FROSTBITE ᵈ ᵍʳᵃʸˢᵒⁿ (DISCONTINUED)

o11. 𝘗𝘙𝘖𝘉𝘓𝘌𝘔𝘚

"Stopping what?" Dick demanded, eager to get the barest of answers.

"There's no stopping it now," she repeated to herself as the paramedics took her inside the ambulance. "Oh, God. God, forgive me." 

Dick clenched his jaw and turned away, marching back to the Porsche as a mixture of worry and anger clouded his thoughts. He and Estela had just gotten Rachel back, after endless hours of sitting behind the wheel and stifling their hunger with so little food, but now he started to feel as if their efforts had only gone to waste.

Or that they hadn't been enough.

"Why did you leave her here?" Kory's voice called out to him accusingly.

He rounded up on her. "In a convent full of nuns?" he asked incredulously. "Yeah, seemed real dangerous. You know, you're the one who stole my car and drove off."

"Yeah," Kory retorted, "I thought you could handle her for a few minutes, but I should've known better considering you ditched her in DC."

"I didn't mean to ditch her, okay? I was trying to—"

"You just couldn't handle her, so you left her with your friends. It's pathetic."

"Can the two of you shut the fuck up?" Estela growled lowly, suddenly appearing beside them with her dark eyes flashing. "Find Rachel first, argue later, capiche?"

She marched ahead before any of them could retaliate and continued to say, "Rachel told me that her powers tie in with her emotions sometimes. Whatever happened while we were gone. . .it was probably bad. No one's at fault here; we didn't know that this would happen."

"She's getting more powerful," said Kory.

"Yeah, but she's still a kid," Dick retaliated. "Alone and scared and on the run."

"Let's hope she doesn't accidentally kill anyone while she's out there," mumbled Estela before shutting the car door behind her with a slam.

A SOLID PLAN HAD BEEN formulated by the former sidekicks in a series of suggestions and completing each other's sentences, much like how their routine was back in the old days.

But as much as Estela's heart wanted to bathe in reminiscing, there were important things to consider where her logic was concerned.

The sun had already started to set when Dick parked on the curb of Covington's police department. It shrouded the earth with a bright yellow glow, making it look like an early sunrise in the spring. Estela almost forgot that the giant star existed, having been surrounded by the blue and grey clouds of winter all throughout her time in Ohio.

"She must be scared out of her mind," Dick muttered to himself worriedly.

Kory, who Estela let sit on the front seat because of her long frame, unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the car door.

"Woah, woah, woah!" Dick exclaimed. "You're not coming."

"What?" she protested. "Why?"

"You're not exactly the definition of 'blending in'."

"I've blended in just fine," said Kory irately.