Frostbitten Past

X I X

WHEN ANDORRA opened her eyes, she could barely believe she was still alive. That her aunt and Paul hadn't killed her off right then and there. She pushed up from the mattress she was laying on, her body sore in strange places. She tried to stretch and crack her back, but she couldn't even manage that.

The room she was in was dark, but there were windows, and they weren't boarded up. Moonlight swept into the room like a wave, the glow leaving just enough light for Andorra to make out where she was. A bedroom, and if she could guess, it belonged to a child.

She tripped out of bed, her legs weak and numb. When she fell, she drove her elbow into the wooden floor hard enough to make her cry out in pain, and she closed her eyes hoping no one heard. When she didn't hear the sound of footsteps down the hallway, she quietly scrambled to her feet again, testing her lack of strength.

She felt along the wall, trying to find a light switch, but there was nothing that indicated there was a way to turn the light on at all. She patted the bare wall, squinting her eyes in the darkness as she tried to find what she was looking for.

Just as her fingers found the switch, she heard whispering outside of the door, in the hallway. She froze, pressing against the door, trying to hear what the people were saying. Immediately, she recognized the voices of Paul and Kyle, and her stomach soured at the thought of both of them.

She listened anyway, though. Her heart was beating hard in her chest, and she was trying to take big, deep breaths in, but her chest was too tight. She was still wearing her dress from the dance, but she didn't feel glamorous now. She felt terrified.

"We'll just talk to her. Explain what's going on. This would have never happened if her aunt wasn't a basketcase. But she wanted to do it this way, and hell, I figured she deserved somethin' after everything she did. Damn, this would have been easier if we'd found her as a child."

Kyle let out a barking laugh at Paul's words, and it was jarring to hear for Andorra. It wasn't the soft laugh she was used to, nor was it that goofy laugh she associated with him. No, it was much worse, so much more cutting.

"Compared to us, she is a child. She's only twenty. I still think the only reason they picked me was because I'm the youngest seeker."

Paul clicked his tongue in disagreement. "No, seekers can change appearances easily. They picked you because you have the ability to connect to someone that young. An older man, who could have looked the part, would have never acted the part."

Kyle's snort was louder than their voices. "Noah certainly changed his appearance. I was surprised to see that youthful glow about him. Of course, he is pretty young for a clan leader's child, but he must have taken off years from his appearance to look like a high schooler."

Andorra felt a strange twisting feeling in her stomach. First, at the fact that they said she was twenty. She couldn't be hearing things right, could she?  And then, changed his appearance? She wondered then what Noah really looked then, and if his appearance change had to do with his eyes.

And then it hit her: she was too calm right now after she found out people could change their appearances. She should have been freaking out, should have been asking questions like what do you mean by that and what are you and how old am I?

"Well, so did you. Seeing you last night, so young and dashing, really put everything in perspective. We're protecting a child. At least she'll know the truth sooner or later."

Andorra leaned against the door for support, closing her eyes and praying that this was a dream. It had to be a dream, because if it wasn't then what on Earth where they talking about?