Chapter 10

We made it into Central without mishap. There were only a couple of cross streets big enough to give trucks this size passage, so it took a bit of time to reach Seventh Street and the building that hid Winter Halo’s freight elevator.

I turned the truck into the parking area, and sent several pedestrians scattering.

“Easy,” Jonas murmured. “The last thing we need is to attract attention by mowing down innocent citizens.”

“If said citizens are too stupid to get out of the way of a truck this size, they deserve to be mowed down.”

I could feel his gaze on me, but kept mine strictly front and center. The entrance was tight; there were only a couple of inches between the sides of the truck and that of the building. If I so much as twitched the steering the wrong way, we’d be wedged. And that would be just as inconvenient as running someone over.

“This is the first time I’ve felt any tension emanating from you,” he said eventually.

“Then you haven’t been around me enough.”

“I’ve been around enough to know this is different.” He continued to study me. “Is intuition hitting you?”

“Like a bitch.”

He reached into the backpack and drew out a couple of guns, tucking one beside his seat and the other beside mine. “Just in case the bitch is right.”

A smile tugged my lips. Guns might not help if everything went to hell, but it was nevertheless comforting to have one within reach. I guided the truck into the gloom of the parking area—not that it was anywhere near dark. It just wasn’t quite as bright as the street.

A guard appeared out of a booth to Jonas’s left and motioned us to stop. I did so.

Jonas wound down the window and flashed the guard a smile. “Frankie,” he said cheerfully, “that wife of yours had her kid yet?”

“Could happen any time now.” He glanced past Jonas and gave me a nod. “I’m sure as hell hoping it’s a boy this time. Manifest?”

Jonas handed him the electronic list. “The scans didn’t reveal anything?”

The guard snorted as he flicked through the various screens. “If it did, the wife isn’t telling me.”

“Meaning it might be another girl?”

“Possibly.” He handed the list back to Jonas. “These no-inspection clauses are going to come back and bite them in the ass one of these days. Hand?”

Jonas pressed his hand against the scanner the guard produced. “Hopefully, not on my damn shift, they won’t.”

“Amen to that, brother.” Blue light flashed the screen’s length; then the guard stepped back. “Righto, you’re clear.”

“Thanks, Frank.” Jonas wound up the window.

I threw the truck into gear and continued on to the rear wall. “How did you know all that stuff about him? The notebook?”

He nodded. “Not only did we arrange a basic background check on the guards here, but Jarren scanned the thoughts of the two drivers so we knew what sort of interaction was expected.”

Meaning it was possible his grandson had read my thoughts. It was a good thing I hadn’t been thinking about Jonas in any way, shape, or form, or that could have been embarrassing.

Up ahead, the solid-looking wall began to slide to one side, revealing the metal doors of a freight elevator. Once they’d also opened, I carefully drove inside, then stopped and pulled on the hand brake.

“And this,” Jonas said softly, “is where we both cross our fingers and pray to Rhea I’ve installed the sensor right.”

He’d barely finished speaking when the sensor beeped; behind us, the doors closed and then the elevator began to move slowly upward. Five floors, ten, then fifteen. My breath caught as the elevator seemed to slow, but it didn’t stop and the floors continued to roll by. Neither of us spoke; there wasn’t much to say now and certainly nothing either of us could do. Not until we reached the top floor anyway. Besides, it was possible that the sensors inside the elevator shaft would pick up any conversation.

We finally came to a somewhat bouncy stop. For several seconds, nothing happened, and then the elevator doors at the rear of the truck began to open.

A stout, ruddy-faced man with a receding hairline hustled over to my door. I wound down my window and glanced at his name badge. Nevel Williams himself.

“Manifest?”

Though his voice was curt, sweat was beginning to bead his forehead. I hoped like hell he could hold it together.

Jonas handed me the manifest and I gave it to Williams. He grunted, then glanced at the two men waiting near the end of the truck. “Get those crates out stat, and take them to lab 29-5.” As the men obeyed, the stout man handed me back the manifest. “The return cargo is ready. Please turn off all external cameras and remain in the truck.”

I obeyed. This was obviously a routine process, but it was one that made me nervous simply because we couldn’t see what was being loaded. I doubted Williams would betray us, given Nuri had his family, but I also wasn’t about to trust someone who could even contemplate using children as guinea pigs. Williams scurried away—something I heard rather than saw. I glanced at Jonas. If he was in any way tense, it wasn’t showing.

“It shouldn’t be too long. They’re usually pretty efficient here.”

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t, really, given I had no idea what the woman whose image I was wearing sounded like. I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel as the minutes began to tick by. The cargo was soon emptied, but for altogether too long, nothing else happened. Then footsteps approached; three sets were heavy, the other two light. Hope ran through me. The latter had to be the children. Those steps definitely weren’t those of an adult.

Williams reappeared at my door. “Right,” he said, holding up a scanner. “You’ll need to confirm receipt.”

I pressed my left hand against it. Light swept my palm and the light on top of the screen flashed from red to green. Williams grunted, then glanced back at his two companions. “Those doors secured?”

“And locked.”

“Unusual code?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right, then, see you in twenty.” Williams opened the truck’s rear cabin door and climbed in. The sting of his sweat was so strong and sour I couldn’t help wrinkling my nose. “You can drop me off at the gates as usual.”

I glanced at Jonas. This wasn’t in the plan as far as I was aware, and Jonas’s grim expression suggested he hadn’t been expecting this development, either. The doors behind us closed and the elevator began its slow descent. With every floor we dropped, Williams’s fear got stronger.

We finally made it to ground level. As the elevator doors opened, the guard once again came out. Williams opened the window and handed Frank another manifest. The guard checked it, nodded, then stepped back and waved us on.

I shoved the truck into gear and resisted the temptation to flatten my foot. Once we were on the street and heading for Central’s gatehouse, Jonas turned to Williams and said, “What in Rhea is going on? Why are you in the damn truck?”

“Because I’m not taking a fucking chance of being stranded,” Williams bit back. “So suck it up and get us out of here.”

“Your absence will be noticed, and that is going to cause problems.”

“I won’t be missed immediately,” Williams said. “It’s not unusual for divisional heads to accompany cargo past the main gate, just in case anyone decides to do a full inspection.”

“They could provide a regular guard with the correct paperwork to prevent that.” I stopped at a cross street and waited for several airbikes to scoot past.

“Regular guards don’t have the authority to override random goods inspections. I do. Now shut your fucking trap and get us out of here.”

“Say anything like that to her again,” Jonas said, voice mild, “and I will knock you out, tie you up, and dump you somewhere nice and convenient for the vampires.”

The scent of Williams’s fear got stronger, and I hadn’t thought that possible. But the threat achieved the desired result—he shut up. I flashed Jonas a smile and concentrated on getting the hell out of Central without drawing any attention to either the truck or us.

Williams relaxed once we got through the gate, but I wasn’t sure why. We weren’t exactly out of the woods yet.

“You’d better get off the main road,” Jonas said, voice flat and annoyed. “Alarms will be raised once our passenger is missed.”

“Going off-road won’t exactly help,” I said, even as I swung the truck onto a track that would eventually join what had once been a secondary arterial road into old Central. “A truck this size will be easy enough to spot, especially if they send out aerial.”

“Yes, but we won’t be staying in this. In about twenty kilometers we’ll hit a crossroad. Turn right, and after another ten you’ll see a series of abandoned factories. Head into building ten.”

“Seriously,” Williams said, “you’re going to extreme lengths for very little reason. They’re not going to miss me until I fail to show up for the meeting at three. That gives us plenty of time to get away.”

“You overestimate the speed of this truck and underestimate the determination of those behind the experiments,” Jonas growled. “You should have followed the plan you were given. By joining us, you’ve endangered everyone.”

Williams snorted. “I’ve worked too fucking long for Winter Halo to trust anyone. Which is why I came equipped with a backup plan.”

Something inside me went cold. “What sort of backup plan?”

“Each kid has a pellet containing a variation of VX inserted into him. Get me to my family, and ensure that we’re safe, or I’ll kill them.” Williams’s voice was smug. “And don’t think you can wrench the control from my grip before I have a chance of setting it off, either.”

VX was an old-school, man-made poison, and one of the deadliest to ever have been developed. All stocks had supposedly been destroyed long before the war, which meant the only way Williams—and Winter Halo—could have gotten hold of it was if they were now making it. And that, alongside whatever else they were trying to achieve in that place, was a scary development.

The urge to reach back and throttle the smug bastard was so strong my body shook. It took every ounce of control I had to keep my hands on the wheel and the truck headed in the right direction.

“How much of that stuff has Winter got stored?” Jonas’s voice remained flat, but his fury was so strong the force of it filled every breath.

“Enough to wipe out Central,” Williams said. “But it’s not stored or even created on-site. They wouldn’t risk that sort of exposure.”

“Then where is it created?” Jonas said. “And how did you get your hands on it?”

“That information,” Williams said, again in that smug tone, “can wait until I’m safe.”

I didn’t look at Jonas. I didn’t need to. Williams was a dead man walking. He just didn’t know it yet.

I reached the crossroad and swung right. A series of scarred, broken buildings soon began to dot the horizon. At first it was hard to distinguish their size and shape thanks to the vegetation that had begun to reclaim this area, but after another couple of kilometers, the green growth gave way to reveal a series of interconnected metal and concrete buildings. This area had been one of the first hit in the war, as it had been a main manufacturing hub for old Central. That so many of the buildings remained relatively intact despite the ravages of time was no doubt due to the fact that this entire area had been hit by more conventional weapons rather than the bombs that had ended the war and brought the rifts and the Others to our world.

I spotted building 10 and swung the truck toward it. Part of the structure had collapsed, and the exposed roof struts looked like rusting metal fingers reaching for the sky. There were a number of open loading bays along the still-standing portion of the building, but only one was free of debris. I dropped the truck’s speed and carefully drove inside.

Despite the brightness of the day, it was surprisingly shadowed in this portion of the building. There were no windows, and while there were skylights, time and bird shit had opaqued their surface. Odd bits of metal machines dotted the floor, all of them covered by rust and grime, but there was little else to be seen . . . I frowned, my gaze narrowing as I spotted an odd lump in the far corner. That, I suspected, was our next mode of transport.

I stopped the truck and glanced at Jonas. “What now?”

“Now we change vehicles.” He dug into the pack and tossed me a starting disk. “You’ll find an ATV under camouflage netting over in the corner. Williams, you get the children. I’ll let the others know we’re switching to plan B.”

I didn’t ask him what that was. I had a feeling he didn’t want to give Williams too much information. I glanced back at him. He didn’t look happy at this turn of events, even though the change of plans was entirely due to his refusal to follow orders.

I grabbed the gun, tucked it onto one of the coverall’s clips, then got out of the truck and strode across to the other side of the building. The air held the taint of grease and oil, even though the machine remnants hadn’t been in use for a very long time. An odd rustling noise caught my attention, and I looked up to see a couple of black-and-white magpies watching me from the safety of the rafters. I couldn’t help smiling. The birdlife in the parks and forests around Central and Carleen had basically been wiped out thanks to hunting by both the vampires and those in Chaos, but it was nice to know they still existed elsewhere. And magpies were a favorite of mine; their calls always seemed so joyous.

Once I found the ATV—the same ATV that Jonas and I had used to escape the Broken Mountains vampires, if the repairs and patches to its bodywork and roof were anything to go by—I pulled off and stored the camouflage net, then climbed in and started it up.

Williams had the two kids out of the truck by the time I pulled up. Though Cat and Bear had warned me about what had been done to them, seeing their tiny mouths so roughly sewn shut made me want to grab the gun and fire every last bullet into the smug little bastard holding them. He might not be directly responsible for this atrocity, but it didn’t matter; he was here, and he didn’t seem to see anything wrong in what they were doing. How that was even possible given that he had children of his own I had no idea. Maybe he really did see these kids as guinea pigs—or perhaps even a more evolved form of lab rats. Those who’d been responsible for the déchet program had certainly held that sort of mentality when it came to any life created in a tube.

But these kids were a product of two people, not of a lab, so how could he be so . . . blasé and uncaring? It was almost as if the part of his brain that controlled such emotions had been castrated, but by self-control and scientific desire rather than by chemicals or design.

Both children were wearing what looked like hospital gowns, and the bits of their bodies not covered by these garments revealed emaciated frames and scarred limbs. The latter didn’t surprise me, given Sal’s partners obviously used the false rifts to move the kids from one point to another where possible, but the former shocked me. Penny had been thin, but not like this. And it wasn’t starvation, because I’d seen this look before, on the bodies of almost every vampire I’d come across.

Did that mean these kids were further along the path of becoming vampires than the five we’d already rescued? Was that why their mouths had been sewn shut? To null the risk of the scientists being bitten?

And, like Penny, neither of them showed any sign of fear. In fact, there was no emotion at all on their faces, and their eyes . . . I might as well have been staring into a vacuum. There was simply nothing there.

My gaze met Jonas’s through the windshield and caught a brief glimpse of rage before he mastered it. He helped Williams and the two children get into the ATV, then slammed the door shut and climbed into the front passenger seat.

“Right,” he said, voice tight. “Get back to the old highway and head toward the Broken Mountains.”

“What the fuck is up there?” Williams said.

Jonas’s hands clenched so tightly his knuckles went white, but his voice remained even. “Nothing, because we’re not actually going up there. We’re meeting a truck halfway; you and the children will be transferred to separate vehicles, and you’ll be taken to your family.”

“Ah, good.”

Williams leaned back, obviously mollified by the answer. Which made me wonder just how much he’d actually learned about trusting people during his time in Winter Halo, because the slight but oh-so-cold smile that touched Jonas’s lips suggested that what was going to happen next to the scientist was anything but good.

We made it back to the old highway without incident and I increased our speed, pushing the ATV to its limits. Williams might be certain we had until three before he was missed, but I still couldn’t escape the feeling that time was running out.

The countryside grew wilder and the road rougher. The ATV’s treads skimmed across most of the potholes, but one or two of the deeper ones caught an edge and pitched the vehicle sideways.

“You’d better slow . . .” Jonas hesitated, and frowned.

“What?” I asked immediately.

He held up a finger and continued listening. After a second or two, I heard it—a low but continuous buzzing, and one that was approaching at speed.

Jonas swore and twisted around. “Kids, hunker down in the foot wells. Williams, grab the blanket and throw it over the three of you.”

The two children didn’t obey; they just stared at Jonas blankly. Then Williams repeated the order, his tone harsh, and the two of them scrambled to obey. That sick feeling inside me intensified. If Jonas didn’t kill this bastard, I would.

I slowed the ATV’s speed, despite the desire to do the exact opposite, then moved my side mirror so that I could see the skies. A small black dot jumped into the middle of the screen, but it was still too far away to see what it was.

“What are we going to do?” I glanced at Jonas. “This thing might outrun vampires, but it hasn’t much hope against airborne vehicles.”

“No.” Jonas checked the passenger’s-side mirror. “But I think that thing might be a drone. If it is, we still have time to get to the meeting point.”

I hoped he was right. I kept one eye on the road and the other on that black dot in the mirror as it drew ever closer. It soon became apparent that it was, indeed, a drone. The multispoke circular object zipped past us, then did a wide turn and came back, its body rotating so that the camera faced us. They might not be able to see either Williams or the kids, but they’d certainly see two people who weren’t supposed to be at the helm of an ATV.

I glanced at Jonas. “How long do you think we have?”

He shrugged. “It depends who they send after us. If it’s the ranger airborne division, then maybe fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“And will that be long enough?”

“It’ll be tight.” He wound down the window and fired several quick shots at the drone. Three missed; the fourth didn’t. As the drone went down in a blaze of smoke and sparks, I swerved the vehicle and ran over its remains. We had no time for finesse now; the only thing that mattered was getting the kids to the meeting point.

Everything became a blur, even time. I kept my attention on the road, on keeping the ATV going no matter what got in the way. We crashed through potholes and over rubble, and the distance between Central and us quickly grew. It didn’t ease the tension; if anything, it only increased it, because we were so damn close to safety now, and yet still so very far.

“Swing right at the next turn.” The sudden command made me jump. Jonas leaned across and squeezed my arm. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

“Says the man who has no seeking skills to tell him otherwise.”

I swung right but didn’t slow, and the ATV pitched to one side and threatened to topple. Several lights on the driving panel flashed red as the electronic stability control kicked into gear. The ATV quickly righted itself and I continued on without losing much speed.

“In one kilometer take the gravel road to your left—but this time, slow down or you’ll have us in the forest.”

I flashed him a somewhat tense grin. “You say that like it would be a bad thing.”

“If we want to remain alive, then yeah, it possibly is.”

I spotted the road and slowed down as ordered. Dust flew up behind us, a trail that would be easy to follow if it didn’t settle quickly enough. But Jonas didn’t seem to be overly worried, so I tried not to be. After a few more kilometers, an old farm and a couple of barns came into view. The barns were in reasonable condition, but the house was a weird conglomeration of tree, stone, and metal. I very much suspected it hadn’t been built that way—that it had, in fact, been rebuilt. Not by anything human, but rather a rift. It had the same twisted, not-quite-of-this-world feel that I’d seen in other organic materials hit by the rifts. I shivered and prayed to Rhea that the one that had caused this destruction had left the area. The last thing we needed, on top of everything else, was to be chased by one of the things.

In front of one of the barns were three long-distance solar vehicles. I stopped beside them but didn’t kill the engine.

Jonas tugged Nuri’s bracelet from his wrist and shoved it into a pocket. The blond-haired, craggy-faced image thankfully disappeared. “Remove the RFID from your palm.”

I picked the edge of the false skin layer free, carefully peeled it away, and then handed him the chip. He placed the two of them back in their plastic containers and opened the door.

“Wait here, both of you.”

“Where are we?” Williams asked.

“I have no idea.” I watched Jonas disappear into the darkness of the barn and tried to keep a lid on the ever-spiraling tide of tension. “And keep your damn head under that blanket until I tell you otherwise.”

“Lady, enough with the tone. Remember, I can kill these kids with the simple press of a button.”

“Kill them,” I snapped back, “and you’ll erase the only reason I’m not filling you with lead right now.”

The stink of fear jumped into the cabin again. Good. The bastard deserved to be afraid, just as those kids had undoubtedly been afraid, before their emotions had been cur- tailed.

I reached for the shifting magic and changed to my own form, then tugged my way out of the coverall and dumped it on the passenger seat. And immediately felt better simply because I wasn’t expending energy on a form that wasn’t mine. I might have had a decent enough meal at the museum, but that hadn’t been enough to fully recover my strength. Only time and rest, or using the healing state, would do that.

Jonas reappeared, accompanied by two men I didn’t recognize. He opened the rear passenger door and the two strangers each picked up a kid and walked across to the solar vehicle.

“Hey,” Williams said, throwing off the blanket and sitting upright. “What about me?”

“You,” Jonas said, “can get you own ass out of the vehicle.”

Something in the way he said that had the hairs along the back of my neck rising. His gaze met mine and that small, cold smile touched his lips again. The ranger was not only back, but on the warpath.

Williams hastily climbed out, but I remained where I was. Jonas strolled around the front of the ATV and, as Williams hustled past, threw a punch so hard that I heard the crack of Williams’s jaw from inside the vehicle. He dropped like a ton of concrete to the ground and didn’t move.

Jonas straddled him, then pulled a cable tie from a coverall pocket and tied Williams’s wrists together. Then he went through the scientist’s pockets, eventually pulling out a small black control disk.

Relief spun through me and I closed my eyes for a minute. The kids might not be out of danger, and a very long way from ever being healed, but at least the immediate threat of being poisoned had now eased.

Unless, of course, Sal’s partners had a similar disk and remotely triggered the pellets.

Two of the solar vehicles hummed to life, and a heartbeat later they’d risen from the ground and disappeared into the shadows of the forest. They wouldn’t be able to stay there long, as it would drain the batteries far too quickly, but it would at least make it more difficult to immediately trace their whereabouts, given that there was little indication on the gravel as to where they’d gone. I crossed mental fingers that they’d arrive safe and in one piece wherever it was that they were headed and climbed out of the ATV.

“It’s kind of hard to interrogate someone when they’re unconscious.” I stopped on the other side of Williams’s prone form from Jonas. “Or is that not what you intend right now?”

“Oh, I intend it all right.” He grabbed Williams by the scruff of the neck and dragged him over to the ATV, where he produced a longer cable tie and threaded it through one of the ATV’s treads, then looped it around the tie binding Williams.

“And what about the hunting party from Central? Or have you forgotten about them?”

“I forget nothing. There’s a well over there.” He motioned to the house with his chin. “You want to get a bucket of water while I set up our escape?”

I did as he bade. By the time I’d come back with two buckets of water, the third solar vehicle was off the ground and ready for a quick getaway.

Jonas grabbed one of the buckets from me and pitched the water over Williams’s head. The second bucket got the result we wanted—Williams woke, making sounds that rather sounded like a cat mewling in fear.

Jonas squatted in front of him, shoved a hand around his neck, and thrust him back against the ATV’s tracks. “You have one chance, and one chance only, to tell me where they’re making the VX.”

Williams’s mouth flapped, but for several seconds no sound came out. When it finally did, his words were slurred and barely understandable. Not surprising, given that the man had a broken jaw. “Base, Crow’s Point,” was all I caught.

Crow’s Point had been the location of the third déchet base—the other two being my bunker and the Broken Mountains. I doubted it was a coincidence that these people were using them—not only had Sal been familiar with all three, but if his two partners had worked for the HDP, then they would also be.

“And are they keeping the children there as well?” Jonas said.

Williams shook his head. “Dangerous,” he ground out.

“Then where are they keeping them?”

Williams shrugged. “Moved them. Not sure.”

Jonas glanced at me. “You believe him?”

I crossed my arms and studied Williams. His teeth were bloody, his mouth was swelling, and he was sweating heavily—a mix of fear and pain, I suspected. But I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for the man; he deserved a whole lot more than this. “No.”

“Truth,” Williams said, his voice little more than a squeak of fright. “They’re west, that’s all I know.”

“West of Central?” Jonas asked.

Williams nodded. “Honest, that’s all I know.”

Jonas grunted and glanced at me. I shrugged. It was doubtful Williams knew anything more than what he’d said. Sal’s partners were obviously playing their cards very close to their chests, and it was unlikely they’d trust anyone with that sort of information, let alone someone like Williams, who was so full of bluster and self-importance.

Jonas obviously agreed with me, because his next question took a different tack. “How are the children getting into the trucks if no one knows where they’re being kept?”

“Drivers met.”

A soft but distant buzzing caught my attention. I glanced skyward, but there was nothing to see; not yet, anyway. “Jonas—”

“I know,” he said, but didn’t move. “What have you been doing to the children?”

“Testing drugs. Splicing.”

“Splicing what? DNA?”

Williams nodded. “Not part of splicing program. Reynolds is in charge of that.”

“Joseph Reynolds?” Jonas asked.

Williams nodded again. The sweat pouring down his face was becoming a river and his skin was ashen.

“What about the drugs you’ve given the children? Are they reversible?”

Williams’s gaze flicked away. “Maybe. With time. Can help with that, though.”

Jonas tightened his grip on Williams’s throat; for an instant I thought he was intending to strangle the man, but as Williams’s face began to turn an interesting shade and his breaths became shuddering gasps, he released him and thrust upright. “We’ll keep your family free and safe, as we promised,” he said. “But you? You won’t be helping anyone. You can reap what you’ve sewn and rot in hell.”

With that, he spun and strode toward the waiting vehicle. I followed. Williams alternated between screaming in fury and begging us to keep our promise and keep him safe, but neither of us acknowledged him or turned around. Once we were both seated, Jonas closed the doors, spun the vehicle around, and headed in the opposite direction to the vehicles that held the kids.

“It might have been a better move to keep him with us than hand him back to Central and Winter Halo,” I said, once we’d cleared the vegetation and were scooting along some sort of track.

Jonas snorted. “If Williams lives any longer than the time it takes to get him back to Central and debrief him, I’ll be very surprised.”

“Hence my statement. He could have helped us understand—and maybe even reverse—whatever has been done to the children we’ve rescued.”

“There is no reversal. Williams was lying when he said that.” His gaze met mine. “He was in charge of the program but had no direct input. He wasn’t involved in the actual creation of the drugs being used.”

“Yes, but he’d know—”

“Undoubtedly. But sometimes to take an enemy down, you have to make a sacrifice. In this case, it’s whatever help Williams might have given us.”

I raised an eyebrow. Obviously, there was a lot more to this rescue plan than I’d been told. “What did you do?”

“I wasn’t actually throttling him, as tempting as it was. I was injecting a microtransmitter under his skin. We’ll have people close enough to listen in when he’s questioned, and hopefully we’ll gain some information about who else might be working with Sal’s partners.” His expression was grim as he glanced at me. “Because you can bet they’ll be involved in the debrief.”

“Great plan, but one that presumes he’ll be taken back to Central. What if he’s not?”

“Then we’re in trouble. But he will be. The rangers would balk at sending him anywhere else.”

“But if they’re ordered—”

“Such orders would risk questions being raised, and I doubt Sal’s partners would chance outing themselves that way.”

Not until they were ready to take over, anyway, and it didn’t appear they were near that point yet. “Then we’re heading back to the bunker?”

“Yeah, though it’ll be via a long and rather circular route to avoid any possibility of detection. Nuri needs to get back into Chaos before sunset.”

And I needed to get back into Central just in case Charles decided to take a break from the paperwork and legalities, and visit the woman he knew as Cat. I shifted in the seat to study Jonas. In the bright afternoon light, his profile was sharp and strong. “Any particular reason?”

He shrugged. “Just a general uneasiness. You know how it is, being a seeker yourself.”

“She’s a whole lot more than just a seeker.”

“That she is.” He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. “Whatever the question is, just ask it.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Why were you and Nuri caught in that rift together? The tensions between humans and shifters were very high for months after—”

“Not just months, but years,” he cut in. “Even now there are pockets of resistance within both societies, despite everyone knowing we can only defeat the Others by offering a united front.”

“So why were you both together?”

“Because Nuri is, as I said, an Albright.”

“And this is important because . . . ?”

“Because the Albrights were instrumental in paving the way for peace after the bombs were dropped. The other surviving houses wanted to fight until the bitter end, but the Albrights convinced them that peace was the only way our world was going to survive what was to come.”

“So she and her family foresaw the rifts and the coming of the Others?”

He hesitated. “She’s never really said, but I get the impression they saw the latter if not the former.”

“All of which is interesting, but doesn’t do much to answer the initial question.”

“No.” A smile made a brief appearance, then fell away. “She was sent as an envoy to broker a deal with my kin in the mountains. Central wanted to use the lands at the foot of the mountains for farming purposes, but were well aware those lands were traditionally ours. Given that forced acquisition of shifter land by humans was the cause of the war, the ruling families in Central—new and old—sent Nuri out as an envoy to seek permission and broker a deal. I was assigned to accompany her.”

“Why did the shifters allow humans to remain in positions of power after the war?”

“It was a way of appeasing the human masses—a means of showing them that while the shifters had won the war, they intended to treat all survivors equally.” A somewhat cynical smile touched his lips. “And it wasn’t like they could overrule the decisions of the five shifter clans who stepped into the remaining seats.”

How very true. “And Penny?”

He blew out a breath. “Shouldn’t have been there. I was on an official assignment and broke all sorts of rules, but the couple looking after her could no longer do so. I was taking her up to kin, as I’ve already said.”

I frowned. “So she wasn’t living with you at the time?”

He shook his head. “I was still a ranger; military accommodation is no place for a little girl.”

It wasn’t a place for any child, male or female, I thought, thinking of my little ones. Of the strange life they’d had before the gas took even that. “So she—and the people looking after her—were living in one of the refuges set up after the war?”

“Everyone was living in refuges in the years immediately after the war.” His voice was grim. “The humans did as good a job of destroying our camps and adobes as we did their cities.”

I hadn’t really thought about that, but then, my time during the war had been split between the constantly moving ranger camps and the bunkers. I really hadn’t seen much of the destruction—not until many years after the war had ended, anyway.

“The farmhouse is a prime example of the twisted mess a rift can make of matter, so how come you, Nuri, and Penny escaped it basically intact? How did Sal and his partners?”

“Luck?” Another smile appeared, but once again faded as he glanced at me. “The truth is, no one is really sure. Luck does play a part, but we also suspect it has something to do with the type of rift you’re hit by, and what else is in the immediate vicinity. You’ve more hope of surviving if you’re in a clearing or a field rather than a forest or near anything man-made. And you can’t be touching anyone.”

“I guess that makes sense.” I’d seen what had happened to wildlife who’d sheltered under trees and rocks at the approach of a rift, and it hadn’t been pretty. “Is the rift the reason you’re in Chaos with Nuri rather than living with your kin in the mountains?”

He nodded. “Initially, it was simply a matter of expediency—it was a means of protecting each other’s back at a time when the world feared our presence.”

Because it was believed survivors would attract the rifts. “And now?”

“We’re a good team, the money is brilliant, and I’m using the skills I was born with.” He glanced at me, eyebrow raised. “Can you honestly see me as a farmer?”

I studied him for several seconds through slightly narrowed eyes. “About as much as I could see me being one.”

He laughed. It was a sound so natural, so relaxed, and so very real that it pulled at something deep inside me. I glanced out the window, fighting the tears that weirdly prickled my eyes. It wasn’t as if I’d never heard a laugh like that before; I had, many a time. It had been part of my training to make shifters feel secure enough around me that they’d unwind and de-stress, but this was the first time it had happened without the barrier of being someone else. For the first time ever, I was simply me.

And he wasn’t afraid of that, despite the history he’d had with déchet.

It was scary and wonderful all at the same time.

“How long will it actually take us to get back to the bunker?” I said, after a while.

He glanced at the clock on the instrument panel. “We should be there just before five.”

It was just past three thirty now, so we really were taking the long way home. I yawned hugely, then waved a hand. “Sorry.”

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep?” Jonas said. “I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

“You sure? An extra pair of eyes might be useful given who’s out there, trying to find us.”

“Given the extra pair of eyes are struggling to remain open, the point is rather mute. Sleep, Tiger. You may not get another chance for a while.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that Nuri’s intuition speaking or yours?”

“I don’t have intuition. I just have my training.”

“So how did you come to the conclusion I wouldn’t be getting much in the way of sleep in the near future?”

“Simple.” The glance he cast my way heated my soul and yet could have meant anything. “You’re going back to Charles. And if you were in my bed, sleep sure as hell wouldn’t be on the agenda.”

My heart began beating a whole lot faster. “Meaning you’ve decided what you’d do if I indicated I was receptive to an approach?”

“Receptive to an approach?” Amusement flitted across his expression. “Such a mundane way of describing something I suspect will be anything but.”

“You, Ranger, have an annoying tendency to avoid direct questions.”

I couldn’t help the edge creeping into my tone and his amusement got stronger.

“It’s undoubtedly a result of hanging around a witch too long. As to the question—it remains a battle between the brain and the loins.”

“Then stop throwing suggestive comments my way, because it’s not helping.”

“Then decide what you want, Tiger, so that we can both move on, one way or another.”

“I wish it were that easy.”

“It is that easy.”

“No, it’s not.” Not for someone like me. I might have been created with the gift of thought and free will, but I wasn’t entirely sure I was given the courage to go after something I truly wanted. Not after all these years. Because it wasn’t just about sex, but rather emotion, and a connection. And maybe that was something Jonas could never offer, but until I took the risk and explored what might lie between us, I would never know.

“From the very beginnings of time itself,” he said, “enemies have become friends, and friends have become lovers. It is not beyond the realm of possibility, even if history and experiences might be against it. Against us.”

And they certainly were against us.

I wearily scrubbed a hand across my eyes. Why was it so much easier to decide to go to war against the vampires and the people who were in league with them than it was to accept the advances of one man?

“Jonas, I—”

He held up a hand to silence me. For several minutes he didn’t say anything, but tension rolled from him, the feel of it so thick it made it difficult to breathe.

He swore and flattened his foot. The solar vehicle immediately leapt forward, the trees around us quickly becoming a blur as our speed grew.

“Is it the rangers?” I twisted around to look behind us, but there was nothing in the sky and nothing on the ground. Just trees and dust.

“No. Worse.” The look he briefly cast my way was grim. “Rift.”

I swore, even as fear leapt into my heart. I scanned the countryside again but still couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Are you sure?”

It was a stupid question, because I already knew the answer. Thanks to the fact that he’d already survived one rift, he was now sensitive to their presence. But part of me was hoping he’d say no.

That part didn’t get the answer it wanted. In fact, he didn’t even answer. He just kept his attention on the road.

“This thing should be able to outrun it, shouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know. It’s fast, but the rift is moving at almost double our speed.”

And we were in the middle of a damn forest. Rhea help us . . .

The trees seemed to go on and on, an endless sea of green. I had no idea how close the rift was, and no desire to ask. Some things were better not to know—and it wasn’t as if I could do anything about it if it was close. All I could do was hope that the rift changed course and went on to destroy something else. That it left us alone and alive.

Even if the gathering tension and fear emanating from the man beside me suggested it was a rather forlorn hope.

With an abruptness that was startling, the forest gave way to vast emptiness. Something within me relaxed, if only slightly. At least we had a chance—a very minor chance—of surviving the rift in one piece and untainted by trees and rocks if it did hit.

The vehicle seemed to increase its pace in the open air—no surprise, given the sun was no longer being filtered through the canopy of the trees. I twisted around and studied the fast-disappearing forest fringe.

And saw the rift touch down.

It ripped up the road as it barreled toward us, a tornado of unseen energy that was twisting, unraveling, and remaking everything it touched before tossing it aside.

“Jonas—”

“I know.”

I stared at the alien force behind us in growing horror, my heart racing so fast it felt like it was about to tear out of my chest. And maybe it was, because tendrils of the rift’s energy were now whipping around us. The vehicle was shuddering under the force of them, and my skin stung and shivered and bled.

“We can’t outrun this, Jonas.”

He glanced in the mirror and swore. “You’re right. We can’t.”

With that, he slammed on the brakes and flipped the doors open. “Run. Get as far away from this vehicle and the road as you can.”

I was out and sprinting before he’d even finished. Energy was fiercer out in the open; became a storm that was dust and destruction and nigh on impossible to run against. The empty landscape disappeared and all I could feel, all I could hear, was the roar of the rift approaching.

A hand grabbed mine and held tight. “Faster,” Jonas yelled, almost yanking me off my feet. “You have to go faster.”

“I can’t!” I was already at top speed. There was nothing more to give, nothing more I could do. “Shift shapes and leave me, Jonas. One of us needs to get out of here.”

“A ranger never leaves a man behind,” he snapped. “Now fucking move.”

I somehow found the strength to increase my speed. But only incrementally and that wasn’t enough. My lungs were burning, my legs felt like lead, and the storm was so close it felt like fragments of my body were tearing away.

We raced on, speeding across the unseen landscape even as time and the rift now seemed to be crawling. Just for a minute the force of it waned and hope surged. Maybe Rhea had taken pity on us; maybe we would escape.

Then Jonas swore, his grip left mine, and the rift hit us and tore us both apart.