by Kit Rocha
“I’ll manage,” he told her dryly.
She was starting to suspect Deacon had a sense of humor buried under all his brooding. Maybe even that it had been there all along, so deadpan that no one ever noticed because no one expected him to be joking.
But there was a glint in his dark eyes, the one he had when he teased her. She was still pondering how to coax it closer to the surface when she pushed open the back door to the bakery and stepped into controlled chaos.
Olivia was tall and willowy, with deep-brown skin, impossibly sharp cheekbones, and dark eyes framed by long lashes. A brightly patterned scarf held her hair out of the way, the vivid reds and golds repeated in the apron she’d tied over her black dress.
She turned toward the open door with a huge metal tray in her hands, and beamed. “Perfect timing, Ana. Can you...?” Her voice trailed off as her gaze drifted past Ana’s shoulder.
Oh God, here it goes. Ana stepped aside, giving Deacon space to stand beside her as she tilted her head toward him. “Hey, Aunt Olivia. I brought a friend this morning. You know Deacon, right?”
“By reputation, of course.” Olivia offered him her most brilliant smile, the one people had started writing poetry about by the time she was fifteen. “What an honor to have you visit. And a stroke of luck. Here.” Olivia thrust the tray toward Deacon. “Is it okay if I use his muscles?”
Ana didn’t know whether to laugh or cover her face with her hands. “I don’t know, you should probably ask him.”
“It’s fine.” He took the tray, surveying the room. “You’re filling orders for bread?”
“Yes, the first van should be here any minute.” She nodded to a tall tray rack near the door. “I have to get all the orders for the market vendors organized and ready to go. They need bread for their sandwiches and lunches and, well...” She wiped flour from her hands and winked at Ana. “I am the best. It’s the secret family recipe.”
Deacon took her words seriously. He nodded, then slid the tray onto the rack. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
“Excellent.” Olivia engulfed Ana in a hug that left flour scattered all over her T-shirt and jeans, then swatted at her with a towel. “Go help Naomi. We’ll be fine here. We’ll even bring over breakfast when we’re done.”
Leaving Deacon alone with her aunt felt a little like abandoning him in the midst of battle. But he just rolled his eyes at her hesitation, so she obeyed and slipped through the swinging door to the front of the shop.
The front room of the bakery was bright and open, decorated in cheerful golds and bronzes. At one side stood a long counter with glass display cases and baskets that would soon fill up with fresh baked goods.
The rest of the space was cluttered with tables and chairs and couches grouped for easy conversation--and Ana knew those would be filling up soon, too. Most of the neighborhood found a reason to stop by during the day, whether it was for a bite to eat, a cool drink, or to pick up the evening’s baking.
Mostly, they were there for the gossip. Today was going to be a really good day for that.
The west wall was a giant open archway. Ana ducked through it and into the other side of the duplex. “Aunt Naomi?”
“Back here!” She emerged from the stockroom, dressed in her customary overalls, her arms loaded with bottles of shampoo and conditioning cream. “You’re late. I thought you might not make it.”
“Things have been hectic.” Ana patted the walkie-talkie on her hip. “We may still have to bolt out of here.”
Naomi made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. “If you brought Reyes, you tell that boy to mind his manners today. Eliza’s coming in later.”
Somehow Ana doubted the presence of Naomi’s wife would deter Reyes’s flirtation--not when Eliza still flushed pink at his effusive compliments. “No, Deacon came with me. And about two steps through the door, Aunt Olivia hijacked him. He’s loading bread into trucks by now.”
“Good,” her aunt replied absently as she placed bottles around the wash and style stations. “She can use the help.”
“Here, give me some of those.” Ana rescued half the bottles from the precarious pile and crossed to the opposite side of the room. Mirrors set on the deep-red walls reflected the whole room back a hundredfold. Paintings of saints set in between them amplified the dizzying effect. Ana tried not to look as she placed the bottles. “How’s Eliza doing?”
“She’s doing well. Busy, but aren’t we all?” Naomi turned and propped her hands on her hips. “What about you?”
Most of the things she’d done over the past week were restricted information. The rest were so deeply personal, her cheeks warmed at the thought of them. “I’m okay. I’ve been focused a lot on training.”
In the mirror, Naomi tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.
Yeah, this wasn’t going to work any better than I couldn’t have broken the mirror, I was in my room reading.
Ana put the last two bottles in place and turned to face her aunt. “Maybe I’ve been having a little fun, too. Is that a problem?”
“Not at all, I just expect details. Unless...” Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth as she jerked her thumb toward the archway. “Unless the details happen to be next door right now?”
Ana had always assumed she would reach an age where she could stare down Naomi. Someday. Maybe if she made it to fifty. Her cheeks burned hotter as she dropped into one of the swivel chairs and bumped her heel against the footrest. “It’s not a thing, okay? Don’t make it a thing. Riders don’t get to have things.”
“Your mother would have begged to differ.”
“Riders didn’t exist when Mom and Dad fell in love.” With one boot planted on the floor, Ana swiveled the chair back and forth, not quite meeting her aunt’s eyes. “I barely even remember it, you know. When we all lived together. I was so young when he had to leave for the compound.”
Naomi walked over and stroked a familiar, soothing hand over Ana’s hair. “They both loved you more than anything else in this world. That’s all you need to remember.”
“I know.” But sometimes she wished she had more than fuzzy, half-imagined memories of their house with its tiny garden, and her parents’ big bed that always had room for a little girl who’d woken up from a scary nightmare. “It couldn’t have been easy on Mom when he left. I know she believed, but...”
“She believed,” Naomi said firmly, then snorted. “And your mother was far from the first person to go it alone while their spouse was off fighting for something. There used to be entire armies before the Flares, and plenty of those soldiers left families at home. But you’re too young to know what it was like back then.” Her eyes lost some of their sharp focus, like she was caught up in a memory too strong to escape. “Seems like everyone these days is too young to know.”
Sometimes Ana forgot that Naomi, the eldest of the three sisters, had been close to twenty when the Flares happened. The silver twisting out from her aunt’s temples was a little thicker every year, but her skin was still smooth, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes barely visible.
In spite of Ana’s determination to stay alive long enough to do some good, some part of her had always thought that she would go down fighting before she had to face a future without her family.
A different future bloomed in her imagination now--her, alone. Hard, like her father after he’d lost Ana’s mother. Walled off. No Naomi or Olivia to remind her why the fight was so important. No lover, because she couldn’t afford the distraction. Just the job, day after day, until she finally missed her mark or stumbled or simply met a monster she couldn’t slay.
That couldn’t be what their God wanted. That couldn’t be what Gideon wanted. “Do you remember?” she asked softly. “Why the Riders don’t have families? We never even talk about it, it just...is.”
“Surely you know better than I ever can.” She sank into the chair beside Ana’s. “But I imagine it must be simpler, not being pulled in two different directions--duty or
family. And that’s not even taking into account how young some Riders are when they die. There’s a price for that, Ana. Widows and orphans. I don’t think Gideon Rios can stand to have either on his conscience.”
She’d thought the exact same thing before, but today it felt...wrong. She’d seen the cracks in Deacon’s armor. The exhaustion, the solitude. The tiny glimpses of someone else, of the someone he might have become if he’d been teased and loved for the past twenty years instead of left in solitude to turn to stone.
“What about when we don’t die?” She thought about the night she’d sparred with Deacon. Three days is a long time to be alone.
He’d been alone for twenty years.
“That--” Naomi’s voice cracked, and she smiled. “That’s why you have each other.”
That worry was back in Naomi’s eyes. It was one thing to say fuck you to the assholes, but family was different. Family was hard, because Naomi’s disapproval sprang from deep, unshakable love.
Ana had to swallow to keep her own voice from cracking. “I know this isn’t the life you would have chosen for me--”
“Hush.” Naomi rose and turned to the counter, where she busied her trembling hands at sorting through the bottles. “It’s your life. No one gets to choose it but you. If you’re happy, that’s all that matters to me.”
She watched her aunt in the mirror, hating that there were no easy words to bridge the space between them. Naomi had offered her the truth, all Ana could do was give her the same in return. “I am. Not every day, but way more days than not. And I don’t just have the Riders. I have you, and Eliza, not to mention Olivia and those impossible flirts she calls husbands.”
Naomi paused and looked up to meet her gaze in the mirror. “Always, Adriana. You will always have us.”
Tears stung her eyes, and Ana blinked hard as Deacon appeared through the open archway, saving her from throwing herself into her aunt’s arms and bursting into sobs.
Except when she spun the chair to face him, her heart kicked.
Deacon looked...adorable. Harried and a little rumpled, sure, with flour dusting his T-shirt and beard. He even had a smear of it high on his cheekbone, and Ana curled her fingers toward her palm to keep from reaching out to brush it away.
“We brought breakfast.” He slid the tray he was holding onto a table that her aunt had quickly cleared of books and tablets.
“That was fast.” Naomi beamed up at him. “You must have loaded those orders in record time.”
“He did,” Olivia said, coming in behind him with a wide smile. She paused to pat Deacon’s cheek and brush away the flour on it. “And no whining, not like when I make the boys help me. He’s even faster than Zeke.”
Ana froze. “Zeke? Zeke loads trucks for you?”
“Oh, not often. Just a few times a month, when he comes by to do repairs on the tablets and download the new books and movies to the network he set up for us.”
Ana had known about the network. Zeke had come with her to install it in the first chaotic month after the war, while she was still grieving her father and fighting for the right to take his place. She’d never been sure if Zeke’s gesture was that of a Rider caring for the family of a fallen brother...or a quiet statement of support for Ana’s petition to join them.
But she hadn’t realized the relationship was ongoing. That was Zeke, down to his bones--quietly helping people whenever he had the chance. If she confronted him, he’d laugh it off and claim he was in it for the free donuts.
Impossible idiot. “Well, you guys spoil him with all the baked goods. How could he stay away?”
“Why would he try?” Deacon pulled out a chair for Naomi, who raised both eyebrows at Olivia as she sank into it. Olivia’s return smile spoke volumes, and Ana resolved to pretend they weren’t having a whole silent conversation about Deacon as he held a second chair for Olivia.
At least they weren’t having it out loud.
Ana took the third chair before he could do the same for her, but once he was seated next to her, she couldn’t look away from his jaw. Flour still dusted his beard, and her fingers itched impossibly the longer she stared at it.
Ah, fuck it.
His beard tickled her fingertips as she gently wiped away the flour, and the perturbed look he shot her only made her giddier. His oh-so-stern eyebrows drew together, and she could almost hear his exasperation--I was trying to be cool, woman. Now you’re groping my face.
She was, and she didn’t give a goddamn. Because her aunts were exchanging meaningful looks, and joy had replaced the worry in Naomi’s eyes. Ana licked her thumb and cleaned the last remnants of flour from his cheek before grinning at him.
Ana wouldn’t have fucked Deacon to make her aunts happy any more than she would do it to piss off the jerks. Whatever this was, it was about them and only them, whether it fizzled out by tonight or lasted as long as they both survived.
But as added bonuses went...enraging assholes and pleasing her family didn’t suck.
Chapter Sixteen
Reyes wouldn’t stop pacing.
Or maybe he couldn’t stop pacing. Deacon watched him go from one end of the common room to the other, then shook his head and went back to brushing out the gun barrel in his hand. Trying to settle him down when he was already gearing up for battle wasn’t just useless, it was a good way to get sucker punched in the nose. Reyes would gladly start a fight to relieve some tension, and Deacon didn’t plan on indulging him.
Reyes stopped beside a window, stared out of it for a moment, then turned and pointed at Gabe. “Best way to die. And make it better than your last answer, for Christ’s sake.”
Gabe glanced up from the knife he was sharpening, though his hands continued their slow, steady movements. “With honor.”
“Goddammit, Gabriel, I said a better answer, not the same one. You fucking sound like Ivan.”
“Now that’s not fair,” Zeke argued without looking up from his computer. “Ivan would have gotten really specific. Like...” He lowered his voice to a terrible impersonation of Ivan’s tersest growl. “The best death is dying while protecting Maricela from stubbing her toe.”
“Oh, are we taking potshots now? ‘Cause I’ve got a few for you.” Hunter kicked Zeke’s chair, nearly rocking it back on two legs. “Worst death. Go.”
Zeke glared at him. “Trapped in a room, forced to listen to Reyes talk about his sex life.”
“No cheating,” Lucio reminded him mildly. “Deflection is against the rules.”
“Fine, being buried alive. With Reyes.”
Reyes pressed both hands together like he was getting ready to pray. “If that ever happens, Zeke, I promise I’ll kill you quickly.”
“Love you, too.” Zeke blew him a kiss and turned to Ana, who was seated across the table from Gabe, sharpening her own knives with slow, graceful strokes. “What about you, Ana? Worst way to go out.”
She didn’t look up. “With unfinished business,” she said softly. “Knowing that whoever I was trying to protect didn’t get to safety.”
No one had any smartass comments to make about that one. It was the closest you could get to the universal truth of the Riders, the one thing they all feared--failing those who depended on them.
It still hurt to hear Ana say it out loud.
“What about the best?” Deacon asked her quietly.
She stole a glance at him so fast the others probably didn’t even see it. Then her lips quirked up. “Having a heart attack during a sexual marathon.”
Lucio looked up from the reloading press he’d clamped to the edge of the table. “I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.”
Zeke squinted at her suspiciously. “Neither can I. Reyes, you’re the sex-marathon expert.”
“What does that have to do with Ana’s fucked-up sense of humor?”
“You know.” Zeke waved a hand. “Takes one to know one, all that.”
From the corner of the room, Gabe snorted. “Reyes would never have a heart attack dur
ing sex,” he said, his face utterly serious. “Talk about dying without honor. His ego would keep him going until his partners had finished coming.”
“Zombie dick,” Hunter chimed in solemnly.
Laughter rippled through the room, a comfortable, comforting sound, and even Reyes--who, for all his faults, never took himself too seriously--joined in. Deacon still wasn’t sure how all this shit with the Kings would end, but he knew he would miss these bastards.
And, for the first time, he thought maybe they would miss him, too. Even Gabe, who still couldn’t quite look at him.
Deacon had always known that his death would be deeply felt in Sector One. Hell, half the artists in residence at the temples probably had his memorial iconographies painted and stored away, waiting to be finished off based on how much gray needed to be added to his beard, how many wrinkles to his face. It would be a production, days of feasting and celebration--Saint Deacon, first of the Riders, martyred defender of the faithful.
In the past, he’d thought the remaining Riders would mourn the loss of his service, but not him. He figured that would be left to Gideon, some small bit of truth his best friend could keep for himself. That was enough, being remembered well by a person like Gideon. More than most people ever got.
Now he knew better. There would be other Riders. New ones, full of jokes he would never hear, with faces he would never see light up with laughter. But none of them would ever be Deacon, just as none of them would be Jaden McKinnon or Will Jordan or any of the other painted-in portraits that graced the wall of the Riders’ Temple.
Gabe slid his freshly sharpened knife into its sheath and gathered up his collection of weapons. “I’m heading to bed,” he told Ana. “Just leave the whetstones on the table.”
“Got it.” She smiled at him. “Sleep well.”
He hesitated by the table where Deacon sat, oiling the now-clean gun barrel. But then he kept walking, the set of his shoulders tense as he disappeared down the hall.
If Gabe got any sleep at all, Deacon would eat his bore mop.
