The Black Tide (Outcast 3)

I secured her once again then glanced at the radar. The storm was a big black blob in the middle of it but there was no indication of pursuit. We'd gotten away, at least for the moment.

I dropped the backpack onto the floor and then settled into a more comfortable position. While my body might be healing at a far faster rate than was normal, I still had to do something about the wound on my side. I really couldn't afford to lose any more blood.

I closed my eyes and slipped into the healing trance. I had no idea how much time passed before I woke, but the storm was no longer battering the barge and sunlight now glimmered through the cracks along the edges of the storm shields.

I hit the release button and, as the shields slowly retracted, the little girl made a sound that was part surprise, part laughter. I quickly glanced down at her. The sunshine pouring in through the thickened glass bathed her entire body, and though her eyes were little more than amber-green slits, there was a look of what could only be sheer joy on her face as she reached upwards with chubby little fingers.

She was trying to catch the sunbeams.

I smiled and touched her hand. Her fingers once again wrapped around mine and the link surged to life. What I sensed was belonging. Homecoming.

I might be comfortable in either daylight or night, but this little girl was very definitely a child born of the sun. Who knew how the drugs she'd been given would affect her in the future, but right now, she was bathing in her element and simply happy to be.

“Raela,” I said softly. “It’s a shifter word meaning little sunshine, and it’s yours from here on out.”

A smile touched her lips and found an echo on mine. I had no idea what was going to happen to her once I got back to my bunker, but one thing was certain. Neither Nuri nor Jonas nor anyone else was going to get near her until they could guarantee that she would be safe, that she would not, in any way, be placed into another military installation, to be monitored and watched like some unusual animal. She deserved more than that.

The barge rolled on, its progress slow and very tedious. After a while, I pulled out the small flask and carefully dribbled some water into Raela's mouth. She was too young for the protein bars I was carrying, and I didn't have anything else. I might not have had—or ever would have—children of my own, but I'd been around enough déchet nurseries both before and during the war to know hydration was the key in a situation such as this.

After what seemed an eternity, the GPS finally indicated we were approaching our destination. As the barge automatically slowed, I leaned forward and peered out the windows. Dust devils were lazily pulling at the sand, creating gently spinning funnels that clouded the immediate horizon. I couldn't see the rift, but the alarm that stirred was as sluggish as those devils.

The rift couldn't have gone anywhere, after all. The only person capable of either moving or destroying the things surely wouldn't risk doing either when Winter Halo was filled to the brim with officialdom and security forces, most of whom were intent on figuring out what had been going on in that place as much as who might have been responsible.

We hit the coords I'd fed in and the barge stopped. There was nothing but sand for as far as the eye could see. That stirring of fear grew stronger, but I clamped down on it. It was no use fearing something until I knew there was something to fear.

I hit the door release and jumped down onto the sand. The air was warm but the wind that teased the back of my neck hinted at the coolness of the oncoming evening.

I walked to the front of the barge and then stopped, my hands on my hips. The rift had to be here somewhere. Had to be. But there was absolutely no sign of it. Nor could I feel the caress of its poisonous energy against my skin.

I pulled the geo-locator out of my pocket and double-checked we were at the right location.

We were.

It was the rift that wasn't.

Chapter Three

I’d been expecting something to go wrong—things always did whenever I stepped through a false rift—but the possibility of it disappearing hadn’t even occurred to me.

I walked around the barge, just to be sure I wasn’t being blinded by the bright sunshine, but the result was the same.

No damn rift.

I thrust a hand through sweaty, blood-caked hair and squinted up at the sun. It might have begun its journey toward night, but I couldn’t risk waiting for the stars to come out to see if any of them were familiar. Dream knew I could traverse the false rifts, and the minute she was informed of the attack, she’d order a search made of this area.

I needed to move. Trouble was, I had no idea where home was in relation to our current location. I hadn’t thought to input Central’s coords into the geo-locator when I’d left, and I didn’t have any sort of comms unit with me—a totally stupid move I’d rectify the next time I went through a rift.

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

I climbed back into the barge, brought up the GPS, and scrolled through the screens until I found the tracklog. While the two rifts within Winter Halo had been large enough to cater to a barge this size, the sand base surely couldn’t have been getting all of its supplies from them. There were simply too many people working and undoubtedly living at the base for someone in either Winter Halo or Central City not to notice the steady stream of trucks going in and out of the building.

The list of previous journeys that appeared on the screen was relatively short, which suggested the log was overwritten regularly. I scrolled down but didn’t immediately recognize any of the names—until I got to the last two.

Longborne and Carleen. The latter had been one of Central’s five satellite cities before the war, and the very last one to be destroyed at its end. These days it was little more than a broken wreck—a place filled not only with shadows, alien moss, and human ghosts, but also rifts, both real and false.

But it was only an hour’s walk out of Central.

I’d just found my way home.