Frozen Read Free

they brought it here knowing we would die.”
    Bree and I exchange worried glances. Not more than two months ago, we infiltrated Taem to track down a vaccine that would protect the Rebels against a virus engineered in Frank’s labs. We feared he’d capture one of our own and send him back infected, eliminating all the Rebels in the process.
    “Who brought it here?” Bree asks. “The sickness?”
    But the boy just sinks to the floor, hugging his dog around the neck. He’s so scared he’s shaking, or maybe he’s just cold.
    Bree walks up the aisle, pausing in the center of the t . The dog growls, and she decides not to risk the stairs. “Come on,” she says, holding out a hand to the boy. “We can get you warm. Help you—”
    “No!” he says. “They carried weapons, too. I don’t trust you!”
    Bree looks at me for help, but I’m as confused as she is. She turns back to the boy, cautiously walks up half the stairs.
    “Go away!” he shouts. “You’re like them. You’re just like them!” He keeps screaming like she’s attacking him, which causes the dog to lunge at Bree. She jumps back, barely avoiding a bite.
    “Look, we’re offering to help you,” she snaps, sounding like she wants to do anything but.
    “Can’t you see you’re scaring him?”
    The voice startles all three of us. We twist, and find Emma standing in the building’s entrance.
    “I’m not trying to scare him,” Bree says through her teeth.
    “But you are.” Emma walks up the aisle, passing me and slowing only when she reaches the stairs. The dog growls a bit more adamantly now that there are two potential threats to his master. “Maybe only one of us should do this,” Emma says.
    Bree rolls her eyes. “Fine.” She stalks over to me and mumbles, “This will be fun to watch.”
    I don’t say anything because I already know that Emma will be successful in calming the boy. Emma’s voice sounds like a fresh snowfall, whereas Bree’s comes out like a slammed door. And Emma moves the way a deer might in an open field, cautious and smooth. I’m not sure she could startle someone if she tried.
    Bree and I watch Emma climb the stairs and sit down an arm’s length from the boy, seemingly unaware that the dog is baring his teeth more than ever. She tosses her wool hat toward them.
    “Take it,” she says to the boy. “Go on. You must be cold.”
    He moves so quickly, I nearly miss it. A hand juts out, grabbing the hat. He wrestles it over his disobedient hair.
    “I’m Emma. What’s your name?”
    The boy blinks, eyes wide. “Aiden,” he says finally.
    “How old are you, Aiden?”
    “How old are you ?”
    Emma laughs, and a smile spreads briefly across the boy’s lips. “I’m eighteen. Just had a birthday last month.”
    The boy counts on his fingers. “I’m eighteen minus ten.”
    Emma compliments him on how smart he is and Bree crosses her arms. “Lucky,” she says to me. “I could have gotten him to talk if I’d had more time.”
    “Sure you could have.” Bree shoots me a look and because I don’t feel like being punched in the shoulder, I add, “I couldn’t have done much better, you know. Emma’s good with people.”
    “And we’re not?”
    Bree’s eyes are narrowed and she looks like she wants to kick something.
    “No. Definitely not.”
    Ahead, Emma is offering a hand to Aiden. “We’re going to make a fire and cook some dinner. Would you like to eat with us? Get warm?”
    He nods and slowly takes her hand. As soon as Aiden has chosen to trust Emma, his dog seems to trust her as well. Not fully, because he won’t stop growling, but he trots behind them as they walk up the aisle, his teeth no longer visible.
    Aiden freezes a few paces from us. “I don’t like the one with the gun,” he says.
    Bree snorts. “See? I was doomed from the start.”
    Emma drops to her knees alongside the boy and takes both his hands in hers. “Aiden, I don’t know what happened to you here. And you don’t have to