Frozen Flame

Chapter 77: Entering Ice

Surface – Close to an Ice Entry

"Where's Lucas?"

Benjamin swallowed.

Luckily, Larcens had stayed asleep much longer than he had assumed. So much longer, in fact, that Benjamin had been able to drop off Lucas in an ice entry, continue using his ability until Lucas' ice ran out, and then arduously find enough ice to make it close to where they would meet with Ceecee before Larcens groggily woke and Benjamin had to put his ability on hold – to respect Lucas' wishes of course. A total of one and half days. It had been painful.

He certainly didn't expect Larcens' reaction when he'd woken up to be a question on the disappearance of their other troop member. To be honest, Benjamin had assumed Larcens might have actually been pleased at the loss.

That was not the case.

A plastered smile. "Back in Ice. No worries, he was just having a little disintegration issue. So, I dropped him off about a day and a half ago and carried you and the girl by myself."

Larcens nodded, frowning. "Right... Wait, a day and a half!? I've been asleep a day and a half!?"

Benjamin's smile grew extremely thin, verging on the transformation into gritted teeth. "Yes. You have."

Larcens turned around himself, rubbing his head and staring at their surroundings. "Where are we?"

Benjamin blinked. "On the Surface."

"Yes, but where?"

"Around the area we were supposed to meet, although, I'm not sure how off we are... I can't exactly follow other people's traces..." A pointed look.

But Larcens completely missed it. Instead his eyes widened with confused surprise. "Huh? What...? How...?" A pause. "Huh?"

Benjamin crossed his arms, sighing. "Larcens, use your words. I can't understand you when you're making weird mouth sounds."

"How...? How did you get us this far, by yourself, in a day and a half... by foot... whilst carrying both of us?" A pause. "No, better question, if you could carry us all this way so quick, why were you making Lucas and I do all the work?"

Benjamin sighed. Damn Lucas and his need to keep me safe. I'm telling him. "I didn't carry you by foot – I can manipulate ice. So, I just made an ice vehicle out of Lucas' left over ice and got us here. Well... considering you didn't wake up to make more, I ran out of ice a while back and had to stop to search for more ice." A pointed look. "Which took me several hours of wandering around and going back into Ice. So, thanks for that."

Larcens opened his mouth, eyes widened and still confused, surely to make some sort of annoyed comment on the absence of prior help.

But Benjamin cut in. "Yeah, yeah... Luc didn't want me showing you my ability because he thought you'd tell the higher ups and they'd put me on the front line or something, but honestly, I don't care. He's already mad with me anyway, so if you want to say something to anyone, I couldn't care less."

Larcens nodded. "Right..."

A moment of silence.

And then Benjamin cut back in. "That was an indication for you to tell me where we're supposed to be heading to meet up with them."

Larcens nodded. "Right, of course... Um... I don't know."

A frown. "What do you mean you don't know?!"