I bounced a little before turning back to Frank. “Seems as if it’s refrozen.”
Another kick of hope hurt my heart. Did that mean Rook had used her powers to keep us safe? Had she awoken as a fully-fledged immortal and wielded winter like a goddess?
Fuck, what I would give to have her appear.
To have my little employer ride in on a blizzard and be the first to survive the Requiem ascension.
But as Frank and I walked silently to where the hut used to exist with its elevator leading down to the high-tech lab, hope withered.
Nothing existed anymore.
Not the hut.
Not the lab.
It was as if nature itself had swallowed our man-made creation, burying everything.
Frank studied the spot where the entrance used to be. His puffer jacket blocked the icy breeze, but his red nose hinted he felt the cold.
A memory of Rook hurling a wall of frost in my direction when I’d tried to teach her how to wield her emotions back at Ashfall Cliff dropped me to my knees.
I’d been immune to Iceland’s weather most of my life. I hardly ever felt the chill, but that day—when she’d harnessed polar energy and transformed it into a weapon—I’d felt it in the depths of my soul.
And I felt now...she’s gone.
Fuck, Rook...
Bowing my head, I pressed my palms against the frozen ground. My heart fucking ached. Tears made my vision wobbly, but I stiffened as something glinted beneath my knees.
Glimpses of the lab twinkled back, sparkling thanks to the bright sun above. The lab still existed...just in multiple pieces and entombed in crystalline ice.
Twisted steel beams jutted upward like broken ribs. Stainless steel lab tables and shattered glass equipment lay suspended. Whole sections of the corridors—even a lone clipboard and sheaves of paper—hung like leaves caught in a breeze.
I couldn’t look away.
Somewhere down there, in one of those frozen rooms, was theplace where Rook and Lucien had fought to survive. Where we’d all done our best to save them with tests and needles—none of us prepared to admit we were running out of time.
Well...time had officially run out.
And the Snowflake Corp lab that’d harmed and killed so many innocent lives now rested in its own tomb—
“Good riddance,” Frank hissed, dropping to his haunches beside me. Pressing his fingers to the ice, he bared his teeth. “I burned the formulas and paperwork of the R gene years ago, but I’ve never felt safe. Always feared that somehow, somewhere, someone would be able to pick up where Rook’s parents had left off. But now? It’s all gone. And I’m glad.”
A younger Rook—before she’d lost her parents—haunted me. Her sweet laugh as she threw a snowball at me, her eyes glinting with mischief. I’d thrown one back (after checking no one was watching) and I think that’d been the moment we’d slipped into something more than just bodyguard and client.
I’d loved her like my little sister and I’dfailedher.
Fuck...
Who would I chase now? Where would I go? Who would I protect?
“I’m so sorry, Elara Snowflake.” Bowing forward, I pressed my forehead against the grave that Snowflake Corp had become.
She was gone.
And the world didn’t even care.
Time would march on.
