Frost 1.1
It was cold, when Taylor Hebert woke up.
She hadn't expected that. Hadn't expected the cold, or to wake up at all.
She shivered at the memory, and the chill.
It was a while before her other senses returned.
The ground was rough and rocky, but surprisingly comfortable, all things considered.
Part of her wanted to lie here forever.
But, after a few more long seconds, she groaned and uncurled her lanky limbs. Her joints creaked stiffly as they straightened.
How long have I been here?
Her clothes were wet.
Decaying blood soaking into her while she screamed, bugs and acid crawling over her skin-
Taylor rolled onto her hands and knees and bit her lip hard to drive away the bloody thoughts.
It worked. Mostly.
She opened her eyes and almost screamed again.
The snow beneath her was stained red-black with blood.
Her blood?
Surely not. There was too much.
The locker. The bloody-
Nope. Not thinking about it.
Taylor looked around while her eyes adjusted. Anything, to distract herself from the blood and metal.
The full moon cast a stark contrast to her surroundings, the snow pristine and coating the bare trees in an ivory shell. The grass poked through the soft layer, black against the white covering.
The graves stood in rows under the snow, like frosted teeth jutting out of the silent blanket.
How did I get here?
It was horrifyingly familiar. She and Dad had come here a few times, since the funeral. Even in his empty stupor, he could manage to drag himself here.
Taylor looked down and brushed the snow off the closest headstone, expecting to see her mother's name, as always.
Taylor Anne Hebert
June 12, 1995 - January 5, 2011
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass.
What the hell?
But…
She wasn't dead.
Right?
She ran a trembling finger over her own grave, leaving a thin streak in the spiderwebbed frost.
She wasn't.
Shivering tremors wracked her limbs as the cold began to seep deeper.
I'm not dead yet.
She snorted out loud. That was meant to sound dramatic, but all she could think of was the stupid British movie her dad used to like.
He didn't really laugh like that, anymore.
None of this answered the question of how she had gotten here, when she had lost consciousness in a rotting, metal box.
It didn't help stave off the cold.
If only I had more blood…
What?
Where did that thought come from?
Strange designs danced in her mind's eye. The secrets and methods of blood ministration.
What the hell is blood ministration?
According to the alien thoughts, it was the use of blood to strengthen and enhance both the practitioner and their weapons.
But that didn't make any sense either.
Taylor stood tall with surprising ease and took a moment to stretch the concrete from her bones.
Despite everything, she felt… strong.
Her baggy jeans and tattered sweatshirt were soaked with blood and melted snow, but she felt fire singing in her veins.
Am I…
Taylor looked down at her hands, bleached as white as the snow by the moon. She flexed her long, thin fingers and felt a wiry strength in them that she had never felt before. Something inside her longed to grip the smooth leather-wrapped handle of her weapon-
I'm a cape. A parahuman.
There was no other explanation. She was nothing, a weak and ugly wretch. She wasn't strong.
She felt strong, now.
Well, if I am dead, this is a hell of a dream.
She still needed to get out of the cold, though.
Taylor looked around again, getting her bearings. It was only then that she realized there was something sitting on the ground beside her grave.
Curious, she reached down and picked up the dark object.
Whatever she had been expecting, she definitely wasn't expecting it to be a hat.
And yet, here, leaning against her grave, waiting for her, was a flat-brimmed, black leather fedora.
She was about to toss it aside when a note fell out of it, written on thick, high quality paper.
"Put on the hat."
What.
Taylor blinked.
She read the note again.
She put on the hat.
It wasn't wet, somehow. Surprisingly warm, actually.
What the hell.
It wasn't too far from the graveyard to her house, although it was far enough that Dad always drove.
Her first steps were halting, unsure of herself and the newfound hunger singing in her bones.
Then her strides came to her easier, longer and more confident than ever before.
Then she was running.
The icy wind whipped her damp hair out behind her, long black curls heavy in the breeze. Her blood-stained clothes stuck to her lanky frame as her gait lengthened, first to a sprint, then beyond.
It was glorious.
She may as well have been flying, for all it felt like her feet touched the ground. The fence at the edge of the graveyard loomed over her, and she leapt.
It took everything she had to repress a giddy whoop as she soared over the fence, her jump carrying her easily ten feet into the air and twice as far over the snowy ground.
She landed on the slushy street with unconscious ease, her feet finding hidden traction beneath the ice.
Only half of the streetlights in Brockton worked, and they cast an eerie glow onto the cracked pavement when reflected off of the puddles and half-melted snow.
Taylor sprinted down the ruined road, reveling in the power that drove her legs under her. Her speed should have turned the surrounding buildings into a blur, but she saw every crumbled brick, every dirty, trash-filled alley.
She was alive.
She hit an intersection and turned sharply, skidding around the corner with a casual grace that she certainly hadn't possessed before, her shoes sliding across the ice at just the right angle to let her swing ninety degrees with barely a drop in speed.
The lone car out driving this late honked at her, but she didn't care.
They couldn't catch her, anyway.
The next corner ended in an alley with a fire escape, and she couldn't resist.
It was almost too easy to find a stable slab of pavement to leap from, up to brace another foot on the edge of the dumpster, and then up again to the edge of the metal railing.
Then up, up, up.
The metal was cold, so she stepped up with her feet whenever possible rather than grabbing it with her hands. She only had to grip the frosted steel a couple times as she practically ran up the side of the building, bounding from railing to ladder to support beam with reckless abandon before throwing herself up and over the edge of the roof.
She had thought that running over the broken streets was fantastic, but it was nothing compared to the rooftops. It felt like she was made for this.
The rusted air-conditioning units and chimneys became perfect platforms and handholds to slide over or leap from. The iron beams and crumbling bricks were perfect handholds as she ran across the ruined skyline.
It was almost enough to forget.
But not quite.
Too soon, she arrived at the familiar street of narrow, two-story houses.
Taylor couldn't risk continuing on the rooftops here, but she still didn't want to be seen. Instead, she worked her way through the snow-covered backyards, over fences and running across the areas where the snow had melted or was blocked by trees. She didn't want to leave too many footprints, just in case.
Her own backyard should have been more familiar, but it felt strangely alien, under the full moon.
Thankfully, she still had her keys in her pocket. She didn't want to wake her father up at this hour.
Taylor eased the back door open and carefully closed it behind her before making her way inside.
The house felt different, in the dark. Empty. A deep sadness seemed to pervade the very air, dripping off the furnishings and soaking into the wooden beams.
She really needed to get out of these bloody clothes. Would her father be too annoyed if she decided to shower, despite the time?
What time is it, anyway?
The clock on the oven said just after one in the morning.
The stairs creaked as she made her way up to her room.
A shadow moved in the upstairs hall.
An aluminum baseball bat smashed into the drywall where her head had been a split second before. Only the newfound power singing in her bones let her avoid the blow with instinctual precision, swaying backwards in an arch and throwing herself sideways in a tight spin that let her duck the follow up strike as well, landing on her feet with impossible dexterity.
She stepped forward and caught the next strike right above the grip, throwing the attack to the side and pinning her attacker's hand against the wall.
"Shit-"
"Dad! It's me!"
Everything froze.
Her windchilled face was less than a foot from his, the brim of her hat almost touching his forehead. She could barely make out the familiar planes of his pale face, in the moonlight.
"No," he choked out, dropping the bat to wrench his hand out of her grasp and stumbling backwards. "No, you're dead. You're-"
"I'm not dead, Dad. I'm here," she said, unsure what to say to convince him otherwise. She had seen her own grave.
His back hit the wall and he slid down it slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.
Her fingers hunted for a moment before they found the hall light switch. Luckily, it hadn't been in the path of the baseball bat.
The golden light was blinding, after only the moonlight for so long.
She looked down at her father, and her heart broke just a little bit more.
His face was blotchy and pale. Deep purple shadows haunted his eyes. He looked sunken, like the life was being drained from him piece by piece.
He stared up at her with an uncomprehending horror tinged with unbidden hope, blinking against the suddenly bright light.
Taylor took a deep breath.
"I don't know what's going on, but I'm here," she said. "I'm still me. And I'm still alive."
Danny dragged himself forward in a crawl before managing to pull himself to his feet, lunging forward to wrap his long, skinny arms around her.
Without her newfound strength, she may have toppled backwards. As it was, she held him upright as dry sobs wracked his slim frame.
"Taylor…" he seemed to lose steam after one word, gasping for air again.
She didn't know what else to do, so she just held on tight. Anything to convince him that she was real.
He pulled back and held her face between his hands, staring at her like a man dying of thirst seeing an oasis on the horizon.
"You're alive," he said, more life returning to his empty eyes with every moment.
She nodded, pushing away the memories of the blood and the stench and the dark.
He glanced up.
"Why are you wearing a hat?"
She cracked. She couldn't help it.
Wheezing, mad laughter filled the hall as they cackled.
…
A hot shower made a lot more of a difference than she thought it would.
It turns out, everything feels better when one isn't wearing dirty old clothes soaked with blood and slushy muck. Who would have thought?
The hot tea helped, too.
They sat across from each other at the rickety kitchen table.
Her father had one arm flopped casually across the table, his fingers just touching the edge of her elbow. Like he needed the reminder that she was actually real.
He finally broke the silence.
"I... I identified your body. I planned your funeral. There wasn't anyone else," he said.
Taylor felt like she should apologize, even though it obviously wasn't her fault that someone killed her.
That Emma killed her.
She pushed back the fire that threatened to overwhelm her at the thought.
"I don't… what day is it?" She asked. She hadn't realized it had been so long. Obviously, they had time to put in a gravestone, but…
"It's the 19th. Well, technically the 20th, now. Of January," he said.
At least she hadn't missed too much time, in the grand scheme of things. Two weeks? Give or take?
It must have felt like a long time to her father, though.
"I'm sorry to keep you waiting," she said with a tired grin. "Coming back from the dead is a tedious business."
He snorted, and she counted that as a win. Even if the bitterness still ran deep.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm happy… so, so happy, that you're here, somehow, I just…" he shook his head. "What happened, Taylor?"
She didn't want to talk about it.
But he spent two weeks thinking she died, alone in the blood and the acid.
He deserved better than lies, or nothing.
"It started after camp, summer before last…"
And so she told him. About Emma, and Sophia. About how they turned against her, and turned everyone else with them. About Madison, and the teachers, and the administration. About the constant, constant stress and anxiety and pain.
And then she told him about the locker. Being pushed inside with the other trash, and left to die.
How no one ever came. How no one helped. No one noticed, no one cared.
"We looked everywhere for you," he said in a broken whisper. "Everywhere we could think of. We never even considered… no one said anything about your locker. No one even remembered seeing you at school, that day. Or so they said."
His voice dropped even further.
"It wasn't… it wasn't until the smell… after days… oh God…"
She didn't make him say anything else about that.
"It was Emma. Or Sophia, or one of their lackeys. It doesn't really matter. It was them, all along."
Something in her voice made him look at her.
She could see the helpless fury in his eyes, not knowing how or what to do next.
"They'll get what they deserve," she said in a low growl. There was something within her, some new core of steel that demanded blood.
"I'll go talk-"
"No," she cut him off sharply, and he reeled back like she had struck him. "Anything you do will be tracked, and swept under the rug like everything else. The school won't be willing to pin the blame on anyone specifically, or they will be responsible too. Alan won't stand by while you slander his daughter."
She stood up and started pacing.
"You will be painted as a grieving father lashing out after the unfortunate death of your favorite daughter. You," she turned to him with a frightening smile, "are still alive."
She could see the moment that it clicked, behind his tired eyes.
"You don't want to tell anyone else that you're back?" He said in a whisper.
"What better way to make sure that my identity is kept hidden? Taylor Hebert is dead. There isn't any way she's doing anything," Taylor said.
"But what…"
"I'm a cape, Dad. A parahuman. You think I dodged your grand slam with lucky ducks? I came back from the fucking dead," she laughed at the absurdity of it.
"You're-"
He stood, pacing along with her, fists clenched.
"You can't go out there like that. It's not safe," he said through locked teeth.
"Not safe?" She exclaimed. "I died! What else could be more unsafe than actual, gone-to-meet-my-maker dead?"
"Just because you made it back once doesn't mean-"
"The hell it does!"
Why couldn't he see?
"This is my way out," she said in a more even tone, trying to rein in both tempers running wild in the dim kitchen. "If we tell them I'm back, it will let everyone know about my power. Next time, they might just make sure I'm locked up forever, rather than dead. Plus, it will put me right back in Winslow, right back in that fucking locker!"
Okay, so she did a pretty bad job of reining in the tempers.
"The Wards-"
"Fuck the Wards! It's the same shit, just in spandex. I'm not going back, to them or to Winslow."
"So what?" He yelled back, although she could tell that his frustration wasn't necessarily aimed at her. "You just… become a ghost? Pretend to be dead so no one bothers you? What about your life?"
"I'll build a new one. A better one," she said lowly.
Taylor turned and met his broken gaze.
"With or without you."
She knew she had him, then.
"I want you here, Dad," she whispered. "I want to do this with you by my side, or at least at my back, but if you push me on this… I still stay dead, and I'm gone."
He collapsed back into the chair by the table. The thin wood protested at the mistreatment.
"No one will believe you if you tell them that I came back. Not if I'm not here," she said.
"Stop," he said.
She did, waiting in the silence for him to speak again.
"It means that much to you? You really want to do this, stay dead on paper so you can… what? Run around in spandex and fight bad guys?" Her father said, raising his eyebrows.
"I'll come up with a better costume," Taylor said grudgingly, fighting back a smile.
Danny took a deep breath.
"Fine," he said finally. "Fine. I know… I know that you won't change your mind, not from my trying to force it, anyway. I hope that someday we can figure out how to move forward, get you a real life again, but… you're right. Right now, that would definitely out you as a parahuman, at least to the government if no one else."
She stared at him with narrow eyes from across the kitchen.
"You promise that you're not just saying that to get me to stay, and I'll wake up with the PRT downstairs tomorrow morning?"
She could see the knives slide in even as she said it.
"No," he said, as genuinely as she had ever heard from him. "No, I won't lie to you, not about this. I'm not… happy, with the situation, but…"
He took another breath.
"Taylor, you died. I spent two long weeks staring into another forty years of nothing. Or a lot less than forty, probably," he said ruefully.
The thought was like ice running down her spine.
What would she have done, if she came home and found him with a bullet in his brain, or an empty pill bottle next to his cold body?
What if she had been too late?
"I'm not…" she choked, and she closed her eyes as a lot of emotions caught up to her all at once. "Don't make me leave, please."
She felt his arms around her again, and then suddenly she was the one sobbing.
It took a long time, until she ran out of tears to cry.
"We'll figure it out, kiddo. Don't worry," he said, his voice rumbling in his chest against her ear.
She nodded into his tear-soaked T-shirt and finally extricated herself from his embrace.
They both sat back down at the table, letting the silence stretch for a while.
Taylor took a sip of her tea. It was kind of cold, by now.
"So, aside from dodging baseball bats and self-resurrection, what powers do you have?" Danny finally asked.
"That isn't enough?" Taylor laughed, before frowning into her cool tea. "I think I'm some kind of Tinker, on top of that. I have these designs, these blueprints, buzzing around in my head. Some of them… some of them are pretty brutal, if I'm honest."
"Tinker, like Armsmaster? Power armor?"
"No, no it's…" she let the terrifying instruments swim in front of her eyes. "It's blood tinkering. Experimenting with different kinds of blood, and different uses. Quick injection syringes, extractors, ways to boost my healing and my speed…"
Danny raised his eyebrows.
"That sounds… well, that doesn't sound like something that the Wards would take too kindly to, anyway," he said.
"No shit," she laughed sardonically. "It's not exactly… palatable. I'll definitely need to do some workshopping, see what is and isn't feasible for… sane people."
"We have the basement," her father said with a grin. "Is that a suitable mad scientist lair?"
Taylor couldn't help but smile. It was nice, that he seemed sort of on board with this.
"For now," she said. "I also… I also have weapon designs. They're pretty basic, compared to other Tinker weapons, but they work in tandem with the blood ministration. I can't really explain, exactly, it's all a bit… muddy. But I think it will sort itself out as I go."
"Okay," Danny said. He took another deep breath. He had been doing that a lot, over the last thirty minutes. "We can get more into this tomorrow. For now… I think we both need some sleep."
The night was definitely taking its toll on her. Apparently, coming back from the dead was tiring work.
They made it to the top of the stairs, and she hugged her father tightly again.
"No running away," he said into her hair.
"No calling the PRT," she said into his shirt.
They both laughed. It might have been a bit manic, but it was better than yelling.
Taylor finally slipped in between the sheets, and it felt amazing.
When sleep finally took her, she dreamed of blood, and the moon. Not nightmares; just a peaceful, silver light, and a rippling pool of crimson deep.
…