Winter Halo (Outcast 2)

“I said those who went in alone did. There’s always repercussions for those caught with others. Your Sal is a perfect example.”

True. I rubbed my arms against a sudden chill. Whether it was apprehension of a situation I could neither control nor change, or something else entirely, I couldn’t say.

But the wind that whispered up from the museum suddenly seemed filled with darkness and threat, even though the night was silent and there was no scent of vampire or wraith riding the breeze.

“Why would Nuri be moving the pile of rubble in the museum?”

Jonas raised his eyebrows at the abrupt change of topic. “Is she?”

“So the ghosts say.” I studied him. “She seems to be looking for something—something I suspect might be the second entrance into the bunker. Why would she be doing that?”

“I don’t know. We can ask her when we get there—”

“You can ask her now, can’t you?”

“Yes. But why is this suddenly so important?”

“Sal’s partners might currently believe I’m buried, and maybe even dead.” I scrubbed a hand through my hair, loosening some of the dirt matting it. “But if they also suspect I’m linked to you—and it seems they do if they’re keeping an eye on Chaos—then trying to open the old stairs might just tell them I’m alive.”

“That’s an unlikely event. No one has come near the museum sinc

e the monitoring system was set up.”

“Which doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t.” Especially now that we’d successfully snatched two more kids from them. “That bunker is not only my home, Jonas, it’s the resting place of everyone who was killed there—déchet and human. It deserves the same sort of respect that humans accord their cemeteries.”

“Cemeteries are no longer used. It’s now considered a waste of land.”

“Which is not the point.” I frowned. “What is done with the dead, then?”

“The bodies are cremated, the ashes treated, and then used for fertilizer and soil improvement. It’s a law that emerged from the war and the vast numbers of dead on both sides.” He paused. “Nuri said she has no intention of fully exposing the tunnel. She is just attempting to make it easier for you to get in and out.”

“Then tell her to work on the south-side exit. That’s the one I use the most.”

He hesitated, then smiled. “She said you’re an ungrateful wench.”

“I’m just protecting my home. She’d do exactly the same thing if Central or Chaos was—”

I stopped as that sense of darkness—of wrongness—suddenly sharpened. I flared my nostrils, drawing the night air deeper into my lungs to sort through the various scents, trying to find the source of whatever it was I was sensing.

“What’s wrong?” Jonas stopped beside me, a rifle held at the ready.

“I don’t know.”

I swung around. The glow from Central’s lights rose like a dome high above it, stealing the night from the sky. But the growing sense of unease wasn’t coming from the city . . . My gaze went left to the ramshackle, barely lit cluster of metal that clung to Central’s curtain wall. “Ask Nuri if there’s anything going on in Chaos, because I have this really weird feeling—”

I didn’t finish. Because, right at that moment, the screaming began.

Chaos was under attack.

Chapter 12

Jonas bolted forward, moving through the trees so fast he was almost a blur. I followed, desperately trying to keep up even as the noise and confusion from Chaos grew and sharpened.

“Jonas,” I yelled, raising an arm to protect my face from the branches that whipped past, “ask Nuri to punch a hole through the earth at the top end of the sunken tunnel area.”

“Why?” The reply was curt.

“Because if I can get into the bunker, I can call the ghosts—”