Killing Frost (After the Shift Book 2)

by Grace Hamilton

  24

  And so the betrayal was complete.

  Not only had Stryker lied to get them to Detroit, but he was now part of an attempt to run Nathan to ground and take his family from him. Yet again, when Stryker had told Nathan about his murdered wife, Nathan had taken him at face value, and without carrying out the due diligence necessary to see if Stryker’s story bore any relation to the truth. It clearly didn’t. And now, here was Nathan, wet in a stinking ditch, waiting for the man he had once called a friend to come kill him and his family.

  This was no mission to take Nathan back to face whatever justice Brant or whoever wanted to mete out; this was going to be pure vindictiveness.

  Stryker moved a few more yards down the gully, his booted feet kicking up water and wet dirt. Stryker carried a limp from where he’d been shot in the shin by Danny, Nathan noticed now. What better way to prove to Nathan that Stryker was back on the side of the good guys than by not fatally shooting him? Rather, he’d chosen Stryker’s leg. Maybe it had been payback for him killing Billy, but Danny clearly hadn’t meant to kill Stryker or he would have put a bullet through his skull.

  Nathan closed his eyes and shook his head.

  How could he have gone back and believed in Stryker again after all the evidence had been piled up against him? If Nathan weren’t so terrified, he would have felt like a fool.

  “I’m coming out, Stryker! Don’t shoot. I surrender!”

  A hand fell over Nathan’s mouth as he turned to Cyndi to protest. Her eyes were filled with urgency. She pushed the cooing, but still mostly silent, form of Brandon into Tony’s arms. Then she kissed all three of them on the forehead before climbing out from beneath the bush.

  Tony’s eyes were as wide as a couple of trashcan lids, and in Nathan’s ears, his heart sounded like it was beating on them.

  Nathan could only see her feet, but as she stood up straight, he saw Stryker take a limping step towards her. There was a smack of flesh on flesh then, and Cyndi gasped and fell to her knees.

  Nathan knew that Cyndi, his brilliant, amazing, and practical wife had given them a golden opportunity. But could he leave her? Could he go further into the brush to see if they came out the other side? If there was going to be any future for his boys, he would have to get them to safety while Cyndi occupied Stryker, and do it before he came back to try to rescue her.

  He wasn’t going to leave his wife like he had Syd in any case. No way, no how.

  Motioning Tony to remain still and absolutely quiet, he plucked Brandon from the boy’s hands and turned under the bush in the water. He could just about crawl; there was enough headroom, and as they went further into the near darkness, Nathan got a reasonable speed up, putting the baby inside his jacket and pulling the zipper up to the child’s neck. The warmth of Nathan’s skin and the rocking of Nathan’s crawl kept the baby on the verge of sleep. Nathan didn’t know how long it would last, but for now the baby was being well behaved—as if Brandon was picking up on the need for silence from his daddy. For millions of years, the nomadic hunter gatherers of the plains would have had to naturally keep their young quiet while they hunted. Maybe there was an evolutional imperative at play here, and the processes deep within Brandon’s cortex made him all the more cooperative. Whatever the reason for the child’s silence, every yard Nathan traveled might make his boys a little safer.

  The water splashed up and his whole body was soaked, but Tony crawled on behind them as they both tried to travel as quietly as they could. The gully began to slope then, and soon they were out of hearing distance. Stryker hadn’t continued shooting—in fact, Nathan hadn’t heard any more shots since Cyndi had offered herself up to save her family…

  Family First.

  Yes, Daddy.

  Nathan plowed on, his face wet with muddy water and tears. His arms ached and his legs felt dead as his boots slithered on and his knees dragged. Thorns snagged on his clothes and scratched at his skin, but this was his only chance to get Tony and Brandon to safety.

  The floor of the gully flattened and widened, and as it started to rise, still covered in the thick thorny brush, Nathan felt the mulch and dirt beneath his fingers start to dry. There was good drainage here, and the temperate climate outside of the Big Winter had helped keep this area of land just damp, and almost dry, in places. Nathan rolled sideways and sat up, his breathing hard and painful. His head was swimming and dizzy, but he had no time to waste here on doing nothing, though his physical destruction was near complete. It was as much as he could do to give Brandon back to Tony. “Stay here. I will be back for you. I promise.”

  “I know, Daddy. But you gotta get Mom.”

  “I will, son. I will.”

  Like a pearl diver taking huge breaths before grabbing a boulder to take him into the unimaginable depths, Nathan clawed air into his lungs and set his muscles.

  “I love you, Daddy. And so does Brandon,” Tony said as Nathan dived back into the unimaginable dark of the present future.

  When Nathan made it back to where he’d left the MP4 and Cyndi’s SIG, he could already see through the brush to the uncovered section of the gully that Stryker, Cyndi, and whoever the other legs had belonged to had left.

  Nathan listened intently. Whereas before there’d been much crashing and shooting in the surrounding woodland, now there was just the silence and fear grinding in his heart.

  Of course, Stryker and whoever he was with didn’t need to chase them through the forest anymore. They’d gotten their hostage. Nathan could be sure that that’s what Cyndi, ever the pragmatist, had reckoned on. Now Stryker’s people had all the lure they needed. They knew Nathan would never leave the area and escape without his wife. In giving herself up, Cyndi had guaranteed Nathan had the breathing space to get the boys to relative safety—time and space to allow Nathan and the others a fighting chance to find her and free her.

  Nathan had heard the stories from Freeson and Lucy over the last few weeks of wagon travel, how Cyndi had put her all into mounting a way to rescue him from the silo; however insurmountable the odds had been, she’d kept trying, and failing, and trying again. Nathan was sure that if his wife and friends hadn’t run into Tommy Ben with his specialized knowledge of the silo, they would still have been trying to spring him, even now. Right up until the moment Strickland and other silo dwellers might have had to surface for supplies. He realized that the times when outside services had gone down—like the solar charging panels or the wind turbines—had been because they had been sabotaged by Cyndi. This guerilla action by the rest of his group meant his ‘treatment’ had been interrupted, so that he could work on the redundancy systems in the silo.

  If Nathan’s skills at working with machinery hadn’t been so necessary, then his treatment might have been wholly successful… and any rescue attempt, even if they’d gotten him out would have failed because ultimately there’d have been no way back for his memory and personality.

  Nathan didn’t just owe everything to his wife for her love, the children she had bourn him, or the education and the support she’d offered since they had left Glens Falls.

  No. Nathan owed her for his life, many times over.

  So, there was no way he was going to leave her behind.

  As he emerged into the wan sunlight and began the climb out of the gulley, there was only one thing on his mind.

  Cyndi.

  And he would prove worthy of her if was the last thing he ever did.

  Stryker was nothing if not predictable.

  As Nathan had thought, he’d taken Cyndi back through the woods to the Black Hawk on the road where it sat like an exhausted dragonfly, right next to the still burning wagons and the dead oxen.

  Nathan was glad he couldn’t see the form of Rapier among the bodies. Perhaps Tony’s new pet had escaped the bullets and the conflagration. The thought offered a rare moment of positivity amid the understandably horrific scene being played out in front of him.

  Cyndi wasn’t the only captive from Nathan
’s clan. She knelt on the ground by the open side door of the Black Hawk with her hands zip-tied behind her back. Next to her was Freeson, his face covered in mud and blood. He looked as if he’d resisted being taken like a lion, and had suffered mightily for it. Next to him was Donie, covered head to foot in mud, on her knees, and with no shoes or jacket against the cold.

  The mist, once blown away by the Black Hawk when it had first landed, had come back in now, making the air glassy and opaque. Nathan was deep in the undergrowth, but had a good line of sight to see the forces ranged out against him. Next to Stryker, who was sitting on the edge of the Black Hawk deck, idly swinging his leg like a kid on a jetty, were two other men in uniform.

  Brett from Chicago, and Harmsworth from Detroit.

  They were talking near the cockpit of the Black Hawk. The pilot and co-pilot inside, Nathan didn’t recognize, but apart from them, it was a regular reunion. He half-expected Strickland to jump plumply and primly down from the helicopter to join the band of Nathan’s nemeses.

  But that didn’t happen.

  What did happen was the press of the cold steel of a gun muzzle against the back of his head, and the cold, precise voice of Tasha saying, “Come and join the party, Nathan; we’re tired of playing Waiting for Godot.”

  Nathan was made to kneel in front of the rest of his already captured band.

  Natasha was in charge, clearly, and the men gladly deferred to her as she spoke.

  “Knew you couldn’t resist if we put them out on a platter for you, Nathan. You’re so much the gold-hearted hero, aren’t you? Me, I would have left them behind. Cut my losses and run. But not you, eh, hero?”

  That bit into Nathan, sending memories of almost leaving Syd to be taken by Danny across the ice to Windsor.

  “You’ve worked pretty hard at screwing things up for all of us, haven’t you? Killing Danny and wrecking the Greenhouse. Danny was my brother. You didn’t know that, did you?”

  Nathan could find no words.

  “Yup, so this little bug hunt isn’t just because you’re a certified P.I.T.A., Nate, which I’m sure we’ll all agree you are. Let’s just say there’s a satisfying gloss of familial revenge on my part. It’s not just Chicago and Detroit deciding to join forces with each other. Trade, food, and firepower. Oh no. This is… personal.”

  He’d underestimated the situation again. Natasha was calling him a hero, but what he really was, was an idiot. Yet again, his rashness had led him into a situation where there seemed to be absolutely no escape.

  “Have you hurt Syd?” he finally asked.

  “Why should I tell you anything, Nathan? She’s where we can keep an eye on her. Leave it at that.”

  Nathan’s guts curled around her words, but there was no point digging any further. She wouldn’t tell him anything, and would just enjoy his anguish.

  “Where are the kids, Nate?” Stryker swung himself off the lip of the Black Hawk deck, putting his pistol into the belt of his uniform. “You haven’t left them in the woods, have you, man?” Stryker looked off into the trees, miming a telescope like he was a captain on a poop deck.

  “Be dark soon, Nate. You realize these woods are full of animals, yeah? Hungry animals. The baby, well, he’ll just be a snack. But Tony, I can imagine he’ll feed a family of starving wolves for a week. Nicely National Geographic, don’t you think?”

  Nathan knew Stryker was trying his hardest to make him react. Maybe he needed to build up to shooting Nathan in the face, or maybe he needed one last manipulation to complete the set in readying Nathan for the coup de grâce.

  “How long have you hated me, Stryker? These guys, I can understand. Natasha and Harmsworth, I get. Her brother is dead and I screwed their operations up pretty good. They killed your wife…”

  Stryker threw his head back and howled thick laughter at the sky. “Wife! Wife? When did you get so stupid, Nathan? I don’t have a wife. Never did. And yeah, okay, I did feel bad about tricking you here. Maybe you should have left me to burn in the Masonic—but you didn’t, and I saw how I could get back in with Brant by playing you along. So thanks for that. Really appreciate it. Look. They gave me my own helicopter as thanks.”

  The words were a buzz saw running through Nathan’s head, ripping through his thoughts, killing memories, and driving up splinters of betrayal.

  Focus. Focus.

  Keep your mind on getting out of this.

  Okay, Daddy. Okay. Nathan swallowed. Shook his head. Focused his eyes on Stryker.

  “I’m assuming Rose is still alive or it would have been her body you kicked out of the chopper, right?”

  Stryker shrugged noncommittally.

  Nathan continued, knowing that the longer he kept Stryker from firing, the longer he had to save everyone. “But you. Man, you must harbor some pretty deep resentment to come with these people to hunt me down. What did I ever do to you to make you want me dead this much, Stry? Why make up a fake wife? Why carry on working for Brant after I’d stopped you from burning yourself to death when you had an attack of conscience? Come on. If you’re going to kill me, you can at least tell me that.”

  Stryker limped forward and placed his hand on Cyndi’s shoulder. Her body recoiled and her eyes bulged as Stryker moved his hand over her shoulder and then down the front of her coat, feeling all the way.

  “Isn’t it obvious, Nathan? You got the girl, and I… well, I didn’t.”

  “But…” Nathan stopped, trying to understand. “Stry… you didn’t even know Cyndi before me. You only met her through me.”

  “And you still don’t know why I left Glens Falls, do you?”

  “No. I really don’t.”

  Stryker squeezed the front of Cyndi’s jacket again and then moved the back of his hand to her cheek, where it gently caressed the skin. “Tell him, baby. Tell him now, and then I can shoot him.”

  Cyndi’s eyes welled up with tears, but then she spoke. “The night before he left Glens Falls, Stryker came to me while you were working late at the auto shop. He begged me to come with him. Start a new life. And I… I…”

  Nathan felt the dread rising in his throat. Was she really going to tell him about a first betrayal? The ultimate betrayal?

  “And…” she continued, “…I told him where to go, threw him out, and told him if he didn’t leave town, I’d tell you what he’d done.”

  The relief didn’t take away from the danger of the situation, but in the oddest way possible, it lifted Nathan’s spirits one notch.

  “But when he offered us Detroit, I thought maybe the years would have lessened his feelings for me. But they hadn’t. It was clear from the moment we got there that he wasn’t going to leave me alone until you were either gone from Detroit or dead. I thought I could handle it.”

  “That’s why you didn’t tell me?”

  She nodded. So, her withdrawal and anger after Brandon had been born hadn’t just been about Brant using Stryker to bring them to Detroit. It had been the constant drip-drip pressure from Stryker, as the man he’d thought had been his friend had tried to worm his way into Nathan’s marriage.

  Stryker kissed the top of Cyndi’s head. “But hey, that’s over with now. Tonight, I get the girl. Whether she likes it or not. And you, Nathan, you get a bullet in the head. Fair exchange is no robbery.”

  Harmsworth made a signal to the pilot with his index finger, and the rotors above their heads started to power up. Natasha walked up from behind Nathan and turned towards Stryker. “Shoot who ya gotta shoot, Wilson, but I want this bird in the air if we’re getting back to Detroit tonight.”

  “Okay, baby, don’t get your knickers in a knot. I just wanted Nate to know exactly why it was I wanted to kill him so bad for so long.”

  “Just get on with it,” Nathan said as Stryker lifted his gun to point it at the mechanic’s head first, flicking off the safety with his thumb.

  Cyndi looked directly into Nathan’s eyes.

  The connection made once more on that high bridge of love they’d wa
lked towards each other across every day of their marriage. If it had to end now, then it would end with them both on that bridge, however high, however far the fall down.

  “Nathan. I love you,” Cyndi said.

  25

  As she finished speaking to Nathan, Cyndi pushed up and back, crashing into Stryker. A shot blasted past Nathan’s ear and he heard the slug thud into a trunk somewhere behind him in the treeline.

  The spatter of a machine gun clip being emptied stitched hot lead across Harmsworth, who’d been halfway to pulling his own pistol from his belt. He spun away, crashing into the Black Hawk, a line of ragged bullet holes stitched across his back.

  Tasha had raised her own pistol, but one bullet from another direction had opened up her side and sent her flying sideways; as she’d hit the ground, her jaw exploded as a round from yet another direction burst through her face, almost ripping the entire mandible away from her skull.

  Lucy walked and fired. Coming out from behind the Black Hawk, from where she had already killed both pilots through their open window.

  She’d stepped, fired, stepped, and fired. Brett collapsed under the weight of his own death, falling to his knees and pitching forward as Lucy, her aim brutal and true, put round after round into his chest and head. Brett’s skull opened to the air, brain matter churning like oatmeal in a bowl, spattered up across the fuselage of the helicopter.

  Dave appeared last, from the rear rotor section of the Black Hawk, and began firing an MP4 at Stryker. First up his side, across his chest, and then up past his ear. Stryker had rolled over, his dead eyes wide as if the last thing he’d expected was to die right now. His jaw had lolled open with a click, and Nathan heard the last breath hissing from his lungs like the sound of a terrified snake.

  It seemed apt.

  Lucy ran to Freeson, using a knife to cut his bonds, and hugged him. Donie, who had thrown herself to the side as the firing had started, was being helped back out from under the helicopter’s tail section by Dave.