She would make the world kneel.