The second round pinged off the hood and skittered into the ditch as the road dropped into brown water.

Alexei thumbed the radio to Sera’s channel and leaned back, his gun already out and on his lap as he continued to drive with one hand. "Shooter, left cottonwoods. Low branch, third trunk in. He’s trying for the radiator."

"Road goes under here," Elias answered from Zubair’s cab. Paper rustled near his mic. "We either turn around or swim."

"Neither," Alexei returned. He lifted one hand off the wheel and looked past the hood at the sheet of brown water swallowing asphalt. "We take the water on our terms."

Zubair eased half a lane right to break the angle from the trees. "Do it."

Sera didn’t slow. Her tires hit the first skin of water and threw fans to both sides. Luci’s head rose in the passenger window, ears forward.

A third round snapped bark off a fence post and fell flat. Lachlan turned, sighted through the slat in the bed rail, and put one clean shot into the low branches.

A body fell and hung up, then slid into the flood. No more rounds came from that tree.

Alexei took in a deep breath and then let it out. Instantly, the air over the plain was cooler.

It carried the heavy smell of river and mud. He closed his eyes for half a second and opened them into the work.

Lines and weights. Cold and flow.

The drowned road ran black under the brown. He lifted both hands and pulled the temperature down.

Frost spread from his palms in a thin fan and touched the water ahead of Sera’s grill. It skinned. It thickened. It set a plate as clear as glass, a hand thick, with the painted centerline visible under it.

Sera’s tires met it. The ice held. She didn’t so much as touch her brakes.

"Lane is live," Alexei said into the mic. "Stay centered. No sharp moves."

Elias leaned half out his window and fired twice toward the cottonwoods. A second man dropped. "Left quiet."

"For now," Alexei replied. He drew his hands outward and forward in slow, straight lines. More ice set down ahead of both trucks. The new surface flexed under the weight of multiple vehicles, then held.

He listened for hollows and fed strength where it groaned.

The floodplain opened wide. Two miles, maybe more. Fence posts walked into the water and vanished. A broken line of trees marked the far edge.

The drowned asphalt slid down and reappeared in angles, like a black ribbon under tea.

"Markers up ahead," Elias warned. "Mile posts barely above water. The centerline goes missing at a culvert about a hundred yards."

"I see it," Alexei said. He set a thicker spine across that dip and ribbed it lengthwise. He anchored it to the old roadbed with cold.

Thirty yards went easy.

Sera’s truck carved a wake under the clear plate.

Zubair’s tires settled into the same track a breath later. The ice worked—creak, sigh, settle—and stayed honest.

Alexei kept his hands moving and added where the sound thinned.

Movement sat on the edges. Stupid zombies clumped on hummocks and the tops of fence corners. Pure white eyes. Slack mouths. They watched the trucks and pulled back when the pack scent reached them.

One slipped off a stump and went under without committing.

"Expect a second nest on the far trees," Elias said. "The first shooter was a feeler."

"They will try again," Alexei agreed. He thickened the culvert run without showing it. "Brace for flex."

Sera’s tires hit the dip. The plate bowed for a second as water pushed up around the doors, then fell back. She didn’t twitch the wheel, driving in City H meant that you got used to water and ice. Normally both at the same time.

Luci put one paw on the dash and stayed calm.

Zubair’s bumper reached the same spot. The ice groaned deeper. Alexei slid cold under his front axle, then under the rear. The sound flattened. He allowed himself a small grin.

"Keep this up and I’ll start calling you Moses," Lachlan called from the bed. His hair whipped in the wind. "Moses with better cheekbones."

"Watch the banks," Alexei told him, dry. "And save the scripture."

The drowned guardrail tops showed ahead like crooked teeth. A car lay on its side just under the surface. A mirror broke water like a fin.

"Left ten feet," Alexei instructed, and traced a faint white dusting across the ice so Sera could see the arc. "Then straighten. Metal under there."

"Copy," Sera answered. Her truck eased over and came back clean. Her mirror caught Alexei’s glance for a beat. She kept her eyes on the work.

The convoy radio coughed static, then a bored voice that was trying too hard: "...two units at waterline. Crossing floodplain on footpath. Repeat, footpath. Dogs South to Mile Nine."

"Cartel chatter," Elias noted. "They think we’re walking."

"Let them," Alexei said. He lifted a low ridge of cold upwind of the lane, just enough to bend reflections. "Fog would help keep us invisible."

"On it," Zubair replied.

Heat rolled from Zubair’s wrists. Thin steam lifted and drifted. The trucks turned soft at the edges without losing sightlines. Sera drove into it like she’d been born in weather.

The ice took them past the first mile posts. The water deepened. A slow ripple moved at seven o’clock under the surface—large, curious.

Alexei slipped a cold plane down to meet it.

The ripple curved away.

"Two on the right bank," Elias called. "Rifles."

"I have them," Lachlan answered. Two calm shots later, two shapes slid into brown. No follow-up.

A cross-current hit the lane and tried to pry it sideways.

The wind put a little chop on the water. Alexei set ribs across the path like joists under a floor... or a new version of speed bumps.

Sera’s tires hit them and Zubair’s followed on the same beat. He pushed more strength under both trucks until the drowned yellow lines appeared again.

"Halfway there," Elias said. "We’re not alone."