Killing Frost (After the Shift Book 2)

by Grace Hamilton

  The engine crunched, juddered, growled, and then burst into throaty life. Before the skis at the front of the machine hit the snow-covered ice, Nathan was driving forward, building up speed and tearing a path over the snow towards the rapidly diminishing speck that was Danny and Syd.

  The snow had stopped falling from the fast-moving sky. There was even a break in the clouds, which allowed the moonlight in—not exactly streaming down because of the obfuscating volcanic dust, but enough to edge the frozen ripples on the ice in silver.

  Nathan stood in the saddle, his knees bent. The snowbound ice covering the river had looked smooth from a distance, but once Nathan was out on it, there were bumps and ridges enough to snap a ski to one side momentarily or tear the handlebars from his grasp. His knees bounced and compensated, but his bicep burned as he gripped the handles, and his broken ribs felt like they were splintering apart.

  But his speed across the ice was tremendous when the surface was without obstacle. The Ski-Doo crested or burst through all manner of small drifts and wind-hollowed sculptures on the snowy ice.

  Ahead, Windsor loomed up smoky and black, this being the closest he’d been to the city since arriving in Detroit. It was all labyrinthine streets and unwelcome buildings. If Danny got there with enough of a head start, Nathan might not be able to catch up with him at all. It suddenly occurred to Nathan, on the occasions he’d observed Windsor in the distance from the roof of the Masonic, far along the waterfront… he had sometimes seen cars moving, their headlights beaming through the dark. Was it possible Danny had made contact with people on the other side of the river? Was he making his way towards them in a desperate attempt to escape Detroit?

  Danny could possibly have laid low for a few days, even without supplies, so he must have known Nathan and the others knew of the warehouse. He’d taken the gamble to get there and make his way across the river precisely because he had something more stable and safe waiting for him on the other side.

  Perhaps—and this was the worst thought of all—Danny might not have anything in the way of collateral to bargain against with the gangs on the other side of the river, and that’s why he had taken Syd… not just as revenge for the impromptu surgery she’d carried out on him back in New York, but because it amused him to take her and trade her for his escape. Perhaps Danny would see some kind of twisted and satisfying irony in the idea.

  Nathan hated himself for even suggesting the idea to himself, but it was all the more plausible, the more he thought about it—otherwise, why would Danny be risking so much to get across to Windsor?

  He turned the throttle all the way around. The engine screamed and protested, but he was determined to squeeze every last scintilla of power out of it that he could.

  Syd didn’t weigh much, but it was enough to slow Danny’s Ski-Doo just so much that Nathan could make progress on him across the ice. The black dot grew in his squinting eyes, moonlight picking out the fleeing gangster and his captive as a fluctuating twist of light. Nathan powered on, arrow-straight. Not going around humps of drifted snow or heaps of ice crunched up by the internal tectonics of frozen water. Several times, Nathan felt the Ski-Doo become airborne, its engine and track released to buzz-scream freely in the air before it crashed down with a hissing thud to thrust on, plowing ahead, blind to the dangers he might be heading towards.

  The shots burst the ice in front of Nathan’s Ski-Doo as the rapidly increasing in size Danny pointed back with his machine pistol and fired one-handed back at his pursuer.

  There was nothing Nathan could do to return fire. Even if he could have controlled his Ski-Doo with his shot arm while he fired with the other, he would be in danger of hitting Syd, who was being used as a human shield.

  Nathan knew he would have to catch Danny and find some way of stopping him without getting shot in the process. The thought of how near impossible that would be tried to suck some of the motivation to continue out of him, but he didn’t let it. Yet, if Nathan died, how would it help Syd? How would it help his family?

  Ever since he’d left Glens Falls, Nathan had had to continually make decisions that worked for some of his party, but not for others.

  Had he always made the right decisions?

  Sending Cyndi and his children into the Greenhouse had not helped others. It had put everyone else in danger. Trusting Stryker, and coming to Detroit in the first place, had put everyone in danger.

  Was following Danny into the night to rescue one person, one girl, the right decision now?

  What would happen to Cyndi if he failed? Was he giving away his two sons’ chances of growing up to even become teenagers by chasing down and rescuing another?

  The image of Syd on top of the Masonic, her feet up on the ledge, her arms spread, ready to swan dive to oblivion, almost filled his vision then. What would happen if he risked all to save her now and, a month or a year down the line, she was in a place so bad again that she’d be wanting to find another roof from which to leap?

  Family First.

  Dad. Not now.

  Family First, son.

  He knew exactly what his daddy would have told him if he’d been there with him now—exactly what the old man would have said. “You’ve done your best, boy, but sometimes you have to accept when you can do no more. You’ve done right by Syd, you know you have—and you’ve tried. But what about Cyndi? Tony? What about the grandson I’ll never meet? Nathan. Son. What about them?”

  The whole sky became a weight under which Nathan felt himself being crushed. More bullets spat back, one crashing into the faring protecting his knees, hitting God knew which piece of metal so that it was sent sparking and zinging up past his ears.

  Another burst, this time chewing up the snow to the side of Nathan’s Ski-Doo. An arc of icy crystals sprayed upward. He felt them pattering against his coat. Danny was getting more accurate, better versed in ranging from a hurtling Ski-Doo. Then again, perhaps Danny was getting better acclimatized, or maybe it was because Nathan was gaining and presenting himself as a larger target.

  Whatever the reason, sooner rather than later, Nathan would be an unmissable target, and all this would have been in vain.

  “I’m sorry, Syd. I’m so sorry.”

  Nathan made the decision.

  Family First.

  He let go of the accelerator and the Ski-Doo began to slow to a halt.

  16

  Three weeks later, on the trail west to Wyoming, pushing three teams of dogs through a gentle snowfall rather than a howling blizzard, Nathan looked over his clan, blessed to feel he’d helped keep so many of them alive so far.

  Donie was a natural with the dogs and preferred to go with them, while Dave—still recovering from his ordeal mentally if not physically—sat wrapped in blankets and furs among their supplies on their sled.

  Lucy was in a similar position on Freeson’s sled, wrapped up like a squaw, holding a hunting rifle at the ready in case they were to come across any deer or birds for shooting.

  And then there was Nathan’s own sled, with Cyndi wrapped up with Brandon, the baby seemingly thriving now. He would take milk and formula, and soon there would be solid food for him. Tony was positioned at the prow of the sled in furs and looking forward, as resolute as the figurehead of a galleon.

  Nathan’s little pirate.

  Tony, of course, had taken the absence of Syd and Saber the hardest. In their own ways, all of them missed the teen, her jutting-chinned attitude and her enormous heart. But she was gone now, and so was Saber.

  Nathan doubted anyone missed Stryker less than he did. He’d found himself wishing Cyndi hadn’t bothered with the first aid, and instead let the SOB bleed out on the floor of the Greenhouse concourse. But she hadn’t. Because Cyndi wasn’t that kind of person.

  She wouldn’t leave anyone behind.

  The pang of cold self-loathing that shot through Nathan’s heart at that thought—that at the moment when it had counted, he had been willing to leave one of his own behind—hurt much wors
e than the occasional twinges he felt these days from the aching rib and the healed gunshot wound in his arm.

  No one knew, of course, because he hadn’t told them he’d slowed the Ski-Doo down to allow Danny to escape. It was a secret he kept locked up. One day, he might be able to confide in Cyndi or the others, but he felt he couldn’t risk them losing faith in him now. Not since he’d made them leave Detroit and head west.

  Perhaps it was shame holding the secret down.

  Or more likely it was because he hadn’t had to tell anyone what had happened. Not even Syd.

  As the Ski-Doo had begun to decelerate, Nathan had looked up from his biting shame just in time to see Danny’s machine turn over in a cloud of ice, tumbling end over end so that his AK-47 skittered out of the exploding snow and smacked down into the ice some twenty yards away on the surface of the frozen river.

  Nathan had twisted the accelerator on the handlebar and his Ski-Doo had shot forward, chewing up the snow and pushing the blustery wind straight into his face, almost cold enough to freeze his eyes in their sockets.

  By the time he’d reached Danny’s totaled Ski-Doo, Syd had finished strangling the young man, and his blue face had clearly been dead, half in and half out of the snow.

  Syd hadn’t said anything as she got off her knees and pounced on Nathan, hugging him tighter and harder than ever, her sobs echoing across the ice.

  Two people alone in a big, white, terrible world.

  It had almost been more of a surprise that Syd had wanted to stay with Stryker in Detroit, as opposed to her assault on Danny on the Ski-Doo.

  She’d been awoken on the Ski-Doo, she’d told them, her arms lashed across Danny’s midriff. He’d been firing back at Nathan, one-handed, his arm resting on her shoulder.

  She’d bitten him on the soft flesh of his underarm through Danny’s coat. The material had saved him from damage but the shock and pain meant he’d screamed, then hit her with his elbow. Concentrating on that meant he hadn’t seen the snowdrift ahead or the crumpled ice within it.

  The Ski-Doo had turned over, the machine tumbling sideways, and as it had rolled over them both, part of the engine casing had hit Danny in the face, stunning him.

  The leather belt he’d used to tie Syd to his back around his stomach had torn apart and Syd’s hands had been freed. As they’d come to a rest, her hands had already come around his throat, and she’d choked the life out of him before Nathan could get there.

  Syd had made sure the boy was dead before she’d gotten her knees off his chest and hurled herself at Nathan.

  The next day, after they’d slept in the Greenhouse, its wide concourses now glutted with snow and smashed hydroponics, she’d taken Nathan aside to explain why she wouldn’t be leaving Detroit with him and the others.

  “I only ran from New York because of Danny. I only joined up with you because of Danny. I only came here because of Danny. I tried to kill myself because of Danny. Danny is no longer making me run, Nathan. I need to stand still. Rose needs people like me, and someone needs to keep Stryker in line. I kinda forgive him anyway. He was only doing what he did because they had the woman he loved. We’d probably all the do the same.”

  Nathan had nodded, and his hollowing shame at giving up on Syd was misinterpreted by the girl as sadness at leaving her behind.

  But if there’d been enough motivation for Syd to stay in Detroit, there’d been more than enough to make Nathan leave it. To stay would mean being reminded daily of his failure to stay true to Syd, and his willingness to be duped by Stryker.

  And anyway, his boys and his wife deserved something better than trying to eke a life out in Detroit. Especially once Donie had told them about Casper.

  Before Donie had been taken from the Masonic by Brant’s men, she’d managed to find a satellite-enabled laptop in a scavenging mission to the suburbs, grabbing it from an out of the way tech store, and she’d gotten the uplink working. There hadn’t been much fresh information to speak of, but there’d at least been reports that Casper, the second biggest city in Wyoming before the Big Winter, was now on the fringes of the new Arctic Circle, and because of nearby oil reserves and a more temperate climate than what could be found in cities like Detroit, it was making a go at getting back on its feet. “It’s thirteen hundred miles, but it’s the nearest place I can see that might offer us something approaching safety, as well as sustainable resources.”

  Nathan had leapt at the idea when it had been presented, and even Cyndi, who’d said, “I have a very bad taste in my mouth for Detroit.” had agreed that getting out of Detroit seemed like a better idea than staying. “It’s always better to travel hopefully.”

  Freeson and Lucy had nodded along, Lucy herself ready for better weather and the chance to “feel like a human again.”

  Stryker hadn’t said anything, not until Syd had made her feelings known about staying. She’d wanted to find Saber, too—who she still felt was out there somewhere in Detroit, making a living for herself. Saber needed Syd as much as Syd needed Saber, she’d insisted. “When my leg’s better, we can search together… if you want?” Stryker had offered.

  All Syd had done was nod, but Nathan had been able to see the relief in Stryker’s face at knowing that not everyone hated him now. Just mostly everyone.

  Rose had given Nathan and his crew all the supplies they would need for weeks of hard travel, and had arranged for the extra sleds and dogs with John. “Gonna miss you, pretty boy, but I get it. Man not feel good here. Man want to go. Felt de same when I left Jamaica. Sometimes, the only way to stay is a walk out de door.”

  Rose had cuddled Nathan and kissed him on the lips, and winked with a wicked smile as she’d disengaged. “You know there will always be welcome for you here, if you want it.”

  “Thank you, Rose. You never know. Way the world is going, we might meet again. Somewhere warmer.”

  “I likes the cold, pretty boy. Makes me find something pretty to warm my heart an’ my bed. You take care of yourself. And promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dat you stay pretty.”

  They’d left Detroit behind on a morning of wan sun and stilled snow. The sky had been pink with dust and the tails of tattered clouds. The air would never feel clean until the volcanoes stopped their belching along the Pacific Rim, but the day had at least promised some good traveling, putting the miles between them and the city where they’d fought so hard to stay alive.

  Three weeks of dogsled travel had offered the best feeling Nathan had experienced in the whole time since they’d left Glens Falls. The supplies Rose had given them meant they could go without catching and killing anything for a couple of days and still not have to begin to ration. There were cans of meat, dried beef, and pickled vegetables from the hydroponics in Detroit. They had weapons, ammo, and warm furs. The weather had even held, giving them a sense of buoyancy and of hopeful travel.

  And Lucy had proved herself as a fine huntress. She’d been taught by the best as a girl on her father’s estate, and could track deer, bear, or fowl with great success. Freeson and Cyndi were both adept at butchery, and for these twenty-one days, they’d been warm and fed against the cold, and the sense of progress had made them all feel more relaxed and happy.

  The dogs averaged a little under fifteen miles a day over good terrain. Donie and Dave had set up turbines and small solar panels on their sled to trickle-charge their tech, too, which meant that at night, if the sky was clear enough, they could get any news of Casper and update their police-maps from recovered laptops they’d appropriated from houses on the outskirts of Detroit.

  They camped when the brief twilight before dark encroached. They had propane for camping stoves, warm tents from Rose’s stall in Trash Town, and a tented corral for the dogs to stay out of the weather and recuperate from their days of slogging through the snow. They took turns cooking, hunting, and seeing to the dogs, and life, after Detroit, offered excitement without attendant anxiety.

 
Nathan’s shame was still a present reminder of his sense of failure over Syd, but as the days went on, the feeling had been littered away downwind. It would still occasionally grab at his heart and he’d find himself grimacing behind his scarf in the parka hood, but it had become more manageable.

  Tony was the only fly in an otherwise smooth and chilly ointment. Without Syd or Saber to occupy him during their nightly camps, the boy was more than a little withdrawn. Halfway through their second week, Nathan took the boy to the dog’s corral, thinking it was time he spoke to him.

  Together, they poured water from canteens into bowls for the dogs and put out meat and slops for them. The malamutes needed a lot of food, and most of the hunting kills Lucy and the others brought back to camp on those nights went in their direction once good eating for the humans had been taken care of. The dogs were young, delighted to be pulling sleds, and happy around humans. However, Tony, Nathan had noticed, had not been getting involved with the dogs as much as he would have expected.

  “So. You got a favorite, sport?”

  “Huh?” Tony asked, looking up at Nathan, the firelight from the camp flickering in his eyes.

  Nathan pointed at the dogs. “Favorite dog? I know how much you’re missing Saber…”

  “And Syd,” Tony said earnestly. Nathan couldn’t tell if the boy was deliberately trying to take the focus away from the dogs, or if his head was just so messed up he couldn’t stay on one subject for long.

  “And Syd,” Nathan acknowledged, patting the boy on the shoulder. “We’re all missing her.”

  “I don’t get why she wanted to stay in Detroit.”

  Nathan didn’t want to go into details about Danny and his history with Syd, and for obvious reasons, but conversely, he wasn’t going to gloss over it.

  “I have trouble getting it, too.”

  “I thought it was something I said or did.”

  Nathan crouched down so he was eye to eye with Tony. “No, come on, Tony, that’s not…”