Cold Ashes

six

Jamie slowly got better and returned to his old self as the days passed by. By his old self, I mean, he went back to his I-don't-talk-to-you-or-to-anyone self.

He was right about me not catching the cold--the one he had. Because I didn't.

Not that I stayed in the apartment much the next few days either. Most of my time went by patrolling the city sometimes. Saving lives, helping out people, and trying my damnedest to away from the cameras. Whenever I saw Neo though, I grew a little wary and paranoid. The rumours he was spreading around were still just rumours since he hadn't yet disclosed Ice Phantom's real identity. And maybe what he had said to me earlier, the burning mess thing, maybe that really had just been a coincidence.

I barely saw Ice Phantom the next whole week, on the other hand. Not that I was complaining. As long as we weren't crossing paths, I wouldn't have to ask him why he had helped me out back there in that fire. As long as we didn't see each other, a lot was fine.

Though there was still this nagging thought at the far back of my mind, wondering how he could've frozen the entire building. Wasn't he scared of fires? Wasn't there a limit to his powers? What else could he do that I didn't know?

It wasn't like I had ever underestimated his powers in the three years I'd been fighting him. That also didn't mean I hadn't ever thought about it sometimes. How had he gotten those powers in the first place?

I remembered asking the same from Orias countless times. It couldn't be natural, his powers. I had lived my whole life at the Agency headquarters, a secret organization that worked under apparent government orders, with such high personnel and technologies, yet I had never seen anyone with powers. Superpowers. Ice powers.

And Ice Phantom had frozen a whole damn building right before my eyes. A building that had been on fire.

Granted, I didn't know for sure if it had been Ice Phantom, but who else could it have been?

"Dahlia, what do you say?"

I looked up from my almost empty notebook, save for some disturbing doodles, and saw Mrs Laney (Beth--as she preferred to be called) staring at me with a wide smile and a knowing look in her eyes. Not just her, I noticed. The whole class was staring at me now.

"I...uh..." I trailed off, my eyes darting to the whiteboard to see what the hell we were supposed to be talking about. "I say it's a...brilliant idea."

Apparently, the answer was satisfying enough since everyone turned back to the board, not caring anymore. Beth laughed and nodded. I had a feeling she'd known I wasn't really paying attention.

I really loved Beth, our professor for the Advanced Writing class, but she had a knack for picking on me every chance she got. In a total mischievous-motherly way. She was the age I considered my mother to be if she were alive. And she had vibrant green eyes too, just like my mum. Maybe that's why whenever she picked on me, on purpose, asking me questions in between her lectures, I never really got pissed off. She was just as bubbly as I imagined my mum to be.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat, tuning into what she was saying.

"...so that's settled then. Make up partners or trios or groups, whatever you all are comfortable with. And every pair slash trio slash group of you will be making a portfolio on any of the great famous heroes we just talked about." Beth continued, walking towards her desk and perching on the very end of it. Her long brown hair was up in a messy bun today. She always looked a little high on life, now that I think about it. "And you'll be submitting it to me by the end of this semester. Remember, this portfolio will make up half of your grade. If you need any sorta help, you know where to find me."