What did that mean? Destiny had no clue, but neither Milo nor Dylan reacted, so she decided to keep quiet.
“We could steal the nukes,” Dylan suggested. “Take them with us. Might come in useful.”
Rico thought for a moment. “I’d rather get rid of them. Fuck. A brave new world. Maybe it’s time for humanity to bow out and let the rest of us have a go.”
Destiny considered the idea. It confused her. All her life, she’d been brought up believing humanity was something noble. That she had a role to play in their survival that was bigger than any individual could ever be. She’d been so sure. Now the doubts were building in her mind, coalescing into a solid mass of uncertainty.
She’d read quite a few novels now, and while she understood that they weren’t true, she also realized that they were a reflection of real life. And most of it wasn’t pretty and certainly wasn’t noble. Mainly the stories involved a few good people fighting against a much stronger force of bad people.
And Rico talked of them as if they weren’t part of humanity. Was that how Milo felt? Did he think of them all as some sort of Muggles? Lesser beings?
And more to the point—was he right?
Her head hurt.
She knew what nuclear weapons were. She’d read about them. They were evil. Indiscriminating. Rico was talking of using them, but he wasn’t the one who had brought them here to their new world.
Who was this Luther Kinross? He was obviously a bad man, an evil man. But that didn’t make the rest of them evil. All the people in cryo. The children. “We have to save them,” she said. “The people who haven’t done anything wrong. We have to save them from this man, Kinross.”
“No. We don’t.” That was Dylan. “Most of them are dickheads anyway. They bought their places. The richest people on Earth. Which makes them the biggest dickheads.”
“What about the children? They’re innocent. They haven’t had a chance yet. Maybe we could wake everyone up and give them a say. Everyone has a right to be heard.”
“Mierda,” Rico muttered. “Is she for real?”
Dylan grinned. “She had a sheltered upbringing.”
Destiny opened her mouth to argue more, but Milo spoke before she could get a word out.
“Okay,” he said, “we’ll check out the other shuttles and see whether commandeering one is an option. You work on an escape plan from your end in case that doesn’t pan out. And can you send us some information on nukes? How to disarm them—”
“How to set a timer,” Rico added, with a sly glance in her direction.
He was winding her up. Though she also knew that didn’t mean he wouldn’t blow up the whole planet with her still on it. She had a feeling that it wouldn’t even give him a sleepless night.
“Okay, so we know what we have to do. I’ll be in touch. He gave her a last glance. “Gracias, for saving his life.”
“De nada,” she murmured.
Then he was gone.
As the screen went blank, the tension seeped out of her. She tightened her grip on Milo’s shoulder for support as her body sagged and her legs went weak. She hadn’t realized how frightened she had been. Milo’s uncle was seriously scary. And intense. Milo was staring straight ahead at the blank screen. Was he contemplating blowing up everyone? Would he do it? Would he kill her?
Most of her thought…not. She believed he had some fondness for her. But there was a little part of her that whispered that she didn’t know him. He wasn’t even human. He was half demon. That thought made her wonder something.
“What is he?” she asked, waving a hand at the screen.
Dylan grinned. “Can’t you guess?”
Well, obviously he wasn’t human, or he wouldn’t speak of humanity with such disdain. She remembered the sharp, white fang. Dylan was a werewolf, but he didn’t have fangs when he was in human form. So, not a werewolf. She ran her mind over the other supernatural beings she had read about. In the stories. That were supposed to be made up.
“He’s a vampire, isn’t he?”
“Clever girl,” Dylan said.
She licked her lips. “Does he really drink human blood?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“Yeah, when he’s not drinking whiskey.”
Something occurred to her. “Well, he can’t kill all us humans or what’s he going to eat?”
Dylan laughed. “I’ll remember to point that out to him, next time we talk. I’m going to go find us some food now.