Renegade Runner Nicole Conway (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

It took a few seconds of controlled breathing for me to collect my thoughts and decide. After all, for something like this to work, we needed to be on the same page. I settled a firm glare back on the map and nodded. “Okay.”

“You’re sure?” Phox blinked in surprise.

My hands curled into fists as I focused on that little wrinkle in the topography map—the entrance to the caverns. Our last hope for shaking Sienne and possibly even surviving this charade.

“Yeah,” I answered sharply. “Let’s do it.”

28

WINGWALKER

“Remember, if anything goes wrong, give three tugs on the cable,” Phox instructed as he roughly strapped one of his plasma pistols to my thigh. “Once I confirm the opening to the tunnel is wide enough for us to get through, I’m going to give you two tugs, and then you start the purging sequence.” He kept glancing back over his shoulder to the cockpit every few seconds, watching the storm. So far, everything was still on track. The eye crept ever closer. Not long now.

Standing by the door, Phox and I had already dressed out as best we could for what lay beyond the safety of our little runner craft. Our goggles would protect our eyes from the wind and grit, and a pair of rebreather masks from the emergency supplies would make it possible to breathe without sucking in nose and mouthfuls of sand and salt. Unfortunately, apart from our surface survival suits, there wasn’t much else we could use for this. He was bigger, stronger, and less likely to get batted around in the fierce winds, so that meant he had to do all the legwork … again.

“Got it,” I replied as I clipped the spooled-up cable from the belt on my waist to his, tethering us together again. “Try not to get struck by lightning, yeah?”

He snorted. “Yeah. Right.” Standing back, he gave me one final glance before sliding his protective goggles down over his eyes. “Ready?” Phox asked, his voice muffled by the sleek, black metallic mask that covered his nose and mouth.

Um. No. I hadn’t been ready for any of this from the first time I’d woken up in that miserable glass cube next to Enola. But there wasn’t any choice.

I steeled myself for the worst, set my jaw, and widened my stance. “Ready.”

Together, we glanced back at the radar one last time. I held my breath, my heart thumping wildly as the eye of the storm slid closer and closer until …

Eerie silence fell over the ship as the constant scream and howl of the winds died down to a faint murmur. The rushing whoosh of sand over the hull quieted some. Even the pop of lightning, like the report of gunfire or fireworks, had stopped.

Phox didn’t waste a second. He punched a timer on the control pad by the door before opening it, adjusting the dials so it would only open part of the way. The door shifted, sluggish at first, then slid ajar about three feet with a burst of hot air. I got a smack of powdery grit and sand right to the face that sent me rocking onto my heels. Gah! No! I had to get it together.

Braced in the gap of the partly-open door, I let out the spool of cord from the winch on my belt as Phox forged out into the gale. I tried ignoring the swirl of fear and uncertainty fluttering in the pit of my stomach as I watched his tall frame disappear into the swirling sandstorm. Suddenly, both our lives depended on this thin cable tethering us together.

Minutes crawled by as the cable unspooled from the small winch on my belt. Sometimes it paused, as though Phox were hesitating. Sometimes it coiled back in, like he might be backtracking. But I couldn’t see anything to know for sure.

Then it happened.

TUG. TUG.

Two firm yanks on the cable. He’d found the opening. Time to move.

Unfastening my belt, I quickly tied it around the same pipe I’d used previously when I, er, fell out of the ship. He could use that to guide himself back. Diving for the front of the ship, I scrambled into his seat and talked myself through all the instructions he’d given to start purging our engines of the sediment. “Right. Okay. I can do this,” I recalled aloud. “Turn the dials all the way up until the power cells are online, engines on low, venting fans high, make sure the thermo-regulation flaps are only partially open, and … go.” I pushed the flashing yellow holographic circle that appeared, dead center of his console. Behind me, the dull roar of the engines engaged.

All I could do now was wait. Wait—and pray Sienne didn’t hear us starting up. My mind was a screaming frenzy of worry as I sat, watching the minutes count down. Ten left. Then seven. Then four. What if she had the same idea we did? Or what if she decided to come out and use this opportunity to kill us now? What if she went after Phox while he was out there on his own?

That thought made something flicker to life deep in my chest—a heat like wildfire that set my pulse into overdrive. My hands curled into sweaty, shaking fists. If she did anything to him, I’d end her. It was as simple as that. Human or not, it didn’t make much difference. Nobody messed with that big, scruffy idiot.

Not on my watch.

I screamed and whirled around when he clambered through the door with a growling, shouting string of curses. Shaking his head and shoulders like a dog sent a shower of sand from his body all over the floor. “Shit. Augh. I hate sand,” Phox grumbled as he pulled his goggles down around his neck and squinted up at me. “We good?”

“Y-Yeah.” Except that his arrival had probably just shaved a few years off my lifespan. “Engines will be clear