Winter Has Come | ✔ #1 Winter Series

Chapter 54

The next morning, I wake up feeling numb. I can't feel my fingers or any part of my body. I'm as still as iron, muscles bound tight by an invisible rope.

There's a noise. I don't register what it is.

"What the hell, Amelia!" says a voice a bit too loudly. "You're gonna freeze to your stupid death!"

I crack open one eye. Angie is leaning over me, face stony, dark hair mussed.

"Get up, get up!" she snaps.

I mumble something along the lines of 'aunt oo,' which is a very feeble attempt at 'can't move.'

Angie grips onto one of my arms and tries to drag me back into the tent. My body is deadweight so she doesn't get very far.

"Why didn't you get back inside last night?" she roars. "You just fell asleep? God, you could have died!"

I wonder if, for a brief second, Angie is actually my very own mother in disguise.

Reluctantly, I crawl onto my hands and knees. It takes effort but after a lot of grunting, it's done. Angie pulls layers and layers of blankets over me and I huddle into them, suppressing a little shiver.

"What happened last night?" she asks.

I consider my options. I don't really want to tell her what I thought happened last night. Thing is, I don't even believe it myself. Josh didn't really come, did he? He didn't bring me that stem full of lavender flowers.

"Wait," I say and yank all of the blankets off me, shoulder my way past her and out into the open again. There, on the floor, are little purple things scattered and crushed.

So he did come. I wasn't dreaming.

"What?" demands Angie. "What's wrong?"

I turn to her, trying to keep my face plain. I can't tell her. It's too embarrassing, too private. It's something just between Josh and me.

"Nothing," I say.

She examines my face but doesn't say anything. Without another word, she shrugs like she couldn't care less, and noses her way back into the tent again.

I turn round, shivering in the morning chill. Through the fence, people have already roused, some fetching buckets of water from the small stream to my right, others just sitting there, watching nothing.

I wonder where Josh is at the moment. I wonder where the others have set camp. I wonder why Sarah has to be so cruel.

But all thoughts are interrupted by Angie's shriek from inside.

* * *

I dive straight into the tent, panic pulsing through me again and again, fear capturing me, ensnaring me in its horrors.

"Getitoffgetitoff!" Angie is yelling.

I pause before an ice cube the size of a hand whizzes past my face. Angie's shrieks get louder and I'm hailed with a small ball of snow down my neck.

"Calm down!" I shout.

She doesn't.

"Just! Calm! Down!"

I open my eyes to find her curled on the floor, shards of ice scattered around her like glass. She's stopped screaming now but it's obvious she's still in shock.

"Has it stopped?" she mumbles. "Stop it."

I kneel down next to her, wincing at the coldness seeping through my knees. "Angie?"

She turns around, dark eyes wide. "What the hell just happened?"

I don't really want to think about it. But, for the sake of my friend, I have to explain what I think is true.

"You've got the power, Angie."

She doesn't say anything. Slowly, she sits up and flexes her hand as though snowflakes might come out of it. Then, she looks back to me and takes in my snow-dusted hair.

"Sorry," she says. "I just lashed out. Didn't know what I was thinking."

I can't blame her. It probably came as a huge shock.

We stare at each other for a few more seconds before it finally hits me. Angie will have to move into the Camp and I will stay here, truly alone on this side of the fence.

I jump when a hand reaches inside the tent. Then, a leg and finally a head. The same man that escorted us out of the Camp and was standing guard outside Sarah's tent peers into our tent.

He surveys the snow and mess around us and his eyes rise to meet Angie's.

"Miss," he says to her. "You'll have to come with me. Sarah wants to give you her welcome."

Angie gulps, gives me what seems like a sympathetic glance, and scurries after the man. I want to follow but I know I can't. They'll resist me going in if I try. There's no way I can get in there without Sarah or someone ordering me back out again.

So, I just sit there as Angie is taken away.