Or what had been his site.
He threw open the door and jumped to the ice. Nothing remained but a hole in the ground, along with a few discarded items—including the bright-red tent that had protected his drill through all kinds of weather.
His drill, dammit. His life’s work. He’d designed and built the damned thing. He’d dug the hole and put it in the ground.
Jesus, who the hell would steal another scientist’s work, not to mention the tools they needed to do their work?
He picked up the tent and threw it to the side. They hadn’t just taken his drill; they’d slashed the fabric, smashed the rest of his on-site gear to smithereens, and ground it all into the ice in what felt like a deliberate insult.
Whoever had done this didn’t just want to steal from him, they wanted to screw him. Hard.
Head thrumming with foreboding, he climbed back into the tractor and set off for the next site on his route.
Chapter 7
This was fear. Not her usual fear of being alone in the arches or the uneasiness of staring across the ice and knowing she meant nothing at all.
This was terror that had changed her for good. It sparked things she’d never be able to control on her own, ignited entirely new systems in her body, rearranged them into popping, cracking networks of reactivity. Synapses? Was that the word? Or just nerves that she was no longer in command of. Like when a driving instructor took over the car, she felt a weird sort of relief. I don’t have to do anything. I’m not in charge anymore.
The other man—who looked like Ben Wong, another of the new crew members—went to one side of the arch and returned dragging something big, which he flopped down onto the floor. A shipping case, maybe?
Then, once he’d lined it up, he pulled a long metal tube from its slot along the wall and dropped it into the box with a loud thud.
“Watch out with those,” Sampson said, sounding peeved. “No payload, no pay, remember.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. We’ve gotta move.” He spoke into whatever communication device they were using. “Bravo Team, to the generators.”
Sampson headed away from her, leaving behind the inanimate lump that was once Alex Stickley without so much as a backward glance.
Angel looked on as terror stoked something inside her. Energy? Courage? She wasn’t sure, but it ran through her body like a jolt of electricity.
Whatever it was spurred her to step over her half-empty sled, careful to walk on her tiptoes.
Angel’s eyes slid to the side, where bags of rice filled most of the metal shelves. Farther up, where Ben worked, was nothing but row after row of those metal tubes. Could Ben see her crouched down here? Maybe not. Maybe her silhouette blended in with the bulk supplies.
Once all five cylinders were loaded into the case, Ben grabbed the handle and started pulling—right toward Angel. She popped back behind the shelf and waited, wishing she could roll herself into a tiny ball, but she was stuck in this too-tight, too-visible place.
Please don’t see me. He walked closer. She couldn’t move, could only listen to the fingernail-on-the-chalkboard sound of plastic scraping over concrete. It was a horrible sound. But not the worst. She couldn’t think of that other sound—the sound of gunfire, of death—or she’d do something stupid.
And suddenly, holy crap, he was right there. Close enough to touch, if she slid her hand from the back of the shelf, over the rice, and out to where he stood, in the center of the arch. And here she was, trying to meld with the wall, shaking like a jackhammer. She ignored a lancing pain in her knee and did her best not to breathe, to stop the shaking. To stop existing, if she could.
How can he not hear me?
He stilled. This is it. I’m dead.
Every muscle tightened in anticipation of whatever he’d do or say. She couldn’t kick him from here, but if she shoved some of the food aside, she could maybe hit his crotch and—
“Still in the arch. Headed out.” He paused, clearly listening, while Angel used everything she had not to breathe a sigh of relief. “Shit. Yeah. Okay. I’ll intercept them.” Dropping the handle, he took off at a jog, back toward where he’d come from, then around the corner.
Before she even realized what she’d planned, Angel’s lizard brain took over, some prehistoric, instinctive part of her she’d never had to tap into.
Run.
Mustering every ounce of her courage, she stepped out from her hiding place, turned, and almost tripped over the silver shipping case. She stared at it, then, like a zombie, reached out and flipped open the top to see the dull gleam of metal.
Run! The fear voice was right. She should go…
Almost calmly, she turned and eyed the row of cylinders lining the wall farther up the arch.
And then she was walking—only not to safety, the place where the arch opened up onto the bright outdoors, but toward those other tubes, following in Ben Wong’s footsteps.
What the hell am I doing?
She slid a tube out. Whoa. Heavy. Still, she could do it. She would do it, because if these men were willing to kill for these, then she sure as hell didn’t want them in their hands. Bending her knees, she grabbed another and humped them back to the shipping container. Crap. She hadn’t thought this through.
Doesn’t matter. Do it.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard Ben talking. Was he talking to friend or foe? Should she yell? No. No, she’d seen the carnage these people were capable of. She’d make it worse if she wasn’t careful.
First do this, then find a way to warn the others.
As fast as she could, she pulled the cylinders from the case and slid them under the shelves. The fifty-pound bags of rice that drooped over the edge like fat, juicy steaks hanging over the rim of a too-small plate hid them perfectly.
Once it was empty, she loaded the case up with the first two cylinders she’d grabbed. Crap. There was a label, right? She dropped to her knees and felt around until she found a tube and pulled it out, then took a deep breath before yanking off her gloves and working at the sticker with her ragged fingernail.
Relief flooded her when it came off easily. She slapped it over the sticker on one of the new tubes, and did the same with the second.
In the distance, Ben laughed, the sound resonating in that weird way the arches had, echoey but also swallowed by the ice. Was he coming back?
Don’t come back. Don’t come back, she mouthed silently as she raced to pull more dummy samples, hauled them back and placed them in the case painfully slowly, so as not to make a sound. Finally, she went through the whole cycle for the last cylinder. Now for stickers. One…two… She worked to peel off the last sticker, breathing so hard now that she almost didn’t hear the exterior handle’s telltale squeak.