Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“Not that what they’re carrying really matters.” Jonas handed Nuri a mug of coffee, then pulled out the chair beside mine and sat down. I might be weary and totally loved out, but his wild, stormy scent still stirred something deep inside me. “It’s just the excuse to get in there.”

“So, when are we intercepting this truck?” I asked.

Nuri smiled. “The trucks from Harston regularly stop at the refuel center past the greenbelt farmlands to grab lunch. The exchange will happen then.”

“And the guards?”

“Will know very little about it.”

Meaning they’d be dead? Or simply drugged? And did it really matter if it meant rescuing those children? No, my inner voice whispered, definitely not.

I picked up the mug of grassy liquid and drank some of it. A shudder went through me. The taste had not improved a century down the track. “So, who is staying here while Jonas and I are out?” My gaze returned to Nuri. “You?”

She nodded. “I’m well able to deal with anyone who gets too curious.”

Of that I had no doubt. “If we do manage to grab the children, where are we taking them? The note you sent with the ghosts implied it wasn’t Central.”

“No.” Nuri paused and glanced at Jonas, her expression concerned. “There have been problems with all of them.”

“Penny included?”

She nodded. “It would appear that whatever they have done to her has disrupted both her physiology and psychology. She is not the child she was.”

“But still my niece, regardless of whatever else is going on.” Jonas’s voice held a note that suggested this was an argument they’d had before.

“I did tell you there was a darkness in her,” I cut in, before that argument got rolling again.

“This is more than the taint of a rift,” Nuri said. “The only thing she can keep down is raw meat. She drinks little, not even water, and her canines show signs of lengthening.”

Becoming a vampire, one that had been neither bitten nor born. “Has she shown any signs of being affected by lights?”

“None at all.”

No wonder Sal’s partners were desperate to get her back—if they’d created a pathogen capable of altering someone’s base biology to make them a vampire, they surely couldn’t be too far off being able to reverse that process, and make a vampire human. Or, at the very least, someone immune to sunlight.

But if that were the case, why were they still testing on the remaining children? Had Penny escaped before they’d been able to test the success of the latest batch of whatever they’d given her, and they were therefore unaware of how close they were?

I scooped up some food, then said, “I gather you’ve had her tested?”

Nuri nodded. “There is now vampire sequencing within her DNA as well as something else we can’t identity.”

“I’d bet wraith.” I glanced at Jonas. “What are you going to do?”

“Everything we can.” It was grimly said. “She is family. I will not allow her to be placed in a medical facility to be poked and prodded like some new life-form.”

“Jonas, she is not safe in Chaos.” And Chaos wasn’t safe from her. Nuri didn’t add that, but it nevertheless hung in the air.

“Then we send her somewhere else. But not a medical or military center.”

“We cannot take her to the Broken Mountains. Her presence would jeopardize your kin there just as much as it does Chaos.”

“I know, but there must be other options.” His expression was glacial. “Options that do not involve locking her away from all that she knows and loves. Our presence is all that’s holding her together. Take that away, and Rhea only knows what might happen.”

Nuri sighed and leaned back. “I’m still looking for options, Jonas, but there are difficulties—”

“Guys,” I cut in gently. “This needs to be a conversation for another day, when there’s more time.”

“That,” Nuri murmured, “is something I doubt any of us have enough of.”