“Oh thank the gods! Let us out!” I glanced at Travis and David with an eyebrow raised. They shrugged.
“How do we open the door? It looks like a plain wall.” I yelled into the wall.
“There’s a latch at the corner. Look at the seam, you should be able to see it there.” The same voice called.
Stifling the urge to say ‘I have a bad feeling about this’, I looked for the latch. It was cleverly hidden in the design of the wallpaper and the corner. David and Travis backed up, moving to where the door would cover them when it opened. When they were in place, I released the latch and the door swung open wide.
Chapter 23
What seemed like hundreds of kitchen workers streamed from the room, which appeared to be a freezer. I watched them all pass me by, but none of them were Kait. When the flood slowed down a bit, I forced myself into the room, pushing past the trickle of people still exiting.
It was bigger than I expected. When I first entered, I couldn’t see the back. It stretched out in front and to the sides. David and Travis finally were able to force their way through the people and stood by my sides.
“David, you take the left, Travis, you take the right, and I am going straight through the middle. We will meet up at the back. Hopefully it’s not too wide.”
David had moved away as I started talking, and he called back, “My side is only two isles wide, and it looks like I can see through most of them.”
Travis called back from the other side, “Mine too. Moving forward.”
The open door was starting to cause a small fog to rise, which quickly made it hard to see. I cautiously moved forward on frozen feet. Taking off my shoes was both a good decision and a bad one. Heels would have been awful on the slightly icy floor, but even with the immunity to the cold, I was losing feeling in my toes already. We needed to get out of here quickly. I rushed back to the door to put a small bag of frozen peas in the door frame, so the door wouldn’t latch if someone tried to lock us in. Then I began to move forward again.
I had a little bit of protection from the icy ground, due to my powers, but I didn’t want to push it. I started moving faster. Then a thump came from Travis's side. The shelves were full between us, so I couldn’t see him. “Travis? Are you okay?”
Silence answered me. “Travis!”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I ran into a shelf that’s sticking out further than the other ones.” He sounded groggy.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ll be alright. It’s fine.”
“Okay.” I started moving forward again, pulling my feet from where they were stuck to the floor with ice.
Now there was a thunk from David’s side. “David? Are you alright?”
A crash answered me. “There’s a Svikari here. I’ll take him, you keep going!” He yelled back after a second. I hesitated, but to help him, I either needed to go all the way back, or keep going forward. I chose to keep moving forward. As I neared the end of the aisle, I saw a pile of rags on the floor. I rushed forward, sure it was Kait. When I reached them, I knelt down, but they were only dirty cleaning rags. Why would they have them in the freezer? I started feeling woozy, the room going around in circles. The rags had something on them to knock people out! I unsteadily stood up, and almost immediately started feeling better.
David hadn’t made it back to me, and Travis hadn’t made any noise since he ran into the shelf. I needed to help one of them, but which one? I swayed as I thought. Eventually, a thud from David’s direction made up my mind, and I raced to help him.
They came into view in front of me. David was hand-to-hand fighting two beings dressed all in grey. They had their backs to me. I iced the floor, then hit the icy patch running at full speed. When I started sliding, I crouched down, to put one leg out. I hit them, knocking their legs out from under them. I froze them to the floor as they hit.
“My seeds won’t grow in here, it’s too cold.” I smirked at David’s excuse and he just shook his head.
“I haven’t seen Travis or Kait. Come on, we need to go help Travis.” I ran back down the aisle, slid around the corner, then sprinted for Travis's aisle. David was right behind me. I stopped before heading down the aisle. “What do you think? Run, or cautious?”
“Cautious. I have a bad feeling about this.” Damn it. He said it. Didn’t he know that saying that was asking for trouble?
We tiptoed down the aisle, careful not to make any noise. Soon, we could hear voices ahead of us.
“No sudden moves, boy, or your friend gets it.” I shook my head. How cliché. I looked over at David and rolled my eyes while he grinned at me.
In my mind, he said ‘Travis is up there. The Svikari has Kait, who is unconscious. Travis doesn’t know what happened to Kait. The Svikari came up the aisle, dragging Kait with him. I’m going to try to connect us all.’
Travis's overwhelmingly loud voice filled my head ‘Hey, Babe.’
I shook my head, while David yelled at him for mentally screaming. It wasn’t this hard last time, but then, we had Kait’s experience.
‘The dumbass has a knife to Kait’s throat, but I don’t see any other weapons.’
‘I could freeze him.’ I said, but Travis quickly shot that down.
‘He’s wearing a heavy parka, which would
