Three trucks broke through the far trees. Two stayed on the bank. One rolled its grill into the flood until the bow wave foamed.

The bank trucks had those long stick nooses spread between four men. The water truck carried a cage. The things inside hit the bars until the bed shook.

Sera didn’t change her speed; it was the worst thing you could do on roads made of pure ice.

Keeping her hands relaxed on the steering wheel, she stared forward and continued to drive.

"Do not swerve," Alexei told both cabs. "The lane is tuned for weight. Slalom and you drown."

"Copy," Elias answered for both.

The Cartel handlers who had been following them, got out of their vehicles for a moment and jabbed their poles into the water and tried to fish nothing.

One snared a stupid zombie by the neck and fought to keep the pole.

The zombie clawed water and air and almost pulled the men in.

Lining up his shot, Elias pulled the trigger and the bullet entered through the ear. The handlers yelled out in surprise, but it changed nothing.

The water truck pushed deeper. Its driver thought throttle beat physics. The tires hit the edge of Alexei’s plate, then slid.

The truck sank to the hubs. The cage full of stupid zombies rattled. And a chorus of hungry throats rose and frayed across the floodplain.

"Do we want the truck?" Elias asked, eyes already on the angles for a pull-out.

"We want life," Alexei replied. "That truck doesn’t have it."

A barrel swung on the far treeline, a long tube, welded cradle.

It wasn’t clean and definitely not new. It belched a slow, ugly anti-vehicle round.

Alexei brought his left hand up and set a tilted sheet in the air. The lump hit the ice shield and skipped like a flat stone. It plopped into the flood and hissed out.

"Tickets later," Lachlan cheered. "Focus now."

"Right two degrees," Elias said, voice level. "Deep channel ahead."

Alexei angled his palms. The lane obeyed. His fingers cramped. He shook them once and kept laying cold.

A bald cypress knee rose under the plate of ice and pushed it up.

The pitch changed.

He slid a wedge down and split the pressure. Sera’s front tire skimmed it with an inch to spare. He exhaled slow and pretended it had never been close.

Two more of the trucks on the bank moved south to cut them off at the exit. The water truck in the lane bogged and slewed. Men yelled. The cage screamed.

"Thirty yards to dirt," Elias called. "Prepare to climb."

"Ready," Zubair answered. Heat thickened around his forearms.

Alexei pulled the last run of cold and packed it deep. He built a small ramp at the lip where water met mud so tires wouldn’t slam a hard step. He felt the drain in his shoulders and ignored it.

Sera hit the ramp clean and rolled onto mud. Water sheeted off the chassis. She kept the throttle steady and climbed the last bit without spinning.

The plate broke behind her with a soft crack and a long sigh.

Zubair followed not far behind.

The ice flexed harder.

Alexei shoved cold under his front axle again and held it one more breath. The rear slid a hand’s width right; Zubair corrected without a thought.

He came up onto the shoulder and planted it.

The bank trucks lunged to close the hole.

Zubair lifted his hand and washed heat across both windscreens.

White fog bloomed, then black cracks spidered from the edges. Both drivers blinked and saw nothing.

Lachlan put rounds into a radiator and a front tire.

One truck buried its nose.

The second swung poles wild and caught nothing but air. Sera’s grill hopped the sticks because the ice rib under her lip was still there for one beat more. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

The Cartel handlers learned about leverage the hard way and went down swearing.

Alexei kept his focus on the last ten yards under Zubair’s back tires. He held the plate up until the rubber cleared and then let it go. The ice sagged and went back to water.

"Hard right onto the levee," Elias ordered. "Now."

Sera turned up onto the raised strip ahead. Zubair followed with mud slapping the wells. Alexei swung his truck after them, felt the plate die behind him, and didn’t look back.

A crack and grind made him glance in the mirror anyway.

The third Cartel truck—the one stuck in the water—had tried to climb onto his lane from the side. The plate hadn’t been built for that angle.

A slab split. A little wake ran out and came back. The truck’s front tire slid off and dropped. The cage slammed into the bed wall. Water surged over the tailgate.

Alexei lifted his hands again and threw the last of his cold at the fracture line. The plate held for a beat, just long enough for Zubair to catch Sera’s bumper on the levee and for Alexei’s rear tires to hit dry dirt and then the reflected wave hit the truck’s grill and sent a shock through the sheet.

The ice cracked, folded, and the stuck rig went nose-down with a slow, final groan. Men shouted and splashed. The cage filled and tilted. Teeth screamed. Then the water swallowed the noise.

"Eyes forward," Elias warned. "Two more trucks on the levee a quarter mile south. They’ll try to box the top."

"Let them try," Zubair growled.

Alexei flexed numb fingers on the wheel and drove. The levee ran straight between open water and drowned fields. The wind blew cross. The trucks hummed in a tight line.

He set a thin frost on the tire tops, then let it melt. Water and ice was always a dangerous combination.

A cut opened in the levee where the flood had chewed a bite last season. The dirt was soft there. Axel-deep ruts ran crooked. Sera took the better side without asking. Zubair lifted his hand and let a thumbprint of heat firm the mud for Alexei’s front axle. The third truck’s weight hit the spot and didn’t sink.

"Two pickups ahead," Elias called. "Light armor. Long sticks again. One heavy on a tripod. They trained for this."

"Do we overrun," Lachlan asked, "or would you like me to go say hello with my inside voice?"

"Both," Sera answered, her voice calm as a bright smile appeared on her face. "Why settle for one when you can have all the fun?"