Page 150 of Ice Princess

REBEL

The next morning,I float to work, still high from my date with Gunner.I can’t wait to see him again.

There’s so much more to the quiet hockey player than meets the eye and the more I discover of him, the more I want.

“Good morning,” I coo, nodding at Delia and April who are already there.

April smirks over at me as I skip to my workstation and pull on my gloves.

“Someone’s in a good mood.” Leaning against the car I’m diagnosing, she asks, “How was your date last night.”

“Incredible. He cooked dinner. Salmon.”

Her eyes widen. “Gunner can cook?”

“That’s whatIsaid!” I laugh.

“Huh. I guess you really can’t judge a book by its cover.”

“You should know that by now, with how many books you read,” I tease, shooing her away from the car so I can get started. I have a feeling I’m close to discovering what the problem is with this car, and then I can start doing my favorite part—sketching and creating the part it’s missing.

A little later, April leaves the garage to go visit her dad and I continue with Delia, getting lost in time while doing what I love.

From somewhere outside my happy, little bubble of focus, I hear a shout.

And then I hear the thud of boots on the floor.

I flip my welding mask up and look over at the door.

There are five people in hazmat suits descending on the garage like a horde of puffy-white locusts. I’ve never seen people in actual hazmats suits outside of those alien takeover movies and they look extra menacing in real life.

I’m so startled, I nearly drop my torch. Thankfully, I have the good sense to turn the machine off.

Snapping my welding mask up, I stare at the men in horror. “What’s going on here?”

Delia stops too, her eyes as wide as my fists.

“We received reports of a safety violation.”

The voice coming from the hazmat suit is muffled so, at first, I’m not certain that I heard correctly.

But somehow Delia has superhuman hearing because she understood the man from all the way across the room and yells “What do you mean a safety violation?”

“Time is of the essence, ma’am.” The little display window on his hazmat suit fogs up as he speaks. “We need you to vacate the premises for your own safety.”

The hazmat suit grabs my arm and starts dragging me to the door. Delia throws me a confused look as she, too, is aggressively escorted out. I’m so stunned that I don’t even fight the hand dragging me outside.

When I finally get a grip on myself, it’s too late. They’re already invading like cockroaches, spreading out everywhere inside the auto shop.

I can see exactly what they’re doing as all our shutters are rolled up today. We have four giant doors acting like floor-to-ceiling windows to the chaos inside the shop.

“Hey, don’t touch that!” I yell when one of the hazmat suits start jimmying our exhaust extraction hose.

Another one starts taking pictures.

I turn frantic eyes on Cordelia. “What are they saying?”

“I think they found something wrong with the exhaust hose.”

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