Melissa la Cruz - Frozen

He fired and missed the first two shots. Steady, he ordered himself. Steady . . .

Two more bullets sailed through the cabin. One nicked Farouk’s arm. “Snap out of it, boss!” the kid shrieked from the back. “Next one will be through our heads!”

“It’s the sniper—take him out already!” Wes yelled back.

“He can’t hide from me,” Daran promised, peering through his scope for the elusive shooter.

“Over there!” Zedric yelled, pointing to the top of the nearest building. “I see him!” They let off a few rounds, but the bullets continued to whiz by their heads.

A shell exploded just aft of the LTV, rattling the vehicle and sending them spinning.

“This is some escape,” Nat said, rolling her eyes. “You’re going to get me to the water? You can’t even get me out of the Strip.”

“Hey now, a little confidence would be nice,” Wes snapped. “Trying to keep us alive over here.”

“Get that tank down!” Daran yelled, while Shakes fought to keep the truck upright.

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Wes huffed. “Patience, everyone, patience.” He wasn’t planning on dying in a firefight.

Wes popped back up through the hatch and saw that he had his first clear shot. He targeted the engine, so he could disable the vehicle without hurting any of the soldiers. He’d been in their shoes not so long ago.

But just as he was about to fire, the whole world went dark. He was blind. His finger jerked as he pulled the trigger. He missed again. He let out a string of expletives. Frostblight. He’d been ignoring it for some time now, the blurred vision, headaches, but lately it was getting harder to deny.

A bullet whizzed past his ear. A second shot blew off their truck’s left-hand mirror.

“Hurry, man,” Shakes said from the driver’s seat, his voice calm but with an edge. His hands were gripping the wheel so hard it was vibrating.

“Let me,” Farouk said, reloading his weapon.

“I got it, I got it, everyone relax,” Wes said, with a slightly injured air. He lifted his gun again. The tank’s sleek white hull glistened like a child’s toy in the snowy air. He focused. The behemoth was an easy target; they were made that way so that their four-foot-tall wheels could grind up the snow. But there were half a dozen holes in the armor already. Typical. The white elephants looked intimidating, but they were vulnerable. Nobody knew how to fix anything anymore. The country was living off the past—all the technology dated back to the wars before the Flood. It was as if the toxic waters had washed away not only New York and California but all the knowledge of the world as well.

His hand steady and his vision clear, Wes pulled the trigger, and this time the bullet hit the target, piercing the armor and blasting the engine with a single round.

One more and the tank was dust, but the temporary blindness had dulled his reflexes, and before he could move, a fiery round hit him square in the chest. Where did that come from—?

“Sorry!” Daran yelled.

“Got him!” Zedric whooped, as his bullet shot the rifle out of the sniper’s hand.

Wes’s body shield held, but the pain was unbearable. The Kevlar jacket caught on fire, and he ripped it off, tossing it into the snow. A hole the size of a baseball was burnt through the fabric of his down vest. Black smoke drifted from the burn, bringing tears to his eyes.

“You’ll be all right,” Nat said, helping him down into his seat. “Surface wound.”

He grunted.

Up front, Shakes swerved to avoid a second round of rocket fire. The convoy had arrived, more tanks, and soldiers on snowFAVs. But the fence was only a few blocks away and once they crossed, they were free. The army wouldn’t risk a nighttime mission into the Trash Pile; at most they would send a seeker party in the morning, but by then Wes hoped to be well into the wastelands and impossible to track.

“Gimme a hand,” Wes said, slinging an arm around Nat’s shoulder. His right arm was numb and he had to switch hands to shoot.

“But you don’t have your armor,” she warned.

“Doesn’t matter, I need to get this done,” he insisted.

Nat nodded, helped him back up, and steadied him.

They were so close that he could smell her hair, even as his head hurt and he knew he would pass out soon. He lifted the gun and peered through the sight, then jumped back, startled.

The tank’s big gun was trained right at his head. He didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to move; he fired, the gun an extension of his mind. The second shot destroyed enough of the engine to stop the tank. The big white heap of metal spun violently, its gunfire spraying a nearby building, rattling windows. There was a sharp cry from inside the beast, then silence.

Three more white elephants slammed into the faltering tank and the whole convoy came to a stop, just as Daran and Zedric took care of the snow bikes, sending them crashing into the ice walls.

The top of the tank opened suddenly, and its captain appeared, a boy his age, who’d wanted to get a look to see who had grounded their pursuit. He gave Wes the finger.

Wes saluted him with a smile as the LTV sped out of the city toward the fence, an invisible electric barrier that Farouk had just disabled with his handheld.

“Hit it, Shakes,” Wes said, rapping on the roof of the truck. “Time to root through the trash.”

NAT HAD NO IDEA HOW WES HAD SURVIVED that hit. She was burning with adrenaline, fear, and excitement. His heroics were no joke, not like the show he’d conjured up at the casino. For the first time, she allowed herself to feel optimistic—maybe there was more to this cocky runner after all.

“Get someone to help you and choose wisely,” Manny had advised grudgingly. “Runners will swear up and down they can take you to where you want to go, but instead most of them end up dumping their passengers or selling them to slavers. Or they’re overtaken by slavers, which is almost the same thing. Or they give up when the food runs out. You want someone who can think on his feet, who’s fast, who’s brave.”

She had chosen Wes, and while she still wouldn’t put it past him to ditch her if a better opportunity came along—and she sure wasn’t ready to trust him with the treasure she carried: the stone she wore on a chain around her neck—she was on her way now, and he had gotten her this far.

But still a long way to go, the monster in her head reminded . Thankfully I am patient.

Her happiness faded a little at that—to know each step led her closer to fulfilling the darkness of her dreams. For a moment, she saw the face of her former commander again. You are not using the extent of your power, he had told her. You do not even try. She wondered how much harder he would have tried to break her, if he had known what her dreams bore, if he knew about the monster in her head.

“You okay?” she asked Wes.

He gave her quick nod, but his face grimaced in pain. “It’ll pass. It’s just the shock. You?”

She shrugged. “How far to the fence?”

“Couple of blocks, we should be clear,” he said, as the truck made its way far from the glittering lights of New Vegas and the snowy terrain became harder to navigate.

“Good.”

Even though there was no physical barrier that kept the city from the borderlands, the fence was as real as the invisible electric volts that killed anyone who breached it. Nat noticed the group in the LTV hold their breath as they crossed silently into the darkness. But Farouk had done his job, and they made it through without incident.