Danger's Halo: (Holly Danger Book 1)

by Amanda Carlson

  I still had my Gem out, which I wasted no time leveling at his temple. “Take me to my craft, or I spill your brains and take yours.” I was in no mood to dicker.

  Daze was out there with those men, and I intended to get him back.

  “You shoot me and we both go down. Going back is of no service to the kid.” He leaned over, hawking a mouthful of blood onto the floor, using his forearm to clean off the rest. He looked like shit.

  “I need my ride.”

  “You can’t get it now.” Each word came out like a metal scraper grating across a stubborn screwhead. “Tandor has guys swarming the area. They’ve been waiting for you. And after those laser blasts, the entire Port Station guard will be combing the area.”

  I dropped my arms and pitched my shoulders back, striking my elbows against the seat. “Fuck!” I stamped a boot into his upper dash, mollified as I heard a crack.

  The guy shot me a veiled look out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing.

  The Q7 was insanely fast, but as predicted, the ride wasn’t as smooth. By the time I decided to get another ground view, we were already outside of Port Station, everything below us a blur, the craft vibrating lightly.

  My tech phone buzzed in my pocket.

  I took off my helmet, tossing it on the ground next to my feet as I fished the phone out, depressing the button. “Ella here. Rennie came down with something. We won’t be able to come to dinner after all.” My finger dropped the button, and I tried not to choke. I settled for a cough instead.

  We didn’t have a lot of precode for what happened back there.

  Bender’s voice came over the line first. “It’s Johnny. Sorry to hear that.” His tone held an edge. Static issued for a few beats, and then, “I have some medicine I can bring over.”

  I punched the button. “Not necessary.” I could hear the pain in my voice. I knew they could, too. “His dad is taking care of him.”

  Lockland came on next. “Jerry here. I have the battery extender. I’m happy to bring it by.”

  He knew I wasn’t in my ride, and they both likely knew what had just gone down at Port Station if they were in contact with the guards. Laser fire like that was incredibly rare. I had to think of a response that wouldn’t worry them to the point of coming after me.

  I darted a glance at the stranger beside me.

  He’d taken off his helmet. His dark hair was longer than I’d expected, brushing the collar of his jacket, but other than that, I couldn’t see much. I’d lost my chromes somewhere in the mix, and my helmet was on the floor. I tilted my head back. “A neighbor dropped by,” I decided on, letting up on the button and giving them static before I hit it again and finished, “We’re going to chat for a little bit, and then I’m going to turn in for the night.”

  “I’ll see you for breakfast tomorrow.” Bender’s voice didn’t broker an objection.

  “Will do. Ella, out,” I half whispered on a long, hollow breath.

  Instead of throwing the tech phone as hard as I could against the windshield and watching it explode into a million pieces, which was what I wanted to do, I calmly stuffed it back in my vest pocket. Reclining my head against the seat, I took in a few measured breaths before I spoke. “How are you planning to get back into the city?”

  “I’m not.”

  I surged up, turning toward him, barely refraining from taking control of the steering levers, scissor-kicking him in the face, and flying this thing myself. “What are you talking about? I have to go home. I have to figure out where Tandor took Daze. I have to make plans. All of those things take place inside the city.”

  I’d utterly failed Daze, and I’d sustained him for only one day.

  As a parent, I sucked.

  “I know where they took the kid.” He spat another wad of blood onto the floor. I ignored it. The asshole deserved everything he’d received for sneaking up on me.

  “Then let’s go get him.” I ran the side of my Gem up and down my thigh in an agitated fashion that reeked of instability. I hadn’t felt this out of control in fifteen years. That was the year Bender had me doing runs for him. I was twelve.

  “We can’t,” he grunted. “Unless you have an extra stash of hydro-bombs on you.”

  “Well, not on me, obviously, but that can be arranged.” His eyebrows shot up as he redirected the craft. East blinked on the screen. I angled my head out the passenger window, trying to get a bead on the topography. “Where are you going? The ocean is east.”

  “Yes.”

  “What the fuck do you mean, yes? That’s not an answer.” The ocean, outside of the protected harbor, especially at the shoreline, was ridiculously dangerous. Fifteen-meter waves were considered small. The sea was a swirling mass of anger and aggression, still pissed off all these years later that it’d been bothered by things hurled at it from outer space. There were many stories about the Flotilla being swallowed up by the insatiable appetite of the water before it got five kilometers outside the bay. There was no way to know for sure.

  “You haven’t been out of the city much.” It wasn’t a question.

  I crossed my arms, my Gem still gripped in my fist. “I get out of the city all the time, dickhead.” At this point, I could forcibly direct the asshole back by gunpoint, and we could enter the city through one of my secret ways. But divulging that kind of info to a stranger was off-limits. I’d do it if he could guarantee we’d get Daze back. “You said you know where they’re taking the kid. I can get you into the city, if you agree to take me to him.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re expecting you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The kid was a plant.”

  I sucked in a breath. Daze had been lying to me?

  No. No no no no no. “The fuck he was.” I’d know it.

  “He was. They knew you’d go after the pico.”

  I shifted abruptly in my seat, my eyebrows drawn, fury rising. I was one second away from hollowing out this guy’s neck, or maybe making a nice clean hole through his temple. “I don’t get played like that.”

  “Don’t be too hard on the kid.” His tone was low and even, but still gritty. “He was a runaway, stole something from Tandor, got caught, and had to do this or die a very painful death. If he didn’t get you to the residence within a day, they said they’d kill another kid. Some girl.”

  “Renata.” My voice was devoid of emotion. Daze had lied and said she was already dead. Fisting my hands and beating them bloody on the dash was a solid idea. Instead, I asked, “How the fuck do you know all this?”

  “I told you, I have someone on the inside.”

  The man slowed the craft, sliding us to the right. I leaned forward. In the dim darkness, gigantic waves came in to stark view, crashing against the shoreline. I hadn’t seen the edge of the ocean since I was ten or so, when Bender had taken me out here to show me its wrath.

  Once had been enough.

  As far as I knew, there was nothing out here. Everything within distance of the shoreline had been ravaged, swept out to sea, or pummeled into sand and dust.

  The craft rocked unsteadily as he took us over the water, the air currents unstable above the onslaught of tidal waves, shaking us violently. “Your engine is too heavy,” I said, trying hard to keep my voice even. “It gives you speed, but in this kind of turbulence, it could upend us and send us spiraling to our deaths. Honestly, in all my imaginings, I’ve never thought the ocean would be the thing to kill me. Lasers—or even tasespray—but never the sea.” My fist gripped the seat beneath me in an effort to keep my racing heart and hands steady. Watching the ocean roil and surge ten meters below us was nothing short of terrifyingly awesome.

  The man punched a lever. A soft red glow effused the space, along with running lights outside. “She has a custom stabilizer.”

  “She does, does she?” My voice was heavy on the sarcasm. Like a stabilizer was any match for the thunderous sea. He aimed the nose down,
dipping fast. I held back the scream rising in my throat, both hands clutching the bottom of the seat as a lifeline, gun and all. “The waves are right beneath us! What the hell are you doing?” The entire windshield was filled with a churning mass of destruction ready to reach up its tendrils of death and yank us under.

  At the last moment, he swerved, repositioning us back the way we’d come.

  Then I saw it.

  The gaping maw of a hollowed-out building. Right on the coast.

  I unfurled my fingers from the seat one at a time as the mystery man guided the Q7 expertly into a stall no bigger than the craft itself and shut down the power.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Once we landed, I sat there like a dummy, panting, my head bowed. But I didn’t care. The night had not met any of my expectations, and had been, in its own right, harrowing.

  The guy seemed content to wait.

  The craft was parked at least thirty meters from the beach, but the waves crashed like thunder behind us, the echoes of their wrath strumming through my body, inside my veins, one after another.

  And all I could think was that Daze had played me like a pro.

  A fucking pro.

  “Damn it all to hell.” I lifted my head, slapping my hands down on the tops of my legs, my gun driving painfully into my thigh. I barely acknowledged it.

  “If you’re not more careful, that thing is going to explode on you.” He nodded at the Gem.

  I curled my lip, not even bothering to answer. Instead, I reached over and lofted the door. I had to do something. The space was tight, but it was enough for a body to get through. Heading behind the craft, toward the water, wasn’t an option, so I ducked around front.

  It was a little trickier for the man to get out, since he was twice my size. I thought I heard a few groans and definitely spotted a limp as he came toward me. That made me feel better.

  “Where to?” I asked. “I’m assuming we’re not staying out here.”

  He moved into the shadows farther away from the water. I followed. A short distance away, a wall loomed, and as we got closer, I spotted a door. It was no ordinary entryway. It was enhanced, made from matte black metal, likely steel mixed with iron, and instead of a knob, it had a spoked wheel set in the middle. The man didn’t hesitate to turn it, first cranking it to the right and then to the left. It was too dark to see the exact combination, but there was one.

  Once the wheel stopped spinning, he yanked the heavy door toward his chest. A popping sound followed, like the building had decided to exhale. He strained, repositioning himself with both hands curled over the lip, to muscle it back enough for us to get through. When he’d achieved his goal, he nodded at me to enter.

  As I scooted by, I saw that the door was at least a meter thick.

  Once we were both inside, he turned toward a lever jutting from the wall. He pulled it down, and the door slowly shut on its own. Once it was fully closed, with an audible clap, he engaged a deadbolt the size of half my body, sliding it with both hands, adding a little shoulder action, until bolts engaged into massive slots on the sides.

  The moment the door had closed, the sounds of the ocean disappeared completely.

  Nobody was getting in or out of this place.

  We were in a bunker of some kind.

  It should’ve worried me, because I didn’t know this guy, and this could all be an elaborate plan to murder me, but I was too pissed off and hyped up on adrenaline to be alarmed. I headed down a long hallway ahead of him. “What is this place?” I called as I examined the walls, which looked to be made of concrete. There was just enough light issuing from a few small bulbs near the ceiling for me to see without infrared. I flipped my visor up.

  “Head down the stairs,” he grunted.

  I shuffled down the short flight, which led to another hallway. At the end was a door. Tentatively, I turned the regular knob and pushed it open. It swung without any resistance. “No other external entrances and exits except for the one we just came through, correct?” I asked. Otherwise, the door in front of me would’ve been locked.

  “None that are accessible anymore.”

  The room was dark until the man hit a switch on the wall. Light bulbs, covered in protective baskets of mesh, blinked on, one by one, sounding like a low drumbeat that started from the right and ended at the far left.

  The room was massive.

  Crates of supplies were scattered all over, many covered in green and black tarps. Tables and overturned chairs were situated in small groups, some with plates and cups still adorning the surfaces, left behind after the original inhabitants had evacuated quickly. There was a main sitting area, complete with two large couches situated in front of a thigh-high tech table, and an adjoined kitchen space. In the back, sleeping pods were set into the wall, two rows high. The ones on the bottom rolled out, ready for use. A single one on the end with the lid open.

  “Military barracks.” I glanced at the stranger, stating the obvious. “Most of this building is underground, isn’t it? That’s why this place survived so close to the ocean.”

  The man limped toward a massive cooling unit that was shoved against a wall, a utilitarian countertop running next to it, simple metal cabinets above. “Not exactly underground, more like burrowed into the side of a hill.” His breath was labored, his words scratchy. Instead of opening the cooling unit, he rummaged through a cabinet next to it. When he found what he was looking for, he turned, a white box with a red lid in hand, and headed toward one of the couches.

  If he lifted his pant leg, I was fairly certain I’d see a bruise in the shape of my boot print.

  I moved across from him and sat, my Gem out, barrel up. “Okay, you’ve got exactly three minutes to tell me who you are, what you want, and why you followed me.”

  “I wasn’t following you.” His tone was dismissive as he arranged himself on the couch, ignoring my threating gun. “I arrived before you. I was already in the closet, remember?” He set the box on the tech table, which was not currently on, and began to shrug off his coat, unable to hide a wince. I glanced inside the open container. It was full of bandages and antiseptic, along with a few auto-inoculations and painkiller darts.

  “Two minutes.”

  After his coat was off, he peeled one of his shirts over his head, leaving a T-shirt behind. Both pieces of clothing were covered in blood. He tossed the long-sleeved shirt aside. His arms were thick and corded with muscle, his biceps jumping as he reached for the box. “I’m an outskirt, here to track down Tandor. I followed you last night because you took the kid. I didn’t follow you today. I anticipated your movements and happened to be correct in my assumptions.”

  My gun stayed steady on my nonmoving target, who acted like he didn’t care. But I knew better. Nobody was immune to a laser blast, especially at point-blank range. “You couldn’t have followed me yesterday. I would’ve known. My craft is equipped with radar. I saw you in the area, and I evaded you. I spoofed your system, led you on a chase, and took off.”

  His head remained down, but his eyes trained upward. They were stark gray, his brown hair drying in slight waves around his face. “The kid had a tracking device behind his left ear.”

  I lowered my gun, but kept both hands firmly around the barrel as I stood and spun in a circle, my right foot stamping down. “You have to be fucking kidding me.” My voice was ragged as I took in a long breath, my eyes closing as my head tilted up to the ceiling. It was hard to keep the bravado going when I’d been so plainly had. I felt like throwing up my hands and walking away, but instead, I repositioned them, the carbon muzzle back on its mark, my eyes open and focused. “What’s your name? Where did you come from?” I had business to finish.

  He ripped open a medi-towel with his teeth, pulled out the damp cloth, and mopped it over his face and nose. The blood melted away instantly, seeping into the cloth like it was supposed to. “Case. South.” He tossed the blood-saturated towelette down and reached for another, repeating the process.

>   “Where south?” There were ports dotted all along the Eastern Seaboard where people had been trying to scrape and survive since the dark days. I’d never bothered with investigating them, since most people migrated up to the city eventually. The city had the most resources, and that was saying a lot, since we basically had shit. I had no idea how people who lived on the outskirts survived for as long as they had.

  “What used to be South Carolina.”

  “Any sunshine down there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are people better off down there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why’d you come here?”

  He unrolled a large piece of gauze, ripping off two pieces, curling them into tubes, and shoving one in each nostril. Once they were securely lodged, he placed his fingers on either side of his bridge and snapped his nose back into place.

  The sound was halfway between a hammer on the back of a shell and the slurping sound of a boot being tugged out of the mud. The gauze was instantly drenched dark red.

  He leaned his head back, closing his eyes.

  Hey. We weren’t done here. “If you want me to lower this gun, you’re going to have to tell me why you’re here. Exactly why. With lots of informative words and colorful descriptions.”

  He didn’t bother lifting his head or opening his eyes. “Tandor took over my town less than a year ago. He killed indiscriminately. He succeeded in starting an uprising to bring north. He killed someone close to me. When he left, I followed.”

  “Is he involved in child slavery?”

  “Yes.”

  I lowered my weapon and sat back down on the couch opposite him. I wasn’t going to shoot a hole through someone who wasn’t even looking at me, much less putting up a fight. He knew it. I knew it. “What is Tandor hoping to achieve?”

  “Total control over the city to further his agenda.”

  I plucked the roll of gauze off the table and tossed it, hitting him squarely in the chest. It tumbled down, but he caught it before it hit the ground, eyes still closed. “You’re going to need another medi-towel and some new gauze. Your nose is a fucking mess.” With a disgruntled sigh, he sat up, ripping off two new pieces of gauze. I opened a fresh towel, unraveled it, and handed it to him. It smelled vaguely of Bang and was sticky wet. “You might just want to wad two medi-towels up there and call it a day.” I leaned forward to glance in the box. “Is there a numbing agent in here? You might want to use that as well, either darts or mist. It’ll probably help you with your knee pain, too.” I sat back, barely suppressing a satisfied grin.