Frozen Read Online Free Page A

man, because this guy”—Blaine shakes the hostage—“is with the Order. I’ve been hiking for about an hour already today, and I caught him just outside Stonewall, loading his handgun.” Blaine tosses the extra weapon to Xavier.
    “Is he the only spy?” my father asks.
    “I think so. At least, he’s the only person I’ve seen between headquarters and here.”
    “Your name?” my father asks the prisoner, whose skin is pale in the first light of dawn. He looks about my age and is perhaps just as reckless, because rather than answer my father’s question, he spits on his boots.
    Blaine shakes him forcefully.
    “Jackson,” the Order spy grunts. “My name is Jackson.”
    My father raises his weapon. “Well, Jackson. Any last words?”
    “You can’t kill me.”
    “That’s an interesting theory. Perhaps we should test it.”
    “Oh, I’ll die,” he says, smiling slyly, “but Frank will know. As soon as he loses my reading, he’ll send someone to replace me. You’re better off keeping me with you so that he thinks I’m still tailing your team.”
    I frown because he’s right. Frank puts tracking technologies in all his soldiers, Order members and Heisted boys alike. One was unknowingly injected beneath my own skin last summer. Clipper removed it, living up to his nickname just moments after I met him. Once free of the device, Frank believed me dead. At least until I marched back to Taem with Harvey and Bree for the vaccine.
    “I think we’ll take our chances. You dead gives us a head start. A big one.” Owen’s finger reaches for the trigger and Jackson’s face washes over with panic.
    “Okay, wait-wait-wait,” he sputters. “Let’s talk this through for a minute. I don’t know what your mission is; the Order couldn’t get it out of the guy we captured. All we know is you’re heading west, so I was sent to intercept you, learn the details of your mission, and try to uncover the location of your headquarters in the process. But let’s just forget all that for a second and instead think about how useful it could be to have an Order member with you on this trek. Right? Eh?” He glances around for takers. “I can speak up for you in any Order-patrolled towns, help you avoid Frank’s eye. You can even take out my tracker if you’re willing to chance someone else being sent after the team, but don’t kill me. Okay? Please don’t kill me.”
    The team looks around at one another, startled by Jackson’s willingness to fold.
    “It’s a sign of weakness,” Owen says, weapon still poised, “betraying your kind so quickly.”
    “Only if you believe your life is worth less than the success of your mission,” the spy says. “And I don’t. I put my own life above Frank knowing why a handful of Rebels are on a hiking trip. Some would say self-preservation is the very opposite of weakness.” He smiles. Wide.
    “Knock him out,” Owen says to Blaine.
    Blaine strikes Jackson with his gun harder this time, sending the prisoner crumpling to the ground. Xavier rushes to bind his hands and feet, but my father keeps his weapon aimed at Blaine, his finger dangerously close to the trigger.
    “Now holster that gun,” he says.
    Blaine does, but even still, Owen won’t lower his. “I need proof,” he says, jabbing the barrel in Blaine’s direction. “I need it or I have to pull this trigger.”
    My brother looks stunned. “What more can I give you? He admitted he’s with the Order!”
    “Yes, and now I need proof that you aren’t with them, too.”
    I know where this is headed, but it can’t be true. I’d be able to tell. This is Blaine—scared, anxious, furious at a spy who was about to attack us—but it’s him.
    “Pa,” I say, taking a step toward him. “It’s Blaine. It has to be. He mentioned the conditioning test, and Ryder, and—”
    “The Rebels have been deceived by Forgeries before. These are dangerous times and we can’t be too careful.” He glances back at Blaine, eyes