Danger's Halo: (Holly Danger Book 1)

by Amanda Carlson

  It was the fastest way to achieve my goals, if not exactly the smartest.

  Case remained quiet.

  He looked completely comical sitting there with his face wrapped in Teflon. While we waited, I pondered what he’d told me about Darby.

  If Tandor had given Darby Babble a few weeks ago, Darby had likely compromised only himself and a few of our routes. But there was no way to be certain. There was a strong possibility he hadn’t even realized he’d been injected, and he wouldn’t remember anything he’d said.

  It was a clusterfuck, and the implications were vast. I ran a gloved hand over my face, cupping it around my mouth for a moment. I felt like screaming. How did we miss something this big?

  Darby was so excited about his research and the possibility of helping people, and it was all a big, fat, fucking lie.

  The light on the back of the auditorium finally went green. Immediately after, the wall began to retract.

  Case asked, “What’s that sound?”

  “Our way out.”

  “I thought we just entered.” His voice bordered on done. I was actually surprised Case had gone along with everything thus far. This was a man not used to taking orders from anyone, and here I was flying his craft and calling the shots. If he could actually see what I was about to do, he’d insist on taking the controls.

  “We did. Now we have to go through one more secured door to get back outside.” I eased Seven off the stage, angling her ninety degrees straight up and to the left, quickly and precisely, then lowered her to a forty-five-degree angle as I followed the short rise up and out. The sound of her fans echoing around the empty space was exceptionally loud, not to mention we’d been tossed back in our seats.

  “What the hell is going on?” Case yelled, reaching up to rip off his blindfold.

  My arm shot out to stay his movements, gripping his tensed forearm. “Don’t remove that unless you’re looking for a tase to the chest.” My hand snatched back to the controls so the craft didn’t falter. “Hang tight. We’re almost out.”

  Case complied, but there was a distinct snarl coming from underneath the fabric. I could barely hear it above the prop noise, which was a bonus. I passed through the narrow exit, almost scraping both sides, and immediately turned right onto the street, gaining altitude as I went.

  I headed west.

  After a few kilometers, I reached over and snatched the blindfold off Case’s face. It came away easily. Half-standing buildings whizzed by as rain dashed against the windshield. The only other craft in sight was high above us, heading north.

  I glanced over at Case. Moisture dripped down the sides of his face. “We’ll be at our destination in a few minutes. Once I land, you assume the controls. Get up and out immediately.” He gave me a look. The one where his head barely moved, but his gray eyes said it all, narrowing at the edges, effectively calling me out as clueless. I was getting fantastically tired of that expression. “Listen, I know you think you’re above us because you managed to track me down. But you underestimate me and my crew and what we can do. We will have no problem finding Tandor and his crew and eradicating them from this city without your help.”

  He stared straight ahead. “I don’t think I’m above you. But you’re out of your league with this one. He’s more dangerous than you think.”

  “Thanks for the fair warning.” I turned the craft north, lofting us higher. I was going to miss the fluid efficiency of these controls, but I ached to get Luce back. She’d been with me since the beginning. We were a team.

  “We could help each other.” His words sounded sincere, even though they’d been uttered in a raspy tone.

  I shook my head. “We don’t work with outsiders. Lessons learned from years of broken trusts.”

  He glanced at me, this time his expression clear with no eye-narrowing. “I have information you need.”

  “I don’t make it a habit of owing anyone anything. Like I said, we have feelers out all over the city. My crew will have the necessary information once I get back. We part ways on a rooftop. If you get to Tandor first, great. If we do, fine. Either way, the threat will be eradicated and we all go back to normal.”

  Once I was within three blocks of my destination, I eased off the street, gliding over the remains of several buildings. The Middle was located between two swaths where buildings had been razed. The people here knew me and begrudgingly allowed me entrance into Bender’s sanctioned area, but not much else.

  As I lowered Seven onto the building, Case warned, his voice abrasive, “You’re making a mistake.”

  I engaged the landing gear and set her down cleanly. “Then that’s my mistake to make.” I popped the door, leaving her idling. “You have about two minutes to get this craft off this roof before the occupant of this building is up here with a laser that puts my Gem to shame.” I climbed out, turning at the last minute to reach down under the dash, ignoring Case’s massive thighs, which were now in my face as he made his way over the console, and peeled off my jammer, flipping it in my hand. It was no bigger than the size of a fingernail. Backing away, I rolled it between my index finger and thumb, showing it to him. “Hope you don’t mind, but I jammed your radio and video feed, along with your recorder.” I winked, saluting him with three fingers, grinning at his furious expression. “Have a good day.”

  Behind me, the door to the roof behind banged opened, as expected.

  I was already moving, jogging toward the edge of the building as Case took my words to heart and hoisted Seven into the air, a rush of wind billowing at my heels.

  A moment later, I leaped onto Bender’s roof, straining with all my might to close the gap. I somersaulted as I landed and was up and running toward safety a moment later. Luckily, the laser fire coming from the next roof wasn’t aimed at me. Instead, it was pointed at the craft speeding away, an angry voice calling, “Don’t come back here! You’re not welcome!”

  I chortled as I slid to a stop in front of the barricade. “How do you like me now, Case?” I directed my light laser into the appropriate pin hole. I was in front of the door before it fully engaged, then inside, slamming it closed as shouts from the angry neighbor continued to erupt from the other roof, even though Case was long gone.

  Bender was waiting for me at the bottom of the staircase. That was unusual, but what wasn’t these days? His face was grim.

  I hurried down the last flight, taking the steps three at a time. “What is it?”

  “They have Darby.” He dropped his arms and stalked inside.

  I hurried after. “Tandor? We’ll track him down and get Darby back—”

  “The government.”

  I lost my footing for a moment and stumbled before righting myself. Yanking off my helmet, I tossed it carelessly onto a table as we entered Bender’s workroom. “The government? Why would they want Darby?”

  He walked to his stool and sat, crossing his arms, his muscles bulging. “You tell me.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I stopped in front of him, legs splayed. I was up for a fight, if that’s what he wanted.

  “He was involved in something illegal.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly classify it as illegal,” I countered. “And I only found out a day and a half ago. He believed he was helping, doing something good, and Tandor and his assholes double-crossed him. But none of that had anything to do with the government, as far as I know.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” His voice held accusation, but I knew he was stressed. So was I.

  I ran a hand through my hair, my gloves catching on the wet strands. I peeled them off and tossed them down as I began to pace. This was going to be a long discussion. “We don’t share everything with each other for good reasons. The less people know, the better. You were the first one to teach me that.” I gazed at him pointedly as I circled around a worktable. “Darby confided in me that the reason he was in the canals the other night was because he’d met someone who believed they were on to a cure for Plush
. Darby seemed to think whatever they were doing was working and that maybe the effects of the drug could be reversed—seekers possibly healed. I just found out on the ride back here that Tandor set it all up, duping Darby. And of course, that was the first thing I was going to share with you when I arrived.” Bender’s dark eyes scrutinized, flicking over me like he wasn’t sure what to believe. I kicked the chair in front of me, making it skitter along the floor, bouncing off a pillar before it came to a clattering stop. “What? You think I’m lying? You think I’d turn on you? What the hell? I got hijacked in Port Station, found out the kid was a mole, and almost died being tossed out a two-story window. After all that, here I am, back here as soon as I possibly could be.”

  Lockland strode in through an open doorway across the room, holding a cup of steaming liquid, likely amino tea. “Nobody thinks you’re lying. Calm down. We heard what happened last night, and all this shit is too sudden. Everyone’s on edge. We should’ve had more warning that something this big was going on.” He slid a chair over and sat as I began to pace. “Tell us what happened. From the beginning. We’ll figure it out.”

  “Fine.” I glared in Bender’s direction. “But once I’m done, we waste no time going after Tandor. It’s more than just a slavery ring. This guy wants control of the city. He’s here for a takeover.”

  “We know that already,” Bender replied, this time with a modicum of compassion rather than disdain. “A guard in Port Station took down one of his guys last night. Got him to talk before he took him out. It looks like Tandor is definitely planning a coup.”

  Lockland shook his head. “How the fuck didn’t we know about this? It was right under our noses. I run the security in this operation. This is on me.”

  “No, it’s on all of us,” I countered, leaning back against a pillar, crossing my arms. “We didn’t know, because this guy figured out how we operate and considers us a major threat. He took his time, came into town quietly, stayed under the radar, and targeted us directly. Starting with Darby, and then the kid.” I ran both my hands through my hair, refraining from grabbing on and yanking it out in my frustration, lifting off the pillar and turning in a circle. “They somehow knew I would take the kid. I don’t know how they knew, since I didn’t even know until the last minute.” I met Bender’s steely gaze, then Lockland’s inquiring one. “The kid was wearing a tracer. The only thing that kept them from tracking me directly to my place was that I made Daze wear a helmet. It must have knocked the fucking thing off.” I braced my hands against the cold graphene wall, bowing my head. “That and Case.”

  “Who the hell is Case?” Bender growled.

  I dropped my hands and turned. “He’s an outskirt, likely militia. He’s the one who hijacked me and tossed me out the window. The asshole knows a lot we don’t, but he told me enough.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “He let you fly his Q7?” Lockland’s voice held skepticism. I’d just finished laying out the story, along with everything Case had told me during our brief time together.

  “Not only let me,” I said. “He offered. I agreed, but only if he wore a blindfold.”

  “Teflon was a nice choice,” Bender snorted. “Did he know you had a jammer?”

  “Hell no. I was stealthy about it.” I dug the thing out of my pocket, grinning. “I had the pleasure of showing him as I pried it out from under his dash.” I held it up like the prize it was.

  Lockland stopped pacing, which he’d taken up as I’d let the story unfold. “These guys know too much about us.” He glanced from me to Bender. “This means we have to go deep undercover until we eliminate the threat, effective once we’re done here.”

  I sat, slumping forward in my chair. “This is all my fault, and because of it, everything I’ve worked so hard for all these years is going to go up like a fucking hydro-bomb.” I glanced up at Lockland. “I took Daze in and led him and Darby back to my private residence. I have things there that would sentence me to an acid bath every day for a month. Shit, you guys don’t even know about it.” I held up my hand. “And don’t ask, because I’m not sharing. Not to mention poor Darby. He is the most innocent among us—besides possibly Claire—striving to be a decent human every single day of his life. Who knows what they’re going to do with him now? He could be dead already.”

  “He’s not dead. The government will hold him for a while, but they won’t kill him. They have nothing on him.” Lockland stopped in front of a shelving unit full of containers of vaporized fuel, looking pensive. We were all on edge.

  Bender drummed his fists on the worktable before swiping his arm across it, sending the contents flying. “This guy is going down.”

  “That, he is,” I agreed, standing. “Then, once he’s out of the way, we get Darby back. Whatever it takes.”

  “Holly, it might be better if you stayed out of sight while we handle this Tandor ourselves,” Lockland declared.

  “What? You can’t be serious.” I readied for a fight. “I brought this insanity to our doorstep by taking the kid. I was the one who let my guard down. It won’t happen again, but you’re not pushing me out. I’m in this to the end.”

  “It has nothing to do with pushing you out.” Lockland sighed. “You’re a liability now. You’re number one on this guy’s radar. And if they you find you, they’ll kill you, no negotiation, no trades. It’s like the outskirt said—if you go after Tandor, you’re playing right into his agenda. He probably won’t rise up until you’re gone, and we need to stave that off for as long as possible.”

  “Bullshit,” I huffed. “And don’t quote this outskirt back to me. If Tandor knows about me, he knows about the two of you.” I waggled two fingers between them, my eyes following. “He’s targeting us as a group, not just me.” We were well known in the city.

  “I agree,” Bender said. “He went after her first because he knew she would take the kid. Neither of us would’ve done that. It was an easy way to infiltrate without making waves. If it hadn’t worked, he would’ve tried something else.”

  I rolled my eyes upward, praying for patience. “You took me in, remember?” My head did a full bob in Bender’s direction. It was hard to believe I had to remind him. “You’re not immune to a street kid’s plight. All you had to do was look into my misty green nine-year-old eyes, and you buckled like a carbon-tube trash bin. I admit it, I had a moment of weakness. I can promise you, it won’t happen again. My gut isn’t usually wrong, but in this case, it was. I put us in jeopardy. I apologize. But I’m not heading out of the game, and I refuse to run. I don’t mind going under deep cover. We can achieve a lot from there. But I’m not leaving this city. I stay and fight right along next to you.”

  “Fine, you stay. But we’re all going deep under cover,” Lockland said. “And when I say deep under, I mean literally. We’re going underground.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered. “I hate it down there.”

  “Too bad. That’s where we need to be,” Lockland replied. “I’ve already started hauling my equipment down. I’ll be set up in three hours. Holly, you take the space farthest south. Bender, you take The North. I’ll stay central.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew two small tech phones. They were jet-black and had only one dial. “These are modified with a voice scramble. We go by Grace, Sean”—he nodded at Bender—“and Alex. Use them sparingly. They are super-low-frequency magnetic, so underground won’t be an issue, and they’re channel specific. I’ve got feelers out, so we should have intel about Tandor’s whereabouts soon. We begin operations after blackout.”

  “Before I go under,” Bender said, “I’ll hit the skells and ask around.” Before Lockland or I could object, he held up a fist. “Nobody’s gonna take me down in plain sight. I’ll slip underground after that.”

  “What about weapons?” I asked. “Case mentioned something about needing a cache of hydro-bombs to take them out. My guess is whoever this Tandor is, he’s heavily armored with lots of back up.”

  “You couldn’t get more out of th
is guy?” Bender asked, settling back on his stool with a jug of brown liquid in his lap.

  “I could’ve, if I’d wanted to owe him. I didn’t.”

  “Tell me more about this place by the sea,” Lockland said. “Is it somewhere we can penetrate?”

  I shook my head. “The door in had a rolling code, and I’m pretty sure if we got it wrong, it would blow. There were likely other security measures inside, but I was hopped up on adrenaline and not thinking straight, so I didn’t look. It’s too risky.”

  Lockland nodded. He’d expected an equivalent answer. “If this guy is militia, it has to be protected.”

  “Hell, if this guy’s an outskirt, it’s triple bugged,” Bender said, taking a swig of aminos. Bender burned a lot of calories in a day.

  I made my way to the cooling unit. I should’ve taken some of the dry-ionized food from the bunker with me. Taking out two protein cakes, I rested my ass on the counter behind me as I ate them. I was having a hard time redirecting my brain away from the fact that I was about to lose my residence to the government if Darby talked—if I hadn’t already. With everything confiscated, I’d be back at square one around here, living like a pauper—that is, if I wasn’t arrested and doused with acid for all my illegal activities.

  “What about the kid?” Bender asked.

  I looked up, startled at his tone. He sounded worried. “What about him? He betrayed us, and he’s back where he belongs.”

  “From what you told us, he had no choice. They were going to kill him and his friend.”

  I shoved away from the counter, clapping the protein cake crumbs off my fingers, my throat dry. “He had a choice when he got into my craft. Then he had a choice when he woke up fed, clean, and rested. Then he had a choice when he stood in this very room and drew us a map so we could create a plan—one that was going to lead to my goddamn death.” My tone was fierce. “Scratch that, to all our deaths, including everyone in the city, except for the asshole zealot and his crew. Those were his choices, and he failed every single one of them.”