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. Shewoulddo 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.
For a split second, she couldn’t move.
But when that door opened, whoever was there would see her, clear as day. Maybe it was someone she could trust, but if it wasn’t…
Forget the last sticker.With one hand, she slammed the cover shut, gave herself up to that lizard brain, and ran like hell.
Something cracked in the distance, everything shook, and the arch went dark.
* * *
Gone. Every one of his drills. Into thin air.
And nobody at base was answering. Not the station manager, not Jameson, not the communications office…nobody. Which made zero sense. Somebody should pick up. Coop had tried putting a call through to McMurdo, but the sky had chosen that moment to cloud over and he couldn’t get agoddamnsignal. He needed to tell somebody what was going on, so they could stop whoever was responsible before they left the continent.
But who the hell was behind this?
