Rebel, Brave and Brutal (Winter, White and Wicked #2) by Shannon Dittemore

Author:Shannon Dittemore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2023-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Winter is a frenetic fall of rain through the night. She’s noisy and Kyn’s pain is noisy and the Shiv voices are chewing at the edge of the storm, and I consider opening a conversation with Winter just to burn it all away. But Mars is too close. He’d know.

Sunrise adds nothing to the scenery but a gray blur. I nap on and off, my temple pressed against the cool glass, Kyn steering us straight and true across the ice.

“Want me to drive?” I ask.

“Nah. I’m good.”

“We share feelings, you know? I don’t think you’re good.”

He keeps his eyes on the road, tugs the zipper on his vest all the way to the top. “Bumps and bruises that’s all. I’m fine.”

“You’re a horrible liar.”

Now he looks at me, flashes that smile. “I’m way better than you are, snowflake.”

High Pass rises before us now, slabs of rock visible on the lower slopes where the snow has softened and slid away. I’m counting the hours until we reach the western shore, when the rev of an engine catches my attention.

It’s not a sound I’m familiar with, certainly not Sayth’s rig nor the Paradyian war machine. I drop my window down and a gust of rain barrels in, a protest rising from the cab. I ignore them, adjusting the side mirror until . . .

“Ah, flux.” A snow-white pickup almost identical to Jymy Leff’s. With a heavy-duty gun glaring at us from the roof.

I stretch for the radio overhead.

“What is it?” Kyn asks.

“Rangers,” I say into the mouthpiece. “Coming up on our right.”

Kyn leans closer, checking my mirror. I replace the handset and pull on my gloves.

The speaker crackles overhead, Felyx’s voice breaking through. “Two more rigs blazing toward us, boss. Heading up from the south.”

Another crackle and it’s Tooki. “That’s the same squad we met last week.”

I snatch the mouthpiece. “Who you stole the bikes from?”

“I’m almost certain.”

“Almost certain?” I ask. “What does that mean?”

“That flatlander ride coming up behind you? I know it. The governor of the Stack, Minshew Kapps? That’s his son’s car. Rich Majority brat. I’m guessing the Rangers commandeered it. Wouldn’t want to be them when Kapps finds out.”

He’s talking about a steely gray rig pushing to the right side of the Dragon. I watch it in the side mirror. No bed, the back tires sitting taller than the front so that it looks pitched forward on its toes, and a flashy grill guard that’s more show than utility.

I shoot Kyn a glance and swing my feet into the seat. “Keep her steady.”

“Sylvi,” Lenore says, “You can’t possibly—”

“She can, Miss Trestman, and she must.” Mars unlocks the overhead hatch and gives me a curt nod. “See you outside.”

He flings the hatch open and shoots skyward. The hatch door swings shut, and I cringe remembering how the frame shattered not so long ago. But the new latch catches, and out the windshield Mars spins into view, a storm pushed before him, smacking the flatlander ride hard on its driver’s side, sending it tumbling across the ice.

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