At first, she wasn't sure what she was looking at. Up ahead of her on the moonlit ground, shadowed by the surrounding pines and shrubbery, was a large, dark form. Luna and Harvard stood near it, alternately pacing and pausing to sniff at the motionless shape. The little terrier whined as Mira drifted closer.
"Come here, guys," she ordered the dogs, waiting as they both loped over. Her heart was hammering in her chest, beating a hundred miles an hour. Something was wrong here, really wrong. She glanced down as the dogs circled nervously at her feet. Their paws left dark stains in the snow around her boots.
Blood.
Mira screamed.
Hunter brought the young assassin into the back of the box truck and laid his motionless body on the floor. Corinne was beside him, holding her son's hand, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"His hands are so strong," she murmured. "My God ... I can't believe it's really him."
Hunter said nothing to spoil her moment, but he knew very well that the boy was far from safe yet. It had been a risk simply to remove him from the house. The UV collar around his neck would be programmed to allow only a certain distance from the assassin's cell without Dragos's permission. With the Minion dead on the front porch, the risk of the collar detonating was doubled.
As though the boy himself sensed the tenuousness of his situation, he began to rouse back to consciousness. He started struggling, his eyelids lifting wide. Corinne drew in her breath, her tension and worry spiking Hunter's pulse through their bond.
Hunter held the boy by the collar, his fingers wrapped around the thick black polymer. He gave a warning shake of his head. "You must be still. There is nowhere for you to go."
"Nathan, don't be frightened," Corinne soothed, her voice gentle and warm. "We're not here to hurt you."
The boy's gaze flicked between the two of them. Hunter suspected it was knowledge of the collar's purpose that kept the teenage assassin from risking escape, more so than the compassion Corinne offered. Nathan's nostrils flared as he panted under Hunter's hold, his face as untrusting as that of a trapped wild animal.
"We have to get rid of the collar if the boy stands any chance of leaving this place," he told Corinne. "Dragos may already be aware that his handler is dead. He could have sensors and communication devices planted all over the grounds."
"How can we remove the collar?" she asked, meeting his gaze with a stricken look. "I know what happens if it's tampered with. We can't possibly take a chance that it ..."
When she didn't seem able to finish the thought, Hunter told her gently, "We have to try something. If we don't, it could be only a matter of seconds before the collar detonates in my hand."
She glanced away from Hunter then, looking back down at her son. He was listening to every word they said, silent but absorbing all of his surroundings. Calculating his means and odds of escape, just the same as Hunter would be doing if he was the one trapped by a pair of strangers.
"We are here because we want to help you," Corinne told him. Her smile was sad, hopeful. "You may not remember me, but you are my son. I named you Nathan. It means 'gift of God.' That's what you were to me, from the moment I first laid eyes on you."
He stared at her for a long moment, blinking quickly, studying her face. Then his struggles began again, a careful twisting and bucking, testing Hunter's hold on the collar.
"I once wore one of these too," Hunter said, catching the wild gaze and holding it steady.
"I am a Hunter, like you. But I found my freedom. It can be yours too. But you have to trust us."
The boy went wild now, and Hunter had to wonder if it was his words that had terrified him so much - the mention of freedom, a concept both foreign and dangerous to their kind - even more than the threat of the collar.
In Nathan's struggles, the thick black ring of polymer and high technology knocked hard against the floor of the truck. As it did, a small red LED blinked on.
"What's that light mean?" Corinne asked, panic edging her voice. "Oh, God, Hunter ... we can't do this to him. You have to let him go ... before he hurts himself. Please, I'm begging you, let him go, Hunter."
A sudden flash of Mira's vision shot through his mind at Corinne's terrified words. He pushed it away and focused on the task at hand. "If we let him go, he is dead for certain. The detonator is active now. He can't run without setting it off."
And now that the LED was blinking, time was even more fleeting. He glanced around him, searching for a tool to use in removing the collar, even while he understood too well that tampering with the device would only hasten its explosion.
Then he remembered the cryogenic containers.
The liquid nitrogen.
"Stand up," he told Nathan. "Do it carefully."
Corinne gaped at him. "What are you doing? Hunter, tell me what you're thinking."
There was no time to explain. He walked the boy over to the tanks, his hand still wrapped around the lethal ring at his neck.
"Hunter, please don't hurt him," Corinne begged, a further confirmation that Mira's precognition could not be thwarted. "Can't you understand? I love him! He means everything to me!"
Hunter held fast to his conviction that he was doing the right thing - the only viable thing - to possibly save her child. With his free hand, he reached for the hose that connected the cryo container to the tank of liquid nitrogen that fed it. He yanked it loose. White fumes spewed from the severed hose.
"On your knees," he told the boy, firmly guiding him to the floor. "Take off your shirt. I want you to place it over your head like a hood, tucked between your skin and the collar."