The driver, a man with a stern face hidden behind black sunglasses, whose slight frown deepens when he looks at me as he's reevaluating his established thoughts of my moral character, let me pee in a gas station bathroom. He told me someone had to be there when I pee, as "you can't be left alone outside of Inheritor's Valley." This was his way of telling me that, in Inheritor's Valley, the surveillance won't be as persistent. I asked him to go in with me, so naturally someone else had to go in with me instead. Maybe he's under my influence already, they assumed. I felt bad for him.

I didn't know how many people were in the car during my travel, but I was escorted by four rough hands towards the bathroom. They only pull the bag off my face when I'm in the stall. It's two suits I didn't recognize, obviously, though it's hard to recognize anyone when they all look the same. The only one who I'd possibly be able to recognize is the guy who told me to look for Lot's wife. I tried to remember his facial features in my mind occasionally, but nothing came up. Just a strange message.

Trying to pee was a nightmare with them watching me. I could get my pants down, but actually willing myself to go, even though I really had to, was another issue altogether. I tried to stare beyond the two men who, legally, were probably sexually harassing me right now, at the wall behind them. But I couldn't feel anything but their eyes. It was a serious invasion of my privacy, and everything in my body screaming revulsion. I tried to convince myself it was just like the gynecologist. But I'd never even been to a gynecologist and frankly had no idea what they did, so this was a completely useless line of thought.

The more nervous I got, the more the air temperature dropped around. I noticed the water in the toilet bowl freeze. And somewhere, there was a cracking sound. I immediately knew what it was, somehow: a burst pipe. I had frozen water somewhere, and damaged the intricate gas station plumbing. At that, the first warmth I felt in a long time began to rise in my cheeks. Embarrassment came from breaking the pipe, not from having two creeps watching me pee? The thought was laughable. But luckily, when the pipe burst, the two aforementioned creeps looked around, wondering where the sound came from. For one second, their eyes were not on me. And the floodgates opened.

Except they didn't really. Because the second any urine left my body, it froze. And when it froze, it froze upward into my body. To say it was painful having icicles come out of my urethra is like saying it is painful to fall down a flight of stairs: obvious to everyone, but not immediately understandable. The ice numbed the area, but somehow that made the pain worse. It was sharp and awful, but the area where it was was vague, somewhere in my lower half, somewhere terrible.

I screamed. and cried. I had never experienced anything like it. I didn't realize that anything like it could possibly happen. Maybe it was like passing a kidney stone? Rather, a series of kidney stones, a long tube of kidney stone, all sharp and deadly and probably shredding the inside of my body. And the men were staring at me now, their hands in their jackets, like the Napolean pose. I suppose that's where they kept their guns. I wanted to die. This was the worst pain and humiliation I had ever felt, and I was completely alone. Even South East was dead. No one trusted me. I was about to pass out from pain and these two men were threatening to shoot me.

I couldn't see after that. I was blinded by tears from the pain. Not liquid tears. Solid masses of ice that froze my eyelids together. More formed, but they all froze immediately inside my tear ducts, sending shooting pain down my face. Everything felt like it was on fire, but it was the exact opposite.

I don't think I finished peeing before I openly gave up. I don't know why, but I half expected for someone to come save me, hearing my screaming. People did come, but it was just more suits, busting down the flimsy stall door. I don't know if their guns were drawn. It didn't matter, what was I going to do to them? Weild my Inheritance as the weapon I knew - no, imagined - it could be? I couldn't even control it right now. I was freezing the liquids in my own body, probably killing myself by complete accident.

Was this how she had died? The previous Heiress of the Chill? Adelaide Summers? Did she die screaming or of natural causes? She had been old, right?

Right?

...

I had to believe that. If my fate was to end up like her, I didn't want it. I had the sick thought that I'd rather just die here - anything to make it go away - but then realized that this was the very fate I just mentally professed not to want. Sitting here, screaming, everything frozen together, as icicles tore my urinary tract to shreds.

The toilet cracked. Like the seat. Snapped. It must have been brittle with cold. It sent a jolt pain through my body, even though it was only a mild shift. As it did, I realized something else. I couldn't feel my hands and feet, but they still actively hurt. I worried about frostbite. God, what my crotch got frostbite also? That would be unimaginably awful.

The toilet cracked again, this time a huge chunk coming off, knocking me off and sending me towards the dirty floor. The pain was unimaginable, and I felt the wave of nausea envelop me as I almost passed out. But I didn't pass out, and the pain somehow managed to startle me awake. Groaning and fighting sickness and razor-sharp pain, I was aware of the floor beyond me, the wall and the dozen or so legs crammed into the bathroom stall. My eyelids were still frozen shut, but I knew they were there. Beyond being terrifying beyond measure, it was kind of funny. There was all this commotion about a girl peeing. It was laughable.

I was scared still, but above it there was a level of awareness. I suddenly felt I knew what was happening. If I died, I died. Whatever.

Everything became liquid again, all at once. Bunches of cold tears burst forth from my eyes all at once, urine and water from the toilet flooded the bathroom floor. Blood was mixed in. It must be my blood, I realized dimly. That thought made everything colder again, but... just recognizing the situation I was in was enough to calm me, enough to make the ice recede. Fear must have made it grow. This was a far more personal and primal fear than South East's assassination - I was indoors for that, and it was someone else dying - so that fear and confusion must have made it worse. And of course, the residual stress from the assassination and the destruction of everything in my life and being hungry and having to pee and being exhausted. Everything had brewed a perfect storm.

I was lying on the floor, drenched in urine and blood, but I knew I could control my power. Or at least I could calm it, if I calmed myself. Maybe they had reason to fear me. But if they knew what triggered such an event, shouldn't they have gone out of their way to make me comfortable and keep me happy? No, that didn't make any sense. The suits clearly had no idea how Inheritances worked. I suppose I knew that already, but now I really knew.

I looked up to find several guns pointed at me. I was too tired to care at this point. There had probably been a gun pointed at me the whole car ride. It wasn't like they were going to kill me, though. If they did, someone else would Inherit the Chill and they'd have to do this mess all over again Without the Compass. That would be disastrous. I managed a grim smile, just to unnerve them, because I knew for a fact I could kill them now. Maybe I'd kill myself in the process but that didn't matter. They wouldn't get away with abusing me.

One suit, one of the ones that had first followed me into the stall, met my smile with a horrified and uncontrolled gasp. His gun, which he had pointed at me, held in both hands, was now on the floor. So were his hands.

"Frostbite." I said, not really knowing if that was the reason. I felt good, though. Powerful. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have even reflected on my feeling good, concluded that it was wrong, and resolved to be a more peaceful person. However, I had just pissed icicles and shredded my crotch, while at gunpoint. Someone else deserved to suffer.

Someone fired a shot into the wall behind me, clearly frustrated. But what were they going to do?

I tried to stand up, and found that I couldn't. "Frostbite," I reasoned to myself, not really caring if that was the reason. I felt woozy and nauseous, and damp, but in that pool of putrid and frigid water, I felt strangely warm. It must have just been unconsciousness taking me.