Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“It’s okay,” Jonas said as he came out the door. “She’s with me.”

Something close to amusement lurked around the guard’s lips as he rather grandly motioned me forward. “Might have volunteered for the job myself if I’d known there was going to be such lovely company.”

I frowned and glanced at Jonas for an explanation, but, as usual, his expression gave little away.

I followed him inside. The ghosts immediately swamped me, just about frying my mind with their uncertainty and concern. And no wonder—the huge room was all but cleaned out. Nothing remained, not even the hanging electrical cables. I glanced at the old tower and was relieved to see the tops of the solar panels glinting in the sunshine that streamed through the fissured section of the dome. At least I wasn’t reduced to relying solely on the generators—if, of course, they hadn’t also ripped out the old cabling that ran from the tower to the storage cells.

I calmed the ghosts down as best I could and watched the two men deposit the monitoring units next to an odd assortment of other furniture and equipment. Including, I saw with more than a little trepidation, a generator and vampire lights.

“What in Rhea is—”

“Not yet,” Jonas murmured, motioning me to remain where I was as he walked over to the two men.

One of them pressed a button on his wrist cell and produced a small light screen. Jonas raised his arm and ran his RFID chip across it.

“Right,” the stranger said, when the screen flashed green. “That’s all logged and accounted for. Good luck.”

They gave me a nod and left. Once the ATVs’ engines had started up, I said, my voice holding an edge I couldn’t quite control, “It very much looks to me like you’re moving in.”

“That,” Jonas said heavily, “is because I am.”

Chapter 7

This news was greeted by a swell of excitement from the ghosts, but while they might be delighted at the prospect of having someone new to follow around, I sure as hell wasn’t. I might be attracted to the damn man, but that didn’t mean I wanted him around twenty-four/seven.

“And why would you want to be doing that?”

Jonas grabbed one of the lights and walked across to the museum’s entrance. “I don’t.”

“Then why in Rhea are you here, doing just that?”

He looked at me, his expression edged with anger. Though it wasn’t really aimed at me, I still felt the wash of it. “Because I cannot stay in Chaos, as much as I might want to.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because Nuri has foreseen there will be problems if you continue to move in and out of Chaos. And corps now has it under watch. We cannot afford to jeopardize anyone’s safety by allowing the suspicion of our connection to you to become a certainty.”

“Meaning she’s seen the possibility of Chaos being attacked?” I hesitated, and remembered where his allegiance lay. It certainly wasn’t Chaos. “Or will my presence there endanger Penny?”

“The latter. I didn’t rescue her from the vampire hordes just to risk her falling back into their hands.”

“Technically, I was the one who rescued you both from the horde.” I crossed my arms, my frown deepening. “Sal’s partners already know about the connection between me and Nuri, given that she returned the five children we rescued to Central.”

“No, because another mercenary group unconnected with either us or Chaos did that.”

I raised my eyebrows. “And where, exactly, did they say they’d found them?”

“They were on their way into Chaos when they discovered them wandering in the park. It holds enough kernels of truth to be believable.”

“To everyone except those kids and Sal’s partners.”

“To everyone but Sal’s partners,” he corrected. “The children’s memories have been adjusted.”

Adjusted. What a quaint term for altering or erasing someone’s memories. Unfortunately, it was one I’d heard more than once during the war, when lures didn’t perform their tasks as expected. Thankfully, it

wasn’t something I’d ever gone through. Not just because my performance had been considered satisfactory, but because I was very careful about revealing any sort of emotion in front of either my handler or those who controlled us.

“How? Nuri’s not capable of something like that.”