Frozen Read Online Free Page B

narrowed. “Your brother has a few scars. Name them.”
    Blaine stifles a small laugh. “A few? He has more than a few.”
    “And if you are truly my son, you know Gray better than anyone in the world and this question will not be a problem.”
    Blaine looks at me. His blue eyes, the only feature that differentiates us, seem so colorless in the poor lighting that he could be my reflection. I give him an encouraging nod, and he starts listing off scars. A nick on my upper arm from a misfired arrow—his fault—when we were kids. The line on my palm from a poorly wielded knife—my fault—when whittling. A mark on my chest from falling on a jagged branch, stitches that scarred my chin after a fight with Chalice, the line along my neck from when Clipper removed my tracking device.
    “And on his forearm,” Blaine says. “Burns from the public square in Taem that scarred real bad.”
    I touch my arm, remembering my trip to Taem in the fall. Bree shot me with a rubber bullet so that I didn’t have to execute Harvey on Frank’s orders, and I ended up immobilized on a burning platform until Bo dragged me to safety. My father must have been waiting for Blaine to speak of this scar—a detailed account of an injury that healed within the safety of Crevice Valley, away from Order eyes—because he finally lowers his rifle.
    Owen yanks the collar of Blaine’s jacket back to reveal a small, thin scar. Clipper’s work, done the same day he tended to my tracking device. Then Owen clasps a hand on either side of Blaine’s face. “I’m sorry I had to interrogate you like that.”
    Blaine winks. “Like what?”
    Owen pulls him into a quick hug and then turns to address the rest of us. “The spy makes a good point. Having someone to cover for us if we stumble across the Order gives us an advantage we can’t pass up. And so long as we have his life as a bargaining chip, he should remain loyal. Soon as we clip him, Frank’s bound to send another in his place though, so let’s eat quickly and get back on the move.”
    The group disbands for breakfast, and I’m left alone with Blaine, still staring in disbelief.
    “You’re really here,” I say.
    He flashes me a smile. “I have to look after you, don’t I? You wouldn’t last long without me.”
    Almost the same words he said when he woke from his coma. The joke he makes over and over because while the two of us are perfectly self-sufficient, we both know we’re better together.
    “You’re full of it,” I say, but I pull him into a hug anyway. His arms are stiff, his clasp weak. When I step back he looks exhausted. “You okay?”
    “Yeah. Just tired. And sore. And my chest’s been burning the last few days. Maybe Ryder was right all along. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this.”
    “You absolutely weren’t.”
    He shoves me and I’m sent stumbling through the shallow snow, laughing. “Stop that right now,” he says. “I’m supposed to be the big brother.”
    “You’re older by a couple minutes, Blaine. Get over it.”
    “Never.” He smiles and it brings some of the light back into his eyes. They momentarily look the way I remember—brilliant and bluer than a summer sky. “Now, did someone say something about food?”
    “It’s only grits.”
    But you’d think I’d said bacon and eggs from the look on his face.

FOUR
    WHILE THERE IS NO BACON, breakfast does end up including some luxuries. September has decided that if we are leaving the town and Aiden is coming with us, there is no need to let a stocked chicken coop go to waste. I have to admit: Grits taste far better when paired with eggs.
    Emma wants to bury the deceased, or at the very least make a pyre, but my father says it would take far too much time to gather all the remains, not to mention the fact that a giant plume of smoke puts us at risk of being spotted. So Sammy retrieves a small, black book from the building where we found Aiden, and we stand around the well while he reads about giving rest