“Because of your father,” CK explained in a pitying tone.

  “What do you know about my father?” Desperation filled her voice.

  She wanted to tell CK he couldn’t have known, but she’d come to this planet because Abigail had found evidence of information about her father at the off-site facility, the same one she needed CK’s help getting into. This all couldn’t have been a coincidence.

  “I can smell him in your blood,” CK answered. “There were never female samples at the facility. That means you’re a daughter of one of the male samples.”

  “What are you talking about? Samples?”

  “What was his designation?” CK asked.

  “Emery,” she replied.

  “No.” CK shook his head. “His designation, not his name.”

  “I…don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mia admitted. “How do you know all of this? You have to tell me. I came here because of my father. I was trying to learn things about him.”

  “I was brought in as a boy,” CK began. “A stupid volunteer, a blind patriotic fool who was told he’d be made strong to protect the KCAP. But I was too old, already halfway to adulthood, too polluted, they said.” He growled and gestured to himself. “They succeeded, but not in the way they wanted. I was too much, too different. They needed someone fresher, younger, untainted, someone who wouldn’t become a monster.”

  Mia swallowed and nodded. She’d already figured out that CK was the result of genetic experiments, but hearing him explain the details chilled her in a way the wind didn’t. Someone had taken a living person and turned him into a monster.

  “If you were part of their experiments, they wouldn’t have just let you go,” Mia interjected. “You escaped. When did you escape?”

  CK cocked his head. “Time is tricky when your life is nothing but cold and hunger. Days bleed into each other. Months? Years? Decades?”

  “Decades?” Mia repeated in a whisper. “You escaped decades ago? Is that what you’re saying?”

  CK gave a low grunt of acknowledgment but didn’t answer for a long time. “Half a century?” He shrugged. Wonder in his voice highlighted his next words. “But your father must have been one of the subsequent batches. I left before any of the first had finished puberty.”

  “I don’t understand how you could know my father if this is all true. The timeline doesn’t make sense.”

  “Because they didn’t use females for their samples after the first batch. They weren’t stable, only the males. I can smell the facility in your blood, which means your father was once there, even if I never knew him personally.”

  Mia stared at CK, unable to process everything she’d been told, though it answered lingering questions. She’d always known her father was special, different, and better. She’d never suspected he’d been the product of medical experimentation.

  She offered a shallow nod. “Okay, that’s the when. But how did you escape?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because if you can get out, there’s got to be a way to get in. I need answers about my father, more than you can give me. I need the truth, and that facility holds the truth.”

  CK shook his head. “Go back to your prison. Go back to your jailers. They will come for you eventually. You can’t hide what you are from them forever. They might already know. They will bring you to them, and you can ask them.”

  “I don’t know if I can wait that long,” Mia insisted. “My sentence is almost up. Once I leave, it’ll be hard to get back here without being noticed.”

  “Have they taken your blood already?”

  Mia nodded. “Sure, a few times.”

  “Then they already know. They only waited because of me.” CK growled. “They wanted to see what would happen. That’s how they are. They haven’t changed since the beginning.”

  Mia shook her head. “Going back now means I’ll be a prisoner, and if what you’re saying is right, then who knows what they’ll do to me? I might not be able to escape.”

  CK stared into the distance with a haunted look. “I thought all you wanted was answers. Is there something else you are looking for at the facility?”

  Mia thought over that long and hard before offering the truth. She had not faced what had been motivating her this entire time, something she wasn’t ready to admit to even Abigail. “Revenge. I want revenge on whoever took him from me. The truth will help me figure out who I need to punish.”

  “Revenge is different,” CK noted. “It’s harder, but not impossible.”

  “Then will you help me? From the sound of things, these people hurt you.”

  “Yes. You’re not the only one who wants revenge. Follow me.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After burying Flip, Mia and CK stomped through the snow and ice, a huge ogre and a deadly young woman. While she used her flashlight, Mia marveled that CK could move with such surety without light until she spotted a gleam in his eyes. He must have had lowlight vision among his other abilities.

  The revelations still left her uneasy. She’d assumed CK would be able to help her but never imagined he’d drop a truth about her father like a lightning bolt from the sky.

  The worst part was it felt so obvious once he told her. It was as if she always knew on some level and simply needed confirmation.

  Mia glanced over her shoulder. They’d put the site well behind them now, including Flip. She vowed that someday when she gained enough influence she’d track down the men who framed him and make them pay for their crimes. Flip hadn’t deserved to die in an avalanche on Black Ice. He hadn’t deserved to be sent there from the beginning.

  Dark emotions swirled to match the inky blackness around her. Mia shook her head. She needed to keep focused on her immediate mission. The future couldn’t come until the present was handled.

  “Where are we going?” She’d followed in silence, confident he wasn’t going to try to kill her. That didn’t mean she had to proceed in ignorance. Just because CK knew about the facility didn’t mean she couldn’t come up with a plan.

  “You need to warm up,” CK answered. “You don’t have my metabolism. After that, we can plan and wait for the sun to come back up. The only reason you’re not dead already is because of your father’s blood and where we fell.”

  Mia rubbed her hands together. She’d almost not noticed because of the gloves, but she’d lost feeling to her the tips of her fingers.

  She didn’t want to think about losing any digits or limbs to frostbite. Distraction had been the theme of the day, and she’d used it to help herself.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. “Because the inmates all call you CK, short for Cannibal King. No one I talked to said anything about you being able to talk, and so I assumed you didn’t give them that as your name.”

  He growled. “There’s truth in that name, but you can call me King.”

  “Okay, King. You can call me Mia if you want. It’ll make things easier. We’re going to be working together.”

  “We’ll see how easy this is,” King replied.

  They lapsed into silence, Mia thinking about how King’s speech had leveled out since their first conversation. His articulation had improved, and she no longer had any trouble making out what he was saying.

  His initial trouble speaking lent credence to his claims of wandering Ice for years if not decades. His only dealings with people were hostile encounters near and in the Black Ice area. He must not have felt any reason to speak.

  They trudged through the snow in the darkness until finding a cave. Stepping inside and around the corner freed Mia of the harsh touch of the frigid wind, and a surprising warmth clung to the air. Moss lined the walls.

  “More geothermal heat?” Mia suggested, looking around.

  “Even I have my limits,” King admitted. “Finding places like this has helped me survive as long as I have.”

  He lumbered inside and sat against a wall. The cave was empty except for small bone chips. Mia didn’t bother to ask about them. She didn’t know if she wanted the truth in that situation.

  King hadn’t denied the cannibal part of his prison-given nickname. She still didn’t know what to make of him. He was a man who’d been twisted by others until he wasn’t arguably human anymore. Maybe he didn’t consider what he did to be true cannibalism.

  Pushing that unpleasant thought out, Mia sat across from King. The aches from the entire day were catching up with her. Every muscle in her body hurt, muscles she barely knew she had. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so drained.

  Mia turned off her flashlight. The faint light of the stars offered a faint illumination, but only the barest outlines were visible. King’s size made him easy to make out even in the near blackness.

  “If you want to ask me anything,” he rumbled. “Do it now. We should rest soon otherwise.”

  Too tired to probe more into the questions concerning her father, Mia decided to satisfy her basic curiosity about her new traveling companion.

  “I don’t understand why you stay close to the prison. It’s dangerous. And you might be enhanced and tough, but you’re not invulnerable. The guards being afraid of you only means they’re more likely to use bigger guns or heavy explosives when they get a chance. If you’re right about how long you’ve been around here, then you had plenty of opportunities to escape. You could have walked to the other side of this planet far, far away from Black Ice or the medical facility.”

  King grunted. “And where would I go? Where could I go? My family was told I died during a medical procedure. They long since gave up on me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because the lab-coat demons made me agree to that when I volunteered.” He motioned to his face. “You see my appearance. I’m a creature, a beast. You talk about the guards and guns. Anywhere else I appeared, soldiers with the largest guns would come and try to put me down. Once I was changed into this, I was cursed to wander alone.” He shrugged. “There’s nothing left for me but here. My DNA has been altered. Even if I could find a living relative, no one would know it was me.”

  Mia’s hand skimmed the ground and found something hard and smooth. She ran her hand along it and realized it was a part of a femur. Her curiosity overtook her fear of offending her new ally. She needed to confirm a few things before she trusted him to help her infiltrate the facility. Not killing her when he had the chance was a good start, but it wasn’t enough.

  “They talk about you like you’re a supernatural creature in Black Ice,” she explained. “Many of them believe it. Ghost. Demon. God. All of those have been pinned on you.”

  King let out a low growl that resembled a laugh. “I’m stronger than most men. Tougher. I heal quicker. My senses are better. Other than my appearance, I am greater than all men. Is that not supernatural? The line is thin.”

  Mia nodded. “But you can get hurt. You have wounds all over.”

  “A girl attacked me, and then dropped an avalanche on me.”

  Mia chuckled. “A sense of a humor left?”

  “No. I only state the truth. Even these wounds prove my strength. Most others would have died. Even you, lucky girl, would have died if the rocks had fallen the same way.”

  “I can’t deny that.” Mia licked her lips. “Speaking of survival, I don’t see any animals around here, and I doubt you survived this long eating moss.”

  “Ask your question plainly, and I will answer it. But show me proper respect.” King shrugged. “I’ve long since given up on caring about my humanity.”

  “It’s true then,” Mia pressed. “You eat people. It’s not as part of a ritual or for intimidation.”

  “Yes,” King acknowledged. “I eat people. There aren’t other options. This planet is all but dead. That’s why it was chosen to host the prisons.” He sniffed at the air. “You asked why I stay close to the prison when it’s a danger. I do it because I know there will be prey here, and I know those prey aren’t innocents. The day you arrived, I killed that large man fighting the scavengers. I could see it on him, smell it on him. The murderous rage, the anger, the corruption. He was as much a monster as I am, even if he kept the mask of a man. I will not ask for your forgiveness, but I made this world a better place by killing him.”

  Mia pushed the femur piece away. It rattled to a stop. “I’m not going to try and pretend humanity isn’t better off without Richard Corigan. To be honest, I figured I’d have to kill him at some point. And I’m not going to try and convince you that most people in that place aren’t scum better off dead.” She shrugged. “I got buried in that avalanche because I was betrayed by people from the prison. But not all of them are like that. Flip, the man we buried, wasn’t like that. He was a good man who got screwed by powerful people. In a more just society, he would have never been in Black Ice, let alone forced into the dangers he faced.”

  King’s eyes reflected hints of dim starlight. “He did…smell different…when he was alive. He was rare. But I was hungry and angry when I went after him.” He picked up a stone and hurled it out of the cave. “And I didn’t kill him.”

  Mia sighed. “You’re right. He died to save me from the men who betrayed me. I want them to pay, but that’ll have to wait.”

  “It’s unfortunate that a man like that ended up in a place like that and died because of it.” King grunted. “Evil stays with man no matter how much he spreads among the stars. I won’t claim I’m not evil, but I’m evil who preys on evil.”

  “I don’t know if you can say the same about me,” Mia admitted. “You heard my mission. It’s not about making the KCAP a better place, but if killing bad people along the way accomplishes that, so be it.”

  King gave a shallow nod, and Mia let the conversation flow away, content to let the howls of wind outside fill the silence. For a creature that had turned to decades of cannibalism to support himself, CK held onto a surprising amount of his original humanity.

  Beyond her building obsession with revenge, Mia didn’t know how much she could judge him. Three weeks in Black Ice had turned her nearly feral. Decades in a frozen wasteland, alone with no options and no one to talk to, might have made her worse. She didn’t regret defending herself, even with lethal force.

  Mia didn’t speak again until a lull in the wind left an all-encompassing and smothering quiet. It was as if the silence taunted her and threatened to call back all her negative emotions and doubts.

  “What about me?” Mia asked.

  “What are you asking?” King prodded.

  “From what you’re saying, your enhanced senses let you know about people,” Mia stated. “I don’t know if I’ll like the answer, but what do I smell like?”

  “You’re not as far from them as you think, those killers in the prison,” King noted in a mournful tone. “But what I smell is the touch of those monsters in lab coats.”

  Mia shuddered. “Those at the facility?”

  “Yes. The men who should get your first taste of pain.” King shifted and closed his eyes. “But no more talking. Sleep now, Mia. Some things don’t come easy. You’ll need a good rest to get your revenge.”

  Mia squinted at the sunlight reflecting off the snow assaulting her eyes. They’d been trekking roughly over the mountainous terrain, fighting against the ice, snow, and wind, though this part of the area seemed less prone to active volcanic activity, making it more beautiful while also painfully bright.

  She hadn’t bothered asking King anything other than confirming their direction after their conversation in the cave. The broad strokes were clear, and he wouldn’t know any details about her father anyway. It wasn’t like King knew her father.

  Mia didn’t know how to process these new revelations. It didn’t change how she felt about her father, but it did make her think more about herself. Abigail had shown surprise at Mia’s capabilities. Now they made sense.

  She was the child of a super-soldier. A second-generation super-soldier.

  That also made Mia wonder if Abigail knew the truth about her father. Mia wanted to believe Abigail wouldn’t keep something like that to herself, and Abigail wouldn’t have been so surprised at Mia’s abilities if she knew. On the other hand, it was hard to ignore that Abigail had pointed Mia at the specific medical facility on Ice where her father had been changed and that she’d kept the details of some of her government connections and past secret.

  It wasn’t that Mia thought she was owed every detail of Abigail’s past. But Abigail was one of the few people who understood how much Mia wanted the truth. Any crumb would help.

  For the moment, it didn’t matter. Mia had already learned a major part of the truth by staying the course. The mission would continue. The fallout and debriefings could wait until after extraction. Then she could follow up and figure out how to translate her presence in Top Gun into a career and influence.

  As the landscape features blended, Mia’s body operated on autopilot until she climbed over a ridge, following King, and he motioned her down. She stopped and blinked.

  Below them stood a massive stony wall running across a section of the mountain. The mountainside itself was almost a sheer drop, with a smattering of small rock outcroppings and protrusions winding down to the wall. A twisting rail line ran out of a dark tunnel.

  Mia narrowed her eyes. “There were rumors about a train at the prison. I wasn’t sure if I should believe them.”

  “Does it matter now?”

  Mia shrugged. “It must be underground. You’re right. There’s no way I could have gotten access.”

  “Blood calls to blood. Our meeting was inevitable, as was me helping you.” King pointed to a shallow rock shelf poking out not far above the tunnel. “We need to move there.” He gestured to the sun. “We don’t have long now.”

  “We don’t have long until what?” Mia regretted not pressing him for operational details on their trip over. She didn’t think they’d show up and move right into the action.