Riders

by Veronica Rossi

  I looked at my sister and struggled to find words. I’d been submerged in that consuming darkness and it still hadn’t fully left me. I was still kicking for the surface.

  “Your hand,” Anna said.

  I looked down. The knuckles of my right hand were already swollen and red. Pretty alarmingly. I had no idea how I was gripping the bat. The pain blared like a car alarm that wouldn’t stop but my injury was a second-level concern.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Anna shook her head. “I guess? More than you are. Who was that guy?”

  “Whose bat is this?”

  “What? It’s Taylor’s.”

  “I need to borrow it,” I said. Then I shot out of the apartment.

  I shouldn’t have pursued. I had a serious injury. And I’d just seen a person-monster. But the enemy was retreating and I just couldn’t let that shit go. I flew out of the complex and hit the sidewalk at a sprint. Anger roared inside me, clearing my thoughts and propelling me forward, but I slowed down as I reached the street.

  It was deserted. I didn’t see any college kids strolling around. Both the parking lot and the housing complex were dead quiet. All I heard were my running shoes scuffing the pavement and my lungs pumping oxygen.

  When I reached the edge of the parking lot, I stopped. There was something strange about how heavy the darkness seemed. How thick. The streetlamps curving down the hill were weak points of light, and I couldn’t even see the main road below. No sign of Samrael.

  Okay, Blake. Take a second.

  I set the bat down. My quads twitched. My right hand had developed its own heartbeat. Broken bones in there, I was sure. Nice. Added some fresh fractures to the list of things I had to deal with. I heard the squeal of cats fighting somewhere close. Because of me? Definitely possible.

  Now what?

  Anna would be worried. I should head back. But I was tempted to walk to the nearest psych clinic and turn myself in.

  What had I just seen?

  “Gideon.”

  I launched two feet off the blacktop.

  My Jeep. The voice had come from my Jeep, which was parked just down the street. Was that—?

  Yeah. It was. Standing on the driver’s seat, propped on the roll bar like she’d been there for a while, was the girl. Daryn.

  “How are you in my Jeep?” I asked, walking up. That was a mix of the two questions that fired off in my head.

  How do you know that’s my Jeep?

  What are you doing in the Jeep that’s mine that you shouldn’t know about?

  “It’s a Jeep.” She shrugged. “I just climbed in.” She dropped into the driver’s seat. “Come on, get in.”

  Sure. Get in. Right. But what were my options? Go back to my sister’s apartment to field questions I couldn’t answer? More hospitals?

  No way. It was an easy decision. Nothing made sense anyway. And I had a feeling this girl was my only shot at getting answers.

  I climbed into the passenger side, sliding the bat between the seat and the center console. “Hold on, I left my keys in my sister’s—”

  “It’s an old car, I’ve got it.” Daryn reached beneath the steering column for a couple of wires that hadn’t been there before. She twisted a piece of electrical tape over them, sealing them together, and the engine growled to life. Then she threw it into first, and we lurched into the street to the reek and shriek of burning rubber.

  CHAPTER 11

  She drove like she was trying to qualify for the Indy 500, pushing my Jeep past eighty—its top speed. And that was on the way to the freeway.

  My throat ached from Samrael’s grip. My hand hurt so much, it was making me nauseous. I couldn’t stop searching the night for three … monsters? Dozens of people had witnessed the fight I’d just been in. I knew I hadn’t imagined that part. But the way Samrael had transformed … that couldn’t be real.

  I looked at the cuff on my wrist. Was it responsible for everything? Or was I hallucinating because I’d sustained a brain injury from my fall?

  Unbelievable. My best-case scenario was hallucinations.

  Then there was Daryn, driving my Jeep at Mach 3 like it was nothing out of the ordinary, her hair whipping all over the place. Where did she fit into all this? The confrontation at Joy’s had obviously been about her. But why had she come there looking for me? Had she known I’d get into it with Samrael?

  After a couple of minutes, I couldn’t take my confusion anymore. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Daryn trapped her hair to the side. “Right now?”

  Fair question. An open-top Jeep doing eighty wasn’t the best location for a conversation. We had both shouted to be heard over the roar of the tires.

  “Just tell me one thing. Did you hot-wire my car?” I felt like an idiot right when I said it. Hot-wire sounded like such an old-timey term, like I should’ve been twirling my mustache or something. Did you circumvent my car’s ignition wouldn’t have sounded any better, and too late anyway.

  “Yes!” she shouted back. “That’s okay, right?”

  “Sure! It’s great!”

  She smiled at my sarcasm, which I didn’t love. My hand was broken. Possibly my head, too. Smiling needed to be banned for at least twenty-four hours.

  I pinned my gaze on the freeway and focused on relaxing. Relaxing and not fighting the pain. Breathe, Blake. I glanced down at the Pearl Jam cassette tape in the player. Just breathe, like Eddie Vedder.

  Being a passenger in my car was weird.

  Being a passenger in my life was weird, too.

  There were hardly any cars on the freeway. The rolling hills and dark fields around us had an eerie human quality. Like the earth had knees and shoulders.

  Time passed and we put some miles behind us. Ten, twenty. By around thirty my hand was still swollen but the pain had ratcheted back noticeably. Way more than it should’ve, but that was one mystery I wasn’t going to complain about. Had this same thing happened during my first days at Walter Reed? Pain leaving first, then accelerated healing? Had I failed to notice because I’d been hopped up on drugs?

  What was really getting old were all the questions piling up in my head. Would I ever get answers? When? Why was I making it worse by asking questions about my questions?

  We exited onto Highway 1, and the hills opened to blue fields on Daryn’s side, the slate-black Pacific on mine. The ocean worked its magic on me and calmed me down some, just seeing it and smelling it. All that churning life out there.

  A few minutes later Daryn slowed down, which surprised me. I’d started to think we were driving through the night. She pulled into a dirt lot with warning signs about no lifeguards being on duty and proceeding at your own peril. Appropriate.

  As the engine cooled down, I looked around. There were no other cars in the lot. Nothing to raise alarm that I could see. A hundred meters ahead of us, waves broke against the beach, a white line in the darkness. Fog was rolling in and the crash of the surf seemed strangely muffled. Just yesterday, before Jackson attacked me, I’d been watching the ocean at the end of my street. It felt like a week ago.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” I said.

  “Do you have any water?”

  “To drink?” I was so wrong-footed, and this girl only made it worse.

  “Yes, water to drink. I’m really thirsty.” She reached into the backseat, unzipping my duffel, which I’d brought back to my Jeep before Joy’s party.

  “Hold on a second.” I grabbed her arm. “You said you were going to explain.”

  She froze, so I froze.

  “Here’s a question,” she said, staring me down. “Would you like to let go of me, or should I claw your eyes out?”

  “Shit.” I let go of her. “I’m not going to hurt you. Why did you kidnap me if you’re scared of me?”

  “I didn’t kidnap you—you came willingly—and I’m not scared of you, either. Not the way you think.” She threw the door open and jumped out.

  I vaulted over
my side, rounded the Jeep, and found her leaning against the door. “Daryn, I didn’t mean to—” She was pressing her fingers into her temples like she’d just been hit with the world’s worst migraine. She looked like she needed a second. That was about as long as I could wait. “I really need some answers.”

  “I know you do.” Her hands came down. “I just can’t believe you don’t know anything.”

  “Believe it.”

  “How am I supposed to explain this to you?”

  “With words. That’d work for me. Faster than drawing pictures in the sand with a stick.”

  She shot me a look with legitimate stopping power. Then she crossed her arms, turning to the waves, so I took the opportunity to check her out.

  It was a calculated assessment for the most part. Pretty much. I was going for clues. Intel that would help me figure out how she fit into what was going on.

  What I figured out was that she was on the tall side, five-nine or so, only a few inches shorter than me, and strong. I could tell she was athletic. And pretty. Which I already knew. But reconfirmed. Pretty in a messy kind of way. Sort of camouflaged by tangled-up hair and beat-up clothes. By how still she stood—the opposite of fidgety—and by the intense look on her face, like she was daring you to make eye contact with her. I got the feeling that with a good ghillie suit and the right training, she’d have made a great sniper.

  A silver chain hung around her neck. The links were heavy, thick, and disappeared beneath her leather jacket. Daryn looked back at me right as I was looking at her, uh … her chestal region. Because of the chain, Cordero, I swear. But it must’ve seemed different to her. Probably it did.

  I expected her to lay into me for it, but she just gave me a super-slow-motion once over, from my running shoes all the way up to my eyes, totally up front about what I’d just done on the sly. “There’s no easy way to say this,” she said.

  “Fine. Then say it the hard way. Or the medium way. Just say it.”

  I was starting to break a little. My control was.

  “Okay.” She looked right into my eyes. “You’re War, Gideon. You are War.”

  I did a quick rewind and playback. “Say again?”

  “You’re War,” she repeated.

  It sounded the same the second time. “Going to war? Yeah, someday. When I deploy. I’m a soldier in the US Army.” I stopped there for a second because it was still new and it felt good, claiming it. “But I haven’t been to war yet.”

  “Okay.” Daryn nodded. She pushed her hair behind her ear. “That’s not what I meant but that does makes sense.”

  “No. It doesn’t. Nothing makes any sense and if this is your explanation, then it’s a really shitty explanation.”

  “Okay. All right. Gideon … you’re the second rider. You are War, the red horseman. From Revelation.”

  As she spoke, my heart squeezed like a fist inside my chest. It kept squeezing tighter and tighter. If heart cramps were possible, I had one.

  “None of this rings a bell?” she said. “None of this sounds familiar? You have to have seen some signs … something … haven’t you?”

  Every single gear in my mind was grinding and clattering, trying to keep up with what she was saying. I turned toward the ocean. Everything I’d seen over the past week, from my fall to Samrael’s monstrous face, was coming back to me. Revelation? I knew so little about it. What I knew, generally, was that it had always scared me. Wasn’t it about the end times? The Rapture? Plagues and fires?

  “Gideon, I know it’s a lot to take in, but—”

  “No,” I said, something snapping shut inside my brain. This was a dream. A nightmare. I was Gideon Blake in an alternate dimension. “No, it’s fine. I think I’m gettin’ it. I’m War. I’m one of the four horsemen, which means I have three buddies—help me out here. I forget who they are.”

  “Conquest, Famine, and Death.”

  A chill shot straight down my spine. I shook myself like a wet dog. “Right. Those guys. And we’re supposed to end the world or something?” I wanted no part of that.

  “No. You’re only a manifestation of War. You’ve been given some of the abilities of War, but for another purpose, to carry out a specific task.” She sighed. “I didn’t realize I was going to have to explain all of this. I would’ve thought it through better.”

  “Yeah, I’m really sorry you’re having to explain all of this to me. If I’m War, what does that make you, Peace? Because you’ve got some work to do.”

  “I’m not Peace,” she said simply, and waited for my next move.

  My next move was slamming my hands against the door of my Jeep. Stupid thing to do, but the anger and confusion had boiled over inside me and I’d erupted. I’d forgotten about my busted hand, but now I remembered. Now I felt sick, I remembered so well.

  Daryn jumped off the car. “Hey! Could you calm down?”

  “You just told me I’m War. When is war ever calm? Who are you, anyway? You show up in my life with a trio of psychopaths chasing you and this is how you’re explaining it? You know what? You’re crazy. This entire thing is—”

  She shoved me in the chest. The action surprised me. The ferocity in it.

  “Don’t ever call me crazy again,” she said, her voice low and shaky. She stood a moment longer, like she was going to say something else. But she didn’t.

  She backed away and made for the beach.

  It took me half an hour to move from that spot. A full thirty minutes before I went after her. When I found her, things between us didn’t really get any better.

  CHAPTER 12

  Cordero raises a hand.

  I stop and the pine room filters back to me as the beach fades away.

  It’s quiet in here. Cordero is legitimately gaping at me. Behind her, Texas and Beretta wear identical you-gotta-be-kidding-me expressions.

  “War?” Cordero says. “War, as in the embodiment of the concept?”

  “That’s me.” A chemical taste is seeping in my mouth from the drugs. I swallow, but it doesn’t go away. “In the flesh.”

  Texas catches a laugh in his throat and tries to cover it with some coughing. Beretta blinks fast a few times. I get the feeling he’s trying not to smack his partner.

  Cordero sends them a quick, annoyed glance. She looks back at me and sighs, absently scratching her knuckles. “War,” she says, more to herself than to me. Then she removes a cell phone from her blazer and checks it. “I have to step out, but I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Her eyes mouth curves. “Don’t move.”

  What do you know? She’s got a sense of humor.

  “So you piss people off? That it?” Texas says, once she’s gone. His voice is all easygoing drawl, but his posture is rigid and his blue eyes are intense.

  “Something like that.”

  A grin appears. Half of one. “I’m thinkin’ I got that superpower myself.”

  “Hey, kid. The necklace.” It’s Beretta now. Look at that. Cordero leaves and the vibe’s totally different. “The one the girl was wearing. It’s significant, isn’t it?”

  It’s an observant question. Impressive, even for a guy who’s probably trained to pick up stuff like that. But I’m not answering without Cordero here.

  He tries again. “What’s really going? ’Cause you? As one of the four horsemen?”

  That’s technically incorrect. I thought I was pretty clear about being an incarnation of War. But again. Not taking the bait. “You really want to be the guy that compromises this investigation?”

  Beretta snorts. “You mean this fairy tale? But I’ll hand it to you—you got a good imagination.”

  Texas tips his chin, already smiling at what he’s going to say. “There’s gonna be horses soon, right? I can’t wait. My family trains cuttin’ horses. Best in North Texas. I’m guessin’ they wouldn’t stack up to War’s horse.”

  “Probably not.”

  “I’d be disappointed otherwise.” He shifts his weight, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “Least tell us
what Death’s like. We’re dyin’ to know.”

  “Good one.” I’m actually starting to like the guy. He reminds me of Cory. “You could find out.”

  “Yeah, how’s that?” he asks.

  “You brought us in together from Norway. Marcus is right next door, isn’t he?”

  Texas shakes his head like nice try. He won’t give up any intel either. But even in his silence, I get the sense he’s met Marcus, and that Marcus made a lasting first impression. As he tends to.

  These guys aren’t supposed to be talking to me. Or maybe they were, and I failed to give them what they were after. Either way they go quiet, setting up in their positions again like drying concrete. Party’s over.

  I’m thirsty again. So thirsty my head’s starting to pound, but as long as my stomach doesn’t get involved, I’m good. My knees ache from sitting in this chair.

  Behind me the radiator goes on, giving yet another encore performance. Tink, tink, tink, tink. The warmth slowly comes up on my back. Hard worker, that heater. The bulb, on the other hand, is doing a flickering thing, showing some signs of fatigue. You’re losing, bulb.

  Weird that I was in Norway yesterday, probably. Now I’m wherever here is. I haven’t had time to think about Daryn much. Now I do.

  She’s gone.

  Just freakin’ deal, Blake. But was I really that easy to walk away from?

  The door opens and Cordero enters. She sits down, smoothing her hands along her suit. I’d forgotten about her perfume, but now it’s back. Like getting pelted by fashion magazines. Roses, oranges, lemons, fertilizer. I suppress a cough.

  “Gideon? Ready to pick back up?” Cordero says.

  I swallow. “Yes.”

  But she waits a moment longer, like she’s making sure she believes me. Her elbows settle on the desk and she weaves her fingers together. “You’d gone to find Daryn on the beach.”

  “Wait. I have some demands first.”

  “We had a deal. I already accepted your demands. You asked for Colonel Nellis. I’ll bring him to you as soon as we’re done. And you’ll be free to go.”