Deacon

by Kit Rocha

  “Yeah.” Ivan glanced at him. “I guess that’s the point. All of the other Riders who were there are dead now. But we’re building houses for the royal guard and their families. They’re having kids and grandkids. Sometimes they still have to take lives, but not as often, and they can serve long enough to wipe their souls clean. Maybe that’s because the Riders stop trouble now before it can reach the royal family.”

  The explanation might have appeased someone else. But Ivan’s words echoed in Deacon’s mind--we’re all damned anyway--and he knew the truth. The house and its happy ending were foreign to Ivan. He’d never settle for being a Rios guard these days because too few of them had to make that ultimate sacrifice, so he would live his doomed life as a Rider instead.

  “You don’t have to die to serve the royal family. Shouldn’t have to, in a perfect world.” Deacon hesitated. “It’s not too late. I’m sure Gideon would transfer you--”

  Ivan gave him a slashing look before turning back to the house. “I’m a Rider. I have too many ravens to be anything else. I’ll serve the Rios family until my last breath.”

  Deacon studied Ivan’s arm, where those ravens surrounded the Riders’ tattoo. There were a few dozen--an accounting of maybe forty deaths etched onto his skin. The civil war between the sectors and Eden had left a heavy mark on him, just as it had on others.

  Gideon could forgive that blood debt with a single word. For a time, Deacon had wondered, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, why he didn’t do it. Surely his people didn’t deserve to be damned to hell for necessary evils. Slowly, he’d figured out the truth--Ivan wasn’t an anomaly. He was the rule rather than an exception. He felt he deserved this damnation, and nothing and no one would dissuade him.

  Not even Gideon Rios.

  Certainly not Deacon.

  Sighing, he rose from his shadowed spot. “You’ll have to indulge me in hoping that last breath is far in the future, Ivan. We need you.”

  “I’m in no rush to die,” Ivan replied, picking up his hammer again. “Tell Ana not to worry about me so much. Maybe she’ll actually listen to you.”

  Ana would listen to him, but sometimes he imagined it was only so that she would know where and how to take him down, like the way you carefully studied an opponent’s moves before a fight. “I don’t tell Ana what to do. I know better.”

  Ivan quirked an eyebrow. “You’ve never had any problem telling the rest of us what to do.”

  “That’s different. That’s business.”

  “Oh.”

  A single syllable, but loaded with such innuendo that Deacon punched him on the shoulder. “Handing out orders is business. Telling someone how to feel--or what to worry about--isn’t.”

  “If you say so.” Ivan scooped up a handful of nails. “I never had a sister, but Ana’s been close. I know she worries about me, you all do. You think I’ve got a death wish.” Ivan placed a nail and swung the hammer, raising his voice to be audible over its steady thump. “I’m not eager for death, I’m just not scared of it. But she is. Ana’s scared shitless that she’s going to fall before she fixes the world. So maybe you can’t tell her not to worry, but someone needs to. I know she seems tough, but no one can carry the load she’s set for herself forever.”

  Deacon had no idea Ivan could bring himself to say so many words at once without taking a break to grunt and glare. “She’s not the only one who worries about you, and you’re not the only one who worries about her. But all of the Riders are headstrong, and it’s not always easy to change your minds.”

  Ivan merely snorted as he placed another nail, as if he’d used up all his words. Hell, he probably had, so Deacon lapsed into silence as well. It was a companionable sort of quiet, broken only by the sounds of hammers and murmured instructions. Neither of them was any happier with the job at hand, but now they could do it comfortably, without the specter of unanswered questions looming between them, dark and damning.

  Chapter Eight

  Ana still had a mouthful of bobby pins and her hair half-secured into a topknot when Hunter arrived with a look in his eyes that sent excitement soaring through her.

  The intel had come in that morning--a whisper passed through one of her dad’s old contacts--but it came from a trader who plied his wares on either side of the border between Sectors One and Two, and she’d already known what Hunter was going to say when she brought it to him.

  Before they could deploy into another sector, they needed Gideon’s approval.

  Judging by the anticipation in his eyes, approval had been secured. Ana shoved the last pin into her hair hard enough to scrape her scalp and forced herself to take one slow, steadying breath.

  “We got word of something going down in Two tonight,” he announced.

  Lucio rose from his chair by the window. “Is it related to the possible trafficking?”

  “Think so. Gideon wants us to handle it.” He paused, his gaze lighting on each of them in turn as he looked around. “Get ready for a fight.”

  The excitement inside her crackled through the room, but Ana couldn’t stop her gaze from swinging to Deacon. He’d joined them in the common room that morning, sitting at that window table with Lucio to clean a couple of handguns.

  Right now, he was watching Hunter carefully, listening to his instructions. He could have been any other Rider, waiting for the signal to grab his gear and move out.

  But he wasn’t, and it felt wrong. Ana swung her leg over the bench at Hunter’s gesture and joined the Riders heading for the armory. The big room dominated the side of the barracks that bordered their gravel parking lot, boasting enough lockers to store the gear of four times their number.

  Ana had never been in the room when it was full. When the war with Eden had come, the Riders had paid in blood. Thirty men died during the final siege of the war, enough to break through Eden’s army and give the O’Kanes a chance to take down the corrupt man who’d seized control of the city.

  Ana’s father had been one of those Riders.

  She stopped in front of the locker that had been his and pulled it open. Her gear was inside--light, custom-fitted body armor Gideon had gifted her, along with her favorite weapons. But she’d left some of her father’s things there--a golden saint’s medallion hanging from a hook, as well as a palm-sized postcard of Santa Adriana, the Rios princess who had attended Ana’s birth and become her namesake.

  But Ana’s favorite discovery had been the pictures.

  The larger one was of her parents together, her mother wearing a brightly patterned summer dress that stretched over her pregnant belly. William stood behind her, his fingers laced with hers, their joined hands resting over the bulge. Ana could see herself in him sometimes--in the stubborn set of his chin, in the dark brows drawn severely over serious eyes. But she had her mother’s full lips and narrow nose and thick tumble of curly brown hair.

  The second picture was just Ana. She couldn’t remember it being taken, but she must have been only five or six. Her hair was drawn up into pigtail poufs, and she wore a wide smile missing two teeth. With skinned knees and scabbed elbows, she perched in the branches of a tree she recognized well--one of the big willows in the park behind the central temple.

  Riders weren’t supposed to have families. Ana didn’t know when or how the tradition had started--though she suspected that Gideon’s guilt at potentially creating an army of grieving widows and partially orphaned children was to blame. For whatever reason, her father had been the exception. Had been allowed to be the exception.

  After him, some of the Riders had formed long-term partnerships with one another. But even that came with complications--and impossible choices. Belief and loyalty were one thing, but to charge into a fight knowing you might have to sacrifice your lover for the greater good...

  Terrible idea. She needed the reminder as she shouldered the rest of her gear and slammed her locker shut. Deacon’s presence was a tangible force to her right, as if he gave off some sort of heat only she could feel.


  He wasn’t even in charge, and she was still hyperaware of him. Apparently, straddling a hot guy’s raging hard-on wasn’t the best way to deescalate tension.

  Who could have fucking known?

  “We’re riding together.” Reyes tossed her a set of keys, then jerked his head toward Ivan and Zeke. “I tried to grab Gabe, but I think Hunter wants to make him ride with Deacon. Shifty fucker.”

  Someone else giving orders to Deacon still seemed bizarre. But a final glance at him showed only a stern, blank expression as he loaded his pistols. Ana shook off her unease and slipped the knife she’d inherited from her father into the sheath strapped to her thigh. “Grab some extra ammo on your way out the door,” she told Reyes. “I have a feeling shit could get ugly.”

  »»» § «««

  Shit didn’t get ugly. It started out that way.

  The intel led them to a staging area a few miles over the border into Two. Before Eden had bombed the sector, Two had been responsible for the vast majority of trade between the sectors and other cities that had survived the Flares.

  The remnants of that industry showed in the hundreds of massive metal shipping containers abandoned in disorganized rows. Scavengers had already picked over the place thoroughly, so thoroughly that the huge crane once used to transfer the containers to barges and trucks had been stripped down to an ugly, awkward skeleton.

  Broken glass and scraps of metal littered the cracked asphalt. Grass poked up between the cracks, and vines had twisted their way over the chain-link fence to creep toward the closest structures. It felt long abandoned, like they’d stumbled across some remnant of the pre-Flare world instead of a place that had been a busy hive of activity only one short year ago.

  It gave Ana the creeps.

  It also seemed like a great place to set a trap.

  Hunter knew it, too. Ana could tell by the way he studied the terrain in front of them, the tiniest frown furrowing his brow. She also knew it wouldn’t deter him--more often than not, the Riders strode into traps, dared them to snap shut, and punched their way out.

  No matter how carefully they planned, enemies always underestimated the Riders. People who cared about living couldn’t anticipate the fury inherent in martyrs who didn’t fear death.

  “All right,” Hunter said. “Lucio, get up high with your rifle, someplace with a good overall vantage point. Everyone else, pair off and pick a quadrant.” He used two fingers held aloft to indicate the four cardinal directions. “Let’s clear this place out.”

  Ana joined Ashwin, her head blissfully clear. Adrenaline had finally kicked in, banishing the last hint of nerves as she pulled her sidearm and checked the safety. Anticipation simmered in her blood now, a delicate tingle beneath her skin, a burning need to test herself. To match wits and skills against an opponent and come out on top.

  To crush her enemies.

  In the quiet times between battles, Ana could rationalize the blood she was about to spill as heroic and righteous. But in this moment, with her heart pounding and every sense alive...

  The truth was simpler, starker. Ana was a Rider because she was good at it. Because she liked being good at it.

  She let Ashwin take the lead as they slipped inside the fence and put their backs against the first container. A glance to her left showed Deacon disappearing down an opposite row with Gabe, but she wrenched her gaze away before worry could pierce her cool focus.

  Deacon was a big boy who could take care of himself. She would not worry.

  She wouldn’t.

  A touch on her arm dragged her attention back to Ashwin. He gestured to the edge of the first container. “We’ll do this one row at a time. Cover me.”

  Ana trailed him to the corner, carefully stepping over rusted metal and broken crates. When they reached the edge of the mammoth shipping container, Ashwin held up a flat palm, then folded in his thumb and pinkie. Three.

  Then he folded down one finger, and Ana nodded. On one, she lifted her weapon.

  Ashwin swung around the corner. She followed, gun up, her gaze jumping to his blind spots as he moved forward. As soon as they cleared the row, Ashwin edged forward to the next corner and repeated the countdown.

  It made for slow, treacherous progress. It would have been too easy to have the shipping containers laid out in a neat, orderly fashion. Sometimes they found one sitting perpendicular to another pair, creating dead ends that Ana tried to fix on her mental map of the place.

  Near the middle of their quadrant, Ashwin stopped abruptly and held up his hand. Ana stilled immediately, straining to hear whatever Ashwin had sensed.

  She heard it a second before Ashwin whirled around. The container behind them was open, the door completely off its hinges and leaning precariously against one corner. From within came the soft, echoing rasp of boots on hollow steel.

  Someone was crouched on top of it, tracking their movements.

  Ashwin reached for one of the endless pockets on his cargo pants and pulled out a grenade. “Get ready,” he murmured softly. “Once this goes off, I’ll make you a ramp to get up there.”

  At Ana’s nod of understanding, he slipped the pin free, and Ana braced for his throw.

  And waited.

  A second ticked by. Two. How long had it taken the last time he’d thrown one of these? A few seconds at most? In spite of her overwhelming trust in him, her nerves started to assert themselves. “Ashw--”

  He launched the grenade onto the container and dragged the steel door over them. The grenade exploded at the top of its flight arc, and Ana hunched next to Ashwin as deadly shrapnel rained down on their makeshift shield.

  The moment it stopped, Ashwin heaved the door aside with a grunt. It flipped against the opposite side of the container with a deafening crash before settling at a manageable angle.

  The sound was still echoing when Ana raced up the makeshift ramp and launched herself onto the container. Her boots hit and nearly skidded in a pool of blood. She used the momentum to drop to a crouch, her gun pointed forward, and tried to get her bearings.

  The man who’d been stalking them lay face down, bleeding out from a dozen wounds. His shredded leather jacket was soaked with blood, but not enough to obscure the patch on the back--a crowned skull thrusting a blade through its own head.

  Suicide King.

  She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and whirled in time to see two more figures pop up several rows down. She fired, sinking a bullet into the first man’s shoulder. He spun at the impact, but the second man was already aiming at Ana--

  The side of his face caved in. Blood splattered as he toppled backwards off his perch, and Ana gave mental thanks to Hunter’s foresight--and Lucio’s excellent aim--as she took a second shot and dropped her original target.

  The clatter of boots behind her alerted her to Ashwin’s arrival, and she realized that only seconds had passed since the grenade. Each moment stretched out impossibly, giving her all the time in the world to scan the terrain.

  Ana saw no one else--Lucio had taken care of that. She pivoted, surveying empty rooftops and the spaces between them.

  Two rows to the north, something darted across a narrow break between containers. “Ashwin--”

  “I saw it.” Two running steps, and Ashwin launched himself into the air, sailing across the empty space to land nimbly on the next container over. Secure in that calm, quiet place in her head, Ana measured the distance, backed up to the far edge of the container, and ran.

  Open space yawned beneath her, and her stomach dropped. Her flight wasn’t nearly as graceful as Ashwin’s, and neither was her landing. But she compensated the way she’d learned from a hundred rough landings, rolling forward to disperse the shock of impact.

  Leaping containers was fast, but it sure as fuck wasn’t quiet. A shout of warning rose ahead of them as Ashwin sailed across the next gap. Ana listened to the thud when he landed, and an idea seized her. “Ashwin!”

  He glanced back, and she pointed to herse
lf and then the ground and twirled her finger in the air. Ashwin nodded and watched as she lowered herself over the edge of her container and dropped.

  The sound of her boots hitting the asphalt was cloaked by the noise of Ashwin firing his first shot.

  Shouts rose all around her, and running footsteps echoed eerily from multiple directions. Ana slipped behind a partially open door and followed one set approaching rapidly from the east. The person paused just on the other side of the door, and she knew instantly what he was doing--trying to get a good angle on Ashwin, who made a visible, tempting target.

  Moving as quietly as possible, Ana holstered her gun and slid her knife from its sheath. Her boots crunched on gravel as she swung around the door, alerting her target. He spun, his mouth opening, and Ana was out of time.

  It wasn’t clean. Her knife slashed across his throat deep enough to reach bone, silencing his scream before he could give it voice.

  She kept moving. Two steps put her back against the container wall. She listened for a shout of warning, but the next sound she heard was the light thud of Ashwin’s feet as he ran the length of the roof above her and launched himself onto the next one.

  The noise drew another attacker. Ana plastered herself into the shadows as he darted by, so intent on staying out of Ashwin’s line of sight that he didn’t even notice the dead body in the alley to his left.

  He went down a lot cleaner. Ana got a grip on his hair and jerked the knife across his throat from behind. A spatter of shots rang out ahead of her as he slumped to the ground. Ana wiped her knife on his pants and thrust it back into its sheath before reaching for the gun next to his outstretched hand.

  A bullet dug into the pavement beside it, and Ana jerked upright, slamming her back against the shipping container. Her hand went automatically for her pistol as a voice said, “Uh-uh. Don’t move.”

  She eased her hand away from her hip and into the air as she turned to face her attacker. The man was at least six feet tall, with muscles that could give Hunter a run for his money. The gun in his hand was steadily trained on Ana, and his gaze drifted up and down her body--but not in a remotely lascivious manner.