“We leave.” He threw his head back to look at clear blue sky. “Now.”
Chapter 12
Coop went to work hurriedly gathering everything they’d need to survive a trek across the continent, while Angel prepared their food. He’d located skis, snowshoes, camp stoves and fuel, a tent, sleeping bags, and pads to protect their prone bodies from the ice. Most of this he amassed in the eerily empty living quarters, which added a layer of discomfort to his growing anxiety. Rooting through his friends’ private belongings while they were likely in trouble somewhere felt as dirty and wrong as looting the recently deserted homes of nuclear disaster victims.
But it couldn’t be helped.
The rest he found in the “skua” pile, named after the rapacious sea birds that plagued Antarctica’s coastal research stations. Thank God people dumped things they no longer needed when they left or Coop and Angel would have been out of luck. While Coop had skis and boots already, they’d been incredibly fortunate to find a pair thatalmostfit Angel. A little big, which they could compensate for with padding.
The second he stepped out of the dorm, relief flooded him. There, on the horizon, were clouds. And while bad weather was usually a pain in the ass, today it would keep aircraft at a safe distance.
Good.
The stress inside him had coalesced into hatred now. It burned so hot he could have taken off his coat out here.
Murdering bastards.
What they’d done to the rest of the crew was anyone’s guess, but two people, at least, were dead. He’d taken a precious half hour to search the rest of the tunnels and arches and found no sign of either body, which meant those assholes had taken them, since you couldn’t hide that kind of evidence under the ice without time and a big-ass digger.
Two lives snuffed out. Two preeminent researchers—gone. Friends, dammit. Men with futures, families. That wouldn’t go unnoticed, surely.
He pictured those two planes taking off, maybe an hour apart. From what Angel’d told him, Sampson had said something about the summer people leaving on the first aircraft. He’d apparently wanted to bring her along on the second flight. Had they taken the winter-overs with them? Or evacuated them on the first plane?
Why, damn it? He paused, shut his eyes, and pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyeballs, hard. Why do this? Why bring violence to the most peaceful continent on earth?
No matter how he turned it over in his head, he couldn’t seem to come up with an answer.
Though it was light out, it was the middle of the night when he shoved open the ancillary building door and got a faceful of heat—nothing like in the main building when the power worked, but better than the current exterior temps of -25 Fahrenheit. They were lucky it was sunny out.
No point thinking about how low that temperature would drop out there on the ice when cloud cover could instantly lower it by twenty-five degrees.
No point thinking about how alone they were. No point wondering what kind of spin this whole thing was getting in the outside world. Shit. Did the world even know?
Angel sat at the table filling small baggies with easy-to-consume food rations. The fattiest, highest-calorie, lowest-weight items they could put together.
He didn’t spare her a glance as he grabbed a protein bar and headed back out to unload the sled’s contents by the door. He was so caught up in his thoughts, with so much tension in his body, that when Angel appeared beside him, gloved and coated and prepared to help, he almost jumped out of his skin.
“Thought you were kidding about this stuff.” She picked up a massive pack of butter that would need to be cut into bite-sized portions. “We seriously need this much fat?”
He glanced at her and forced out a grunt, barely audible through the wind, then squatted to shift gear onto one of the expedition sleds he’d found.
“How many calories?”
He squinted up at her. “What?”
“How many calories will we burn through in a day?” While she piled the butter by the door, he considered the sled, staring at it like it was a game of Tetris.
“Six, seven thousand, more or less. The fat’ll help us pack in the calories more efficiently.”
“Wow. Well, I’m pretty sure I don’t need it, Ford.”
His scalp tingled at the use of his first name. Nobody but his brother called him that. “Need what?”
“All this butter.” She stood up, rubbed her hands on her thighs, and yawned.
“You will.”
“Huh. Silver lining, I guess, ’cause I’m a fool for butter.”
