Read Frozen: Heart of Dread, Book One for Free Online Page A

didn’t complain. He clapped Wes on the shoulder. “You can do this in your sleep. We’ve run that play a hundred times. What happened?”
    Wes sighed. “I told you, I felt the eyes on us. I spooked.”
    He didn’t want to tell them the truth, didn’t even want to admit it to himself.
    What
had
happened?
    The blackjack dealer was beautiful, with long dark hair and luminous, fair skin. She had none of that bronzed hardness that was so popular now among the New Veg snow bunnies, with their dark-orange tans and bleached hair, a desperate attempt to look as if one could afford to travel to the enclosed cities where an artificial sun provided heat and light.
    But it wasn’t that she was pretty. It was that she was on to him.
    Right at the moment, right when his hand was hovering over the platinum chips to take them away, she had caught his eye and stopped him with a look that said,
Don’t even think about it.
    She hadn’t been fooled by his theatrical heroics or distracted by his flirtatious banter. Not for a second. She
knew
what they were doing. What
he
was doing. That he was a fraud, and no hero.
    Wes had backed off, startled. The moment was lost, and when he looked down the chips had disappeared. She must have put them back on the casino stack. It was cute how she tried to tip him, too, as if a few heat credits could make up for his loss.
    “Come on,” Daran said to his brother. “Let’s go see if we can do better with the play at the Apple,” he said. “I’ll play the hero this time, get it done
right,
” he said to Wes.
    “Can I come?” Farouk asked.
    “Sure—you can be lookout,” Daran said. “Shakes—you in? We might need you for muscle; they don’t know us as well at the Apple.”
    Shakes looked at Wes and sighed. “Nah, I’ll catch up with you guys later.”
    “Suit yourself,” Daran said.
    “You’re going to lose them if you can’t feed them,” Shakes said when the boys had left. “Then what? Without a crew we can’t run any type of play.”
    Wes nodded. They would have to leave the city, or join up again, something. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Then he wouldn’t have the luxury of turning down his assignments.
    “Something will come up,” Wes said. “Want to try our luck at the lines?” It was humbling, but they had to eat.
    “Yeah—why not,” Shakes grumped. They walked through the casino, past the food courts, a myriad of treats available but not to the likes of them. Noodle shops, crepe stands, chic cafés serving coffees and tea sandwiches, five-star gourmet restaurants where reservations had to be booked months in advance. There were floor-to-ceiling tanks, brimming with exotic fish domestically farmed in saltwater pools—pick one and they’d slice it into sashimi while you waited.
    Another restaurant boasted delicacies beyond imagination. Quail, pheasant, wild boar, everything organic, grass-fed, free-range. (
Where did they range?
Wes wondered. He’d heard that the heated enclosures were vast, but how vast could they be?) The tropical fruit display was the hardest to ignore. The colors alone made him stop and stare. He knew the bright reds and yellows were genetically modified for maximum saturation, but it was still a gorgeous sight. The fruit was stored under heavy glass, like diamonds of old, but the shops always left out a few trays to tease passersby with their flowery scent. They passed a chocolate shop selling handmade artisanal candy that cost more than the two of them put together (hired guns had nothing on small-batch truffles).
    The food line was about to close, but they made it there in time. As they sat down with their bowls of cheap gruel, Shakes’s pocket began to vibrate. He picked up his phone. “Valez,” he answered. “Uh-huh? Yeah? Okay, I’ll tell him.” He flipped it closed.
    “What was that all about?” Wes asked, slurping from his spoon and trying not to retch.
    Shakes grinned. “Looks like we got us a job. Some chick’s