Page 1 of Frost and Fate
ChapterOne
Screams filled the desolate alley. These were sounds Creedin was all too familiar with. “Again,” he ordered, as his men wailed on the woman’s small frame. “If she doesn’t change soon, she’s not what we are looking for.”
They continued for a few minutes longer. He’d had such high hopes when they located her. The girl’s telekinetic abilities had been enough to catch his attention and mark her as a powerful Chosen, and he had hoped, a possible Celestial. He watched his henchmen work. With a final kick to the back of the neck, the petite woman’s body went limp.
Creedin stared down at her crumpled form in disgust. Bloodstained blond locks hung around her pale face, nearly unrecognizable in its brutalized state.
“Sorry, boss. Maybe it was too much,” one of his men mumbled.
“Don’t be sorry!” Creedin shot back. “Had she been a Celestial, she would have been able to take it. Obviously her Chosen abilities were limited, which means she is of no use to us.” He paced across the filthy concrete.
“Was.” One of his enforcers chuckled. “Was no use to us. She’s not anything now.” The man used the toe of his boot to nudge her unmoving form. A small broken limb shifted beneath his boot, and then fell back to its unnatural positioning.
Creedin gazed down at her lifeless eyes, swollen and vacant. “I grow tired of this fruitless search.” He rubbed his temples. This was the twentieth Chosen they had taken. Each had suffered the same fate with no results. He dug his craggy nails into the weathered flesh of his palms until warm, sticky blood dripped from between his fingers.
What was he doing wrong? He had only taken the most promising Chosen. Each girl had been just another dead end.
“Next time, we will not fail,” he said to them.
His men stared back at him with questioning looks. One of the newer lackeys quipped, “How can you be so sure? Every time you have us drag one of these Chosen to some godforsaken place, always promising the prize, the Celestial. We’ve been at this for months and not a single one of these worthless humans has—”
His words were cut short when Creedin released a pulse of energy so powerful, it forced the lackey’s head to whip backward, instantly breaking his skinny neck. With a deafening crack, the man’s stunned face lolled to the side as his tall frame dropped to the ground. The other men took nervous steps back. Creedin sighed. He whirled on the men, locking eyes with each.
“Who are we?” he boomed.
“We are the Collectors!” they roared back in practiced unison. Creedin smiled. Despite having collected another dead end, he had a good feeling. Next time would be different. Next time, he would not fail.
ChapterTwo
Nova sighed as she handed out the next round of cheap beers. Another day, another shift at some rundown bar in the middle of nowhere. Middle of nowhere, Texas, to be exact. Sure waitressing paid well and allowed her to move around often, but getting hit on by sleazy drunks night after night was starting to get old.
If only she wasn’t so restless. It’s not that she didn’t want to settle down, but something inside always told her it wasn’t the right time, or place for that matter. So she settled for quick turnover gigs waiting tables, affordable—only mildly repulsive—hotels, and the lack of friends and relationships that came along with her lifestyle choice. The freedom may have sounded enticing to some, but it was starting to weigh her down.
It’s not like she was eager to jump into some kind of relationship. Nova had always been more on the timid side. There had been a few guys she’d been interested in in the past, but they hadn’t lasted long. There had never been a deep connection to any of the men who had tried to date her. Occasionally the emptiness of her bed each night did leave her wondering if continually moving around and never allowing anyone to get close to her was the right choice.
“How about a shot, Silver?”
Nova cringed at the nickname. She glanced at her reflection above the bottles on the back of the dusty bar. Nova Studer, too tall for most guys she wanted to date, odd green/grey eyes, and mousy-brown hair that fell just past her shoulders—that is, brown with the exception of the silver streaks that had begun to infiltrate her locks. She had always had some silvery hairs, ever since she was a kid. Recently the shimmery strands had really begun to make themselves known. They began to cluster together, creating thick stripes from the scalp down.
She supposed she should be used to them by now, but they still felt foreign every time she spotted them in the mirror. Nova usually went out of her way to hide the silver hairs as best she could. Those damn stripes still always found a way to sneak out from around her styling and updos.
“No shots for me tonight, Ralph. I’m off in ten.”
The patron, Ralph, had come in every day since she started working at the Rodeo Hideaway bar.
“You should take a lesson from your hair and lighten up.” He laughed, obviously amused with his joke. Nova sighed, ignoring him, and started to clean up the remaining tables before clocking out.
As she stepped out into the cool night air, she stopped to gaze up at the vast Texas sky. The stars sparkled brightly through the feathery white clouds and stretched across the twilight blue night as far as the eye could see. She may not have loved it here, but you couldn’t beat the views. After settling into her faithful blue Jeep, she headed back to her temporary home, eager to wash off the monotony of the day, and start fresh again tomorrow.
It was time to move on.
* * *
A few weeks in bumfuck nowhere, Texas, had been more than enough. Nova packed up her few belongings early the next morning and hit the road. She drove nearly twelve hours with a few breaks here and there. By the time it was dark, she was ready to pull off and catch some sleep.
The last few hours she’d been driving on autopilot, and now she had to figure out exactly where she was. The roads had gotten much more serpentine, and deep green forests now surrounded her. For a while she saw nothing but trees. The passing of a continuous sea of green became almost hypnotic. Nova’s weary eyes grew heavier by the second. Just when she thought she was going to pass out, she came across a log-cabin-style hotel with a large wooden awning and a hand-painted brown and green sign that read, “Mountain’s End Lodge”.
Nova approached the front desk and asked the clerk for a room. A map above the check-in caught her attention. “Georgia?” she said, surprised. “I’m in Georgia?”
