As Cold As Ice Read Online Free

them from time to time just to watch them jump,
searching for any little thing they could use as an excuse to use
force.
    That was pretty much why, despite being on
the ground floor where there was light, where the walls were
painted peach, pretty much every inmate in the cafeteria had their
head turned down while they sat at the colorful picnic tables
scattered around. If was the first thing Jessica noticed when
Charles opened the double doors to the cafeteria.
    Jessica shivered at the sight of them. She
didn’t doubt that at least half of the people in there had their
heads down because they didn’t know how to look up anymore. Either
the fight had been taken from them after so long of being trapped
in these walls, or they were medicated to the point that they
didn’t even realize they were there.
    She kind of wished someone had given her
drugs like that while she’d been stuck in her cell. It would have
made going to the bathroom a little less awkward for her.
    Soren’s voice was soft, and without looking,
she knew it was his hand on her back that gently pushed her
forward. Shooing the little sheep to go and mingle with the rest of
the flock. “Go on.”
    She did.

Chapter Three
     
    It hadn’t been so bad, once Jessica reached
the food. There wasn’t a lineup, since everyone had already been
there and received their meals and were sitting down, either
staring at their plates or drooling over them. She’d still had to
grab a tray and walk down the little guarded walkway, letting women
behind Plexiglas scoop mashed potatoes, peas, and an assortment of
other goopy items onto it.
    She wasn’t about to touch the brown
stuff.
    Once she started eating, the rest was a
little easier. She just did as she was told, ignoring everyone
around her, even the one other person sitting at the table with
her. Long, blonde hair that hadn’t been washed in a while hung in
the face of the woman she shared her table with.
    There were other available seats, which gave
Jessica the impression that this particular paranormal was being
avoided. Either she was a powerful paranormal, a scary one, or just
liked to steal other people's food. Didn't matter. Jessica didn’t
want to look at anyone, or sit with anyone else anyway, since
pretty much everyone in the room had the same dirty hair and
complexion. This woman appeared a little worse than most, but at
least she was the only one at the table, and her face was down.
Also, Jessica was fairly sure she could take the girl in a fight if
she lost it and started attacking for no reason.
    She wasn’t looking at Jessica, and Jessica
wasn’t looking at her. That was the ideal
    The risk that Charles and Soren were wrong,
that someone would know who she was, recognize her face, then
attack her when she was shackled and surrounded, made her too antsy
when it came to everyone else. Had her ‘Employee of the Month’
plaque been in sight when any of these people had been brought in?
Better yet, was it still there? She’d have to ask Soren about that.
Jessica wasn’t exactly sure if he was going to help her or not, but
she trusted him more than she did Charles.
    Though she couldn’t see anyone watching her,
she knew there were eyes all over the place, and not just from the
other inmates. There were more two-way mirrors in there than in
most other places in the building, not to mention the cameras
hidden behind the black glass balls on the ceiling. Then there were
guards who walked between tables, fingers held on their
nightsticks, waiting for something to start up so they didn’t have
to be bored out of their minds anymore.
    None of them paid much attention to her, and
she pretended they didn’t exist as she scooped her mashed potatoes
onto the last of her bread.
    When she was done with her food, she pushed
it away, still determined that she wasn’t desperate enough to eat
whatever the hell kind of meat that mashed-up brown stuff was.
    The woman on the other side of her noticed
the abandoned tray