Frozen by Erin Bowman: Chapter 3

Three

tonight i have second Watch, which means I might actu-

ally get a decent night of uninterrupted sleep. We rotate the

order and it’s the middle shifts that are the worst—I never

feel rested the following day.

Outside it is cold and gusty. I have the woodworking shop

at my back, blocking most of the wind, and Rusty at my side,

keeping me company. He’s a good guard dog, just as my

father suspected. Twice he hears something before I do, his

ears perking up, and both times it is nothing but a raccoon

coming to feast on the dead.

I watch the minutes go by on a wristwatch that Clipper

says runs on “solar power.” He walks with it strapped to

the outside of his pack each day, allowing the sun to warm

FrozenHC txt ed4.indd 26 1/23/14 3:07 PM

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its face so that it can tell time throughout each evening.

When my hour’s up, I head back inside, where everyone is

cramped around the makeshift fire pit, fast asleep. I find

Bo, who always follows me on watch, and shake him awake.

He grumbles, pulls on his jacket, and heads out.

I creep around the fire and slide into my sleeping bag.

Bree is on one side of me, my father on the other.

Despite being properly warm for the first time in ages,

I can’t fall asleep. In the darkness of the woodshop, all my

doubts seem magnified. Group A seems so far away still,

and Blaine farther behind with each day of hiking.

Bree rolls over, nudges into me for extra warmth. I can feel

her pulse even with the sleeping bags between us. I smile,

close my eyes, and suddenly sleep is easy.

The sound of Rusty barking jolts me awake. My father

scrambles for the door, Sammy and Xavier trailing him. A

moment later there is shouting outside and I know some-

thing is very wrong.

I grapple for my gear, but can’t find one of my boots and

end up being the last person to sprint outside. It’s maybe

an hour before dawn, still dark enough that it’s difficult to

see. I can make out several things in the bouncing beams

of flashlights: Rusty, still barking like mad, and Aiden try-

ing to restrain him; my father, surrounded by the rest of the


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group, shouting; and two strangers, one of whom has a gun

to the other’s head.

The hostage is young and lean and has a look on his face

that appears more vicious than terrified. The other man is

Blaine.

I skid to a stop. “How did you . . . Who is . . .” I have a mil-

lion questions and they’re all overlapping to the point that I

can no longer get my mouth to work.

“Hey, Gray,” Blaine says, beaming in my direction.

Sammy jerks his rifle at the hostage. “What the hell is

going on? Someone better start talking or I’m putting bul-

lets in you both.”

Rusty barks savagely.

“The only person you want to put bullets in is this rat,”

Blaine says, pushing his handgun more firmly against the

stranger’s head.

“No one is putting bullets in anyone,” my father yells.

“Blaine, lower your weapon.”

My brother grits his teeth. “Can’t do that, Pa.”

“Why’s that?”

Rusty yelps and lunges against his rope.

“Because this piece of scum will attack us the second I do.”

“It’s not true,” the stranger says. “I wouldn’t—”

Blaine strikes him across the back of the head with his

gun. “You lying piece of filth!”


29

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blaine so angry, so furious.

It makes me fear the stranger he’s holding more than I’ve

feared anyone in my life.

Rusty keeps barking.

“Will someone shut up that dog?” my father snaps.

Emma grabs Aiden and helps him guide Rusty back to

the woodshop, glancing fearfully over her shoulder as

they leave. My father stares at Blaine and the stranger for

a moment longer, eyes narrowed, then pulls his rifle up so

fast I barely see it happen.

Blaine yanks the stranger in front of him as a shield.

“What are you doing?”

“What any captain would do when two men walk into his

camp without explanation: I’m protecting my team. You

have to understand that this looks very odd, Blaine.”

My brother stays sheltered behind his hostage’s shoul-

der. “I left headquarters just three days after you did,” he

explains, “right around when one of our own got taken into

Order custody. Ryder wanted to put Elijah on your tail, just

in case the Order extracted mission details from our man

and decided to send one of their own after you. Basically,

Ryder wanted to send a Rebel shadow for the possible Order

shadow.

“I kept telling Ryder it wasn’t right, that I was healthy

enough and I should be with the team, with you and Gray.


30

Family. Ryder ran me through a final endurance test—which

I passed—and agreed to let me go in Elijah’s place. I’ve been

putting in twenty-five-plus miles a day just to catch up with

you guys.”

“Which means . . .” Owen’s eyes go wide as he looks at the

stranger before Blaine.

“Ryder was right. Frank got some mission details out of

our man, because this guy”—Blaine shakes the hostage—“is

with the Order. I’ve been hiking for about an hour already

today, and I caught him just outside Stonewall, loading his

handgun.” Blaine tosses the extra weapon to Xavier.

“Is he the only spy?” my father asks.

“I think so. At least, he’s the only person I’ve seen between

headquarters and here.”

“Your name?” my father asks the prisoner, whose skin is

pale in the first light of dawn. He looks about my age and

is perhaps just as reckless, because rather than answer my

father’s question, he spits on his boots.

Blaine shakes him forcefully.

“Jackson,” the Order spy grunts. “My name is Jackson.”

My father raises his weapon. “Well, Jackson. Any last

words?”

“You can’t kill me.”

“That’s an interesting theory. Perhaps we should test it.”

“Oh, I’ll die,” he says, smiling slyly, “but Frank will know.


31

As soon as he loses my reading, he’ll send someone to replace

me. You’re better off keeping me with you so that he thinks

I’m still tailing your team.”

I frown because he’s right. Frank puts tracking technolo-

gies in all his soldiers, Order members and Heisted boys

alike. One was unknowingly injected beneath my own skin

last summer. Clipper removed it, living up to his nickname

just moments after I met him. Once free of the device, Frank

believed me dead. At least until I marched back to Taem with

Harvey and Bree for the vaccine.

“I think we’ll take our chances. You dead gives us a head

start. A big one.” Owen’s finger reaches for the trigger and

Jackson’s face washes over with panic.

“Okay, wait-wait-wait,” he sputters. “Let’s talk this

through for a minute. I don’t know what your mission is;

the Order couldn’t get it out of the guy we captured. All

we know is you’re heading west, so I was sent to intercept

you, learn the details of your mission, and try to uncover

the location of your headquarters in the process. But let’s

just forget all that for a second and instead think about

how useful it could be to have an Order member with you

on this trek. Right? Eh?” He glances around for takers. “I

can speak up for you in any Order-patrolled towns, help

you avoid Frank’s eye. You can even take out my tracker if

you’re willing to chance someone else being sent after the


32

team, but don’t kill me. Okay? Please don’t kill me.”

The team looks around at one another, startled by Jack-

son’s willingness to fold.

“It’s a sign of weakness,” Owen says, weapon still poised,

“betraying your kind so quickly.”

“Only if you believe your life is worth less than the success

of your mission,” the spy says. “And I don’t. I put my own

life above Frank knowing why a handful of Rebels are on

a hiking trip. Some would say self-preservation is the very

opposite of weakness.” He smiles. Wide.

“Knock him out,” Owen says to Blaine.

Blaine strikes Jackson with his gun harder this time,

sending the prisoner crumpling to the ground. Xavier

rushes to bind his hands and feet, but my father keeps his

weapon aimed at Blaine, his finger dangerously close to the

trigger.

“Now holster that gun,” he says.

Blaine does, but even still, Owen won’t lower his. “I need

proof,” he says, jabbing the barrel in Blaine’s direction. “I

need it or I have to pull this trigger.”

My brother looks stunned. “What more can I give you? He

admitted he’s with the Order!”

“Yes, and now I need proof that you aren’t with them, too.”

I know where this is headed, but it can’t be true. I’d be able

to tell. This is Blaine—scared, anxious, furious at a spy who


33

was about to attack us—but it’s him.

“Pa,” I say, taking a step toward him. “It’s Blaine. It has to

be. He mentioned the conditioning test, and Ryder, and—”

“The Rebels have been deceived by Forgeries before.

These are dangerous times and we can’t be too careful.” He

glances back at Blaine, eyes narrowed. “Your brother has a

few scars. Name them.”

Blaine stifles a small laugh. “A few? He has more than a

few.”

“And if you are truly my son, you know Gray better than

anyone in the world and this question will not be a problem.”

Blaine looks at me. His blue eyes, the only feature that dif-

ferentiates us, seem so colorless in the poor lighting that he

could be my reflection. I give him an encouraging nod, and

he starts listing off scars. A nick on my upper arm from a

misfired arrow—his fault—when we were kids. The line on

my palm from a poorly wielded knife—my fault—when whit-

tling. A mark on my chest from falling on a jagged branch,

stitches that scarred my chin after a fight with Chalice, the

line along my neck from when Clipper removed my tracking

device.

“And on his forearm,” Blaine says. “Burns from the public

square in Taem that scarred real bad.”

I touch my arm, remembering my trip to Taem in the fall.

Bree shot me with a rubber bullet so that I didn’t have to


34

execute Harvey on Frank’s orders, and I ended up immobi-

lized on a burning platform until Bo dragged me to safety.

My father must have been waiting for Blaine to speak of this

scar—a detailed account of an injury that healed within the

safety of Crevice Valley, away from Order eyes—because he

finally lowers his rifle.

Owen yanks the collar of Blaine’s jacket back to reveal

a small, thin scar. Clipper’s work, done the same day he

tended to my tracking device. Then Owen clasps a hand on

either side of Blaine’s face. “I’m sorry I had to interrogate

you like that.”

Blaine winks. “Like what?”

Owen pulls him into a quick hug and then turns to address

the rest of us. “The spy makes a good point. Having someone

to cover for us if we stumble across the Order gives us an

advantage we can’t pass up. And so long as we have his life as

a bargaining chip, he should remain loyal. Soon as we clip

him, Frank’s bound to send another in his place though, so

let’s eat quickly and get back on the move.”

The group disbands for breakfast, and I’m left alone with

Blaine, still staring in disbelief.

“You’re really here,” I say.

He flashes me a smile. “I have to look after you, don’t I?

You wouldn’t last long without me.”

Almost the same words he said when he woke from his


35

coma. The joke he makes over and over because while the

two of us are perfectly self-sufficient, we both know we’re

better together.

“You’re full of it,” I say, but I pull him into a hug anyway.

His arms are stiff, his clasp weak. When I step back he looks

exhausted. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired. And sore. And my chest’s been burning

the last few days. Maybe Ryder was right all along. Maybe I

wasn’t ready for this.”

“You absolutely weren’t.”

He shoves me and I’m sent stumbling through the shallow

snow, laughing. “Stop that right now,” he says. “I’m sup-

posed to be the big brother.”

“You’re older by a couple minutes, Blaine. Get over it.”

“Never.” He smiles and it brings some of the light back

into his eyes. They momentarily look the way I remember—

brilliant and bluer than a summer sky. “Now, did someone

say something about food?”

“It’s only grits.”

But you’d think I’d said bacon and eggs from the look on

his face.


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Frozen by Erin Bowman: Chapter 3