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Chapter 42
"Warm water, not hot. Lukewarm. Bring the kettle. Now."Liam was already on the ladder. The steel rungs burned through his gloves. Wind tore at his coat and sent loose snow hissing across the platform. Above him, Sloane Whitfield hung from the top of the fence with her bare right hand fused to the bar, blood ringing her wrist in a hard red band."Do not pull," he called. "Sloane. Look at me. Do not pull.""It hurts!" Her voice cracked into a sob. "It hurts, it hurts!""I know. I know exactly how much." He reached the top rung and braced his knee against the post. "I did the same thing to my palm last night. Do you want to see?"She stared down at him with huge, glazed eyes. He peeled back the bandage on his left hand and held up the raw, shiny scar. Her breath caught."See? It heals." He took the thermos Reyes thrust up at him and unscrewed the cap. "Hold still. This will feel warm. It is not hot. I promise."He tipped the thermos. A thin stream of steaming tea, cooled by thirty secon
Chapter 41
"Twenty rifles, Mr. Carter. And every one of them looks real."Hollis lowered his binoculars and pressed his back against the cold parapet of the north wall. Below, a ragged column of students in bright winter jackets crossed the open field with ropes and ladders bouncing on their shoulders. They moved fast and stumbled often. A few were already limping.Liam crouched beside him in the shadow of a snow covered crate. The wall looked dead from outside. Foam board hid every vent. Packed snow buried the cabin roofs. The smoldering helicopter wrecks lay black and ugly in the field, still trailing thin gray smoke. To a hungry, hopeful boy with a rifle, it would look like a graveyard."Real is the word I am worried about," Hollis said."Reyes?"The guard captain lifted his own binoculars and studied the column. A long minute passed. Then his mouth curved into a thin, almost pitying smile."Orange tips on the muzzles," he said. "Welded barrels. These are drill rifles, sir. ROTC parade guns.
Chapter 40
"You slept two hours. Eat something."Maya set a steaming bowl of rice and canned beef on the edge of Liam's cot and stood over him with her arms crossed. Gray light leaked through the narrow window above the bed. Somewhere beyond the wall, a generator hummed, and the whole estate smelled of wet wool and boiled coffee.Liam sat up. His neck ached. His burned palm throbbed beneath fresh gauze. At the foot of the cot, wrapped in a gray blanket, the seven year old boy from the Civic Center lay curled around a stuffed rabbit someone had found him. His breathing was slow and even. A thin line of drool darkened the blanket under his cheek."His name is Theo," Maya said softly. "He would not sleep anywhere else. He kept asking if you were still here."Liam looked at the boy for a long moment. Something shifted in his chest, small and unfamiliar. He did not trust it."Did anyone eat before me?""Everyone eats before you." Maya pressed the bowl into his hands. "That is the rule. I wrote it mys
Chapter 39
"If we cut those chains, ten thousand people walk out into minus forty five. Tell me how many reach us."Liam laid the headset on the war room table and looked at each face in turn. Hollis. Dalton. Iris, back from burying Pike in the frozen garden behind the vault, her eyes red and her jaw locked. Reyes by the door. The shortwave hissed softly in the corner, still tuned to the Civic Center's frequency."Some," Hollis said."How many?""A few hundred, maybe. The rest drop in the street." The sergeant's voice was flat. "I counted the dead at the bus stops on the ride out. I do not want to count a second time.""And if we do nothing?" Iris asked."They stay warm." Dalton rubbed his bandaged hands together. "That building has two diesel generators and a cold storage hall. Thorne's people stocked it three weeks ago. I saw the manifest. It will hold heat and food for ten days."Liam looked at him sharply. "Ten days.""Nine, if you believe the broadcast." Dalton's mouth twisted. "Nine days i
Chapter 38
"A satellite sees contrast, not temperature, Mr. Carter. We do not have to hide the heat. We have to bury it."Declan Rivers spread a thermal map across the war room table with both hands pinning the corners. Colonel Dalton leaned over his shoulder. The map glowed red and orange across the middle, a bright bruise in a field of cold blue."The vents on the east wall." Declan jabbed a finger at the first bloom. "The intake cap over the borehole. The stack above the kitchen. The cabin roofs. Anything warm enough to melt snow.""And a fire?" Liam asked."A fire is hotter." Dalton straightened. His voice was flat and tired, but his eyes had sharpened. "That is the trick. Thorne wants to see a plume. A burning compound makes a bigger, uglier plume than a hidden one. His analysts will look at the brightest spot on the screen and stop looking."Liam studied the map. His burned palm ached inside its bandage. Behind him, Hale rubbed his eyes and said, "You are going to set your own estate on fi
Chapter 37
"Red scarf. Stuffed fox in her left hand. She will not let go of it, even asleep."Nathan Cole sat on an upturned crate in the vault corridor with a blanket around his shoulders and a nurse wrapping his frozen ear in gauze. His voice shook on every word. He kept turning his wedding ring, though it had come off his hand four years ago and now lived on a cord around his neck."Dana will answer the door with a kitchen knife," Cole said. "She does not trust anyone. Tell her I sent you. Tell her I am sorry about Thanksgiving.""What happened at Thanksgiving?" Iris asked."I missed it." A broken, mirthless laugh. "I was at a briefing. Thorne's briefing."Iris buckled the last strap on her parka and pulled the hood up over her short dark hair. She did not smile. "Then I will tell her you are a bigger idiot than she thought, and that I came anyway."Liam stood in the doorway with his bandaged palm tucked inside his coat. "Take the site hauler. Declan fueled it an hour ago. Hollis goes with yo
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