Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“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.