Frozen Read Online Free

fire pit, fast asleep. I find Bo, who always follows me on watch, and shake him awake. He grumbles, pulls on his jacket, and heads out.
    I creep around the fire and slide into my sleeping bag. Bree is on one side of me, my father on the other.
    Despite being properly warm for the first time in ages, I can’t fall asleep. In the darkness of the woodshop, all my doubts seem magnified. Group A seems so far away still, and Blaine farther behind with each day of hiking.
    Bree rolls over, nudges into me for extra warmth. I can feel her pulse even with the sleeping bags between us. I smile, close my eyes, and suddenly sleep is easy.
     
    The sound of Rusty barking jolts me awake. My father scrambles for the door, Sammy and Xavier trailing him. A moment later there is shouting outside and I know something is very wrong.
    I grapple for my gear, but can’t find one of my boots and end up being the last person to sprint outside. It’s maybe an hour before dawn, still dark enough that it’s difficult to see. I can make out several things in the bouncing beams of flashlights: Rusty, still barking like mad, and Aiden trying to restrain him; my father, surrounded by the rest of the group, shouting; and two strangers, one of whom has a gun to the other’s head.
    The hostage is young and lean and has a look on his face that appears more vicious than terrified. The other man is Blaine.
    I skid to a stop. “How did you . . . Who is . . .” I have a million questions and they’re all overlapping to the point that I can no longer get my mouth to work.
    “Hey, Gray,” Blaine says, beaming in my direction.
    Sammy jerks his rifle at the hostage. “What the hell is going on? Someone better start talking or I’m putting bullets in you both.”
    Rusty barks savagely.
    “The only person you want to put bullets in is this rat,” Blaine says, pushing his handgun more firmly against the stranger’s head.
    “No one is putting bullets in anyone,” my father yells. “Blaine, lower your weapon.”
    My brother grits his teeth. “Can’t do that, Pa.”
    “Why’s that?”
    Rusty yelps and lunges against his rope.
    “Because this piece of scum will attack us the second I do.”
    “It’s not true,” the stranger says. “I wouldn’t—”
    Blaine strikes him across the back of the head with his gun. “You lying piece of filth!”
    I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blaine so angry, so furious. It makes me fear the stranger he’s holding more than I’ve feared anyone in my life.
    Rusty keeps barking.
    “Will someone shut up that dog?” my father snaps.
    Emma grabs Aiden and helps him guide Rusty back to the woodshop, glancing fearfully over her shoulder as they leave. My father stares at Blaine and the stranger for a moment longer, eyes narrowed, then pulls his rifle up so fast I barely see it happen.
    Blaine yanks the stranger in front of him as a shield. “What are you doing?”
    “What any captain would do when two men walk into his camp without explanation: I’m protecting my team. You have to understand that this looks very odd, Blaine.”
    My brother stays sheltered behind his hostage’s shoulder. “I left headquarters just three days after you did,” he explains, “right around when one of our own got taken into Order custody. Ryder wanted to put Elijah on your tail, just in case the Order extracted mission details from our man and decided to send one of their own after you. Basically, Ryder wanted to send a Rebel shadow for the possible Order shadow.
    “I kept telling Ryder it wasn’t right, that I was healthy enough and I should be with the team, with you and Gray. Family. Ryder ran me through a final endurance test—which I passed—and agreed to let me go in Elijah’s place. I’ve been putting in twenty-five-plus miles a day just to catch up with you guys.”
    “Which means . . .” Owen’s eyes go wide as he looks at the stranger before Blaine.
    “Ryder was right. Frank got some mission details out of our