The Frozen Witch Book One by Odette C. Bell Page A

corridor. I
could also tell that the doors dotted along the walls had little,
expensive brass plates with place names carved into them like
Paris, London, and Brussels.
    I turned to the first door and knocked on it
desperately.
    No one answered.
    I ran to the next door. No one answered.
    I was starting to… shut down.
    I suddenly noticed how badly my arm was
bleeding. Clutching a hand to my injury, I shuddered as I saw how
much blood came off on my fingers.
    A new wave of nausea hit me, and I stumbled
against the closest door.
    That would be when it opened. Hard. I had no
balance left, and fell forward as the door opened inwards.
    Before I could fall on my face, two strong
hands locked on my shoulders.
    Two strong, warm hands. Warm enough that
they could momentarily cut through the cold marching through my
limbs.
    Sleepily, seconds from falling
unconscious, I turned my gaze up and up and up. For the man who had
caught me was no normal human.
    “Lilly?” Franklin Saunders asked, voice
quick with concern. His bright blue eyes darted from my ashen face
to the bloodied rip in my leather jacket then down to my burnt,
blistered hand.
    I could hear voices behind Saunders.
    “What’s going on?”
    “Who is that?”
    “I’ll be back,” was all he said. Then
Franklin leaned forward and picked me up for the third time in
several days.
    It was such an effortless move. To him, I
probably weighed nothing more than a breath of air.
    “What happened?” he asked, voice low. And
though it was low, it wasn’t hissed, wasn’t vibrating with that
familiar anger.
    Though I’d only known Franklin Saunders for
two days now, he’d never simply talked to me. He’d berated me,
sure. He’d shouted at me plenty of times. And god knows he’d
grunted and growled.
    But right now he actually sounded
concerned.
    “What are you doing here, Lilly? And what
happened to you?” he asked once more, slowing his words down as he
gently squeezed my shoulders with one hand, the other still hooked
easily under my legs.
    “What… am I doing?” I repeated, focusing
on the question, trying to let it drag me back into consciousness.
“Tracking… tracking the hitman.”
    I felt him stiffen. “Here?”
    “I… I was sent here… then….” Talking
abruptly became too much for me. Despite the fact this was Franklin
Saunders, and I hated him more than anything else in the entire
world, I let my head loll against his appreciable chest.
    He shook me gently. “Stay awake, Lilly.
Where is your target?”
    “The basement, he’s in the basement,” I
suddenly answered with renewed vigor as a pulse of fear slammed
hard into my gut. If there was one thing that could beckon me out
of the waiting arms of unconsciousness, it was the fact I’d almost
killed a guy. “You need to call the ambulance. You need to save
him. I almost,” I choked, “I almost killed him. He might be dead
now. Oh god. What have I done?”
    I felt tears begin to streak down my cheeks.
They were just as cold as the icy sensations still spreading
through my heart.
    Saunders suddenly stopped, turning hard on
his shoe as I felt him incline his head the way I’d come. “You
haven’t killed him,” he said softly.
    “I almost froze him to death. He could
have died of hypothermia,” I began.
    “Lilly White, I would know if he were
dead,” Franklin said simply. There was something so reassuring
about his tone, so believable about his simple
statement.
    God knows I didn’t trust Franklin, but right
now I hoped he wasn’t lying.
    Though it would have been so easy to faint
against his chest, I used what little strength I had left to drag
my phone up. The dim light of its electronic screen was like a
torch. It lit up my bloodied fingers as they clutched around the
case.
    But then I saw the signal bar and twitched
wildly. I began to dial an ambulance.
    “He won’t need one of those,” Franklin
said, using that same simple, gentle, easy tone. The kind of tone
that could lull you to