by Kit Rocha
“No shit.” Deacon hovered uncertainly in the doorway. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“Get some damn food, Deacon.”
It was uncharacteristically forceful for Gabe, even considering the circumstances, and Deacon hid a smile as he took a bowl from the cabinet. “Feeling feisty today, Montero?”
“Maybe.” He waited until Deacon settled at the table across from him with his own food before inclining his head. “I should have talked shit out with you, even if it hurt and we both hated it. We can’t afford unfinished business, and we never know when we’re going to have to drop everything to fight and maybe die.”
Deacon’s appetite wavered. “I changed my mind. You’re not feisty, you’re a total downer.”
“And you’re cracking jokes.” Gabe frowned. “Trying to crack jokes. We should probably leave that to Zeke and Reyes. I don’t think either of us is all that good at it.”
“Lies.” Deacon toyed with his spoon, spinning it on the table. “We could go upstairs and fight it out, but Kora just got finished putting us both back together. And I don’t know about you, but I’m kinda tired.”
“Yeah.” Gabe rubbed his hand over his shoulder, which obviously still twinged, even after all the care Kora could provide. “Seth was a bastard, but he could land a punch. Not sure I need another beating right away.”
Deacon picked up his spoon. “Have you seen Ana?”
“Yeah, she’s been around. She spent most of last night over in the temple. I think Del chose a tattoo for her. She seems...”
The muscles in the back of Deacon’s neck tensed. “What?”
“Sad,” Gabe admitted finally. “She seems sad. And it’s weird that I can tell. Nobody beats Ana when it comes to game face.”
It didn’t surprise Deacon. People saw what they recognized, and he’d never met anyone with more hidden sadness than Gabe. “I have to talk to her. When I can find her.”
“Deacon...” Gabe trailed off again, his gaze fixed on his bowl as he stirred the contents. “Who am I talking to right now? The leader of the Riders, or my brother?”
“They’re the same.” Deacon shrugged despite the ache in his chest. “Isn’t that the problem?”
“Do they have to be?” Gabe’s spoon clinked softly against the bowl. “I’d tell my leader that Ana is good. I know you think you know that, but what she pulled off was something else. Remember how you could set Will down in the most impossible situation and he’d just take one look and somehow see all the angles? He taught her that, somehow. To keep her cool and work any problem, no matter how impossible it is.”
“Will was a good man. A great soldier.”
“Will would have left you behind. And it would have been a mistake.”
“That’s arguable.” He raised a hand to cut off Gabe’s protest. “I’m grateful to be alive. But if something had gone wrong, then three more of my Riders wouldn’t have made it out. That’s why I gave the orders that I did. So stop with the all’s well that ends well bullshit and own it.”
“I didn’t say that. You did.” Gabe looked up at him. “If I was talking to my brother, I’d tell him to pull his fucking head out of his ass and think about the rest of us for two seconds. Not think about our lives. Think about us. Ana made the hard call. When we couldn’t find you, when it was hopeless--she did what she had to do. She was going to leave you.”
Deacon opened his mouth, but Gabe stopped him. “And then we found out there was a chance. And maybe you don’t give a shit because you don’t think your life was worth saving, but me? I would have spent the rest of my life wondering. Maybe if I’d held out against the torture a little longer. Maybe if I’d said something to distract Seth. Maybe if I’d been tough enough to help them look for you. And Zeke? How do you think Zeke would have coped with being the one who found you thirty seconds too late? How do you think Ana would have gotten out of bed every morning, knowing she was the one who decided you just weren’t worth the risk?”
It was a different way of looking at the whole thing, but one he understood immediately. Gabe was talking about what the Riders could live with, consequences they could stand to face. Choices they could and couldn’t view later without regret.
Deacon had spent half his life struggling with the concept. He’d never ask anyone else to do it. “Okay.”
Gabe eyed him warily, as if he didn’t quite trust the easy acceptance. “I’d also tell my brother to be careful with Ana’s heart. It’s the one thing she’s never been very good at protecting.”
“And I would hope you knew your brother better than that.”
“I don’t,” Gabe said quietly. “But I want to change that.”
“So do I.” His relationship with Ana wasn’t the only one he had to fix, and this was a good place to start. “What’s up with you and that lady from Three, anyway?”
“Who, Laurel? Nothing.” He said it too fast, and suddenly found his food fascinating. “I mean she saved my ass over in Two, and she seems like a valuable ally. But nothing’s up.”
The skin on Deacon’s arms prickled, the way it sometimes did when someone was lying to him. “I saw her, Gabe. In the infirmary.”
That made him look up. “What?”
“Sitting by your--” Fuck. The bewildered expression in Gabe’s face was clear. “You didn’t know.”
“She wasn’t there when I woke up.” Gabe’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it? Kora had you on a lot of drugs.”
“It’s possible.” Even without the drugs, Kora had made it clear that Deacon’s brain had been only a few knocks short of fully scrambled. “It seemed pretty damn real, though.”
“Oh.” Gabe gave him a ghost of a smile. “I guess some of Reyes’s irresistibility has finally rubbed off on me.”
“Or she likes you just the way you are.”
“She didn’t seem stupid...”
“Oh, Christ. Shut up and eat your jambalaya.”
»»» § «««
It turned out digging holes in the ground was weirdly therapeutic. Even when it was hot as hell outside.
No, especially when it was hot as hell outside.
Ana had stripped off her shirt an hour ago and thrown herself into her work with an enthusiasm born of restlessness and avoidance. The small hole in the dirt Deacon had started was turning into a respectable fishpond-shaped crater, and she had the sweat and burning muscles to show for it.
The discomfort was part of the cure. Ana had never really understood that until she’d been under Del’s needles again. She’d been punched and kicked and stabbed and even shot one time, so she thought she’d understood the various flavors. Stabbing, sharp, throbbing, aching, grinding...
The sting of her initiation tattoo and her raven couldn’t compare to the exquisite burn of Del working line after line across her spine and all the way up her neck to her hairline. The burn had spread into her bones, into the places hollowed out by her crying, as if purifying all of those raw internal wounds with fire.
She’d cried again. Not the deep, wracking sobs of before, but soft and gentle, hot tears tracking silently down her cheeks. Del had stroked her back and murmured quiet encouragement and brought her a damp cloth to wipe her eyes. And Ana had cried without shame as every jab of the needles stole another piece of her pain away.
She’d had a lot of crying to catch up on.
There was catharsis in endurance. The ache in her muscles as she rammed the shovel into the dirt and stomped her boot on it to drive it deeper was a more familiar sort of discomfort--the satisfaction of spending her energy and strength on something productive, something that would make the world a little better.
Even if it was just a fishpond.
“You’re getting your ink dirty.”
Ana froze, her fingers tightening convulsively around the shovel’s handle as the familiar timbre of Deacon’s voice scraped raw nerves. “Doesn’t matter,” she said without turning around. “Del used med-gel.”
“You sh
ould still keep it clean for a few days.” His hand appeared in her peripheral vision, hovering still and steady by her head.
Apparently he wasn’t going to go away. Ana forced herself to release the shovel and accept his hand, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to look directly at him as he helped her out of the pit. As much as she wanted to replace the memory of him bloodied and clinging to life with the reality of him whole and healthy--
God, her armor was paper thin right now. If she threw herself against the wall that was Deacon, she’d break every bone in her body.
“We need to talk,” he murmured. “It should probably be soon. But if you don’t want to look at me right now, I can wait.”
“It’s not--” She swallowed hard and ducked to retrieve the bottle of water she’d brought out with her. The midday sun had heated it to lukewarm, but she still drained the whole thing before turning to face Deacon.
Her heart kicked painfully.
Kora had done her work exquisitely. There was no evidence of the terrible lacerations and bruising to his face, though his nose looked a tiny bit more crooked. He stood in front of her, taking slow, even breaths, and Ana spared a moment to marvel over Kora’s gifts. If it weren’t for the slight pallor in his face and a bruised exhaustion in his eyes, no one would know he’d been beaten within an inch of his life.
“I’m sorry,” she told him softly. “Not for going back to get you...but for before. In the barracks. I was out of line. I should have found a better way to voice my disagreement.”
“Yeah, well.” He glanced away, then back at her, and away again. “You deserved better than what you got for it, too. I’m sorry, Ana.”
It sounded genuine, and Ana didn’t know how to cope with it. It was bad enough for Gideon to taunt her with this magical world where her mistakes didn’t ruin everyone else’s lives. If Deacon started acting like her mistakes weren’t the end of her life, either...
Crap, she’d probably go make another one. And not even hate herself for it.
Feeling awkwardly vulnerable, Ana wrapped her arms around herself. “We’re being very polite and solicitous to each other. This is fucking weird.”
“Maybe it’s supposed to be. Otherwise, we could just pretend it never happened.”
“I wish I could.” But the second the words escaped, she knew them for a lie. “No, I don’t. I’ve been shoving everything that hurts down for so long because I was trying to make myself better. The perfect Rider.” She finally met his eyes. “You, I guess.”
His brows drew together. “What?”
Of course he didn’t see it. It was his eternal blind spot. “That’s the shitty side effect of being worshipped, Deacon. People try to emulate you, whether you want them to or not.”
A sharp breath huffed out of him, and he bent forward at the waist, bracing his hands on his knees as his shoulders shook.
He was laughing.
Wounded pride battled with her morbid sense of humor. She wondered fleetingly if the last few days had broken that forever--but the urge to laugh bubbled up, sweet as champagne. She masked it with a growl and swatted at his shoulder. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Why?” He straightened, clutching at his side as if the force of his laughter hurt. “Be like me? I thought you, of all people, knew better than that. I’m no role model, Ana.”
“That’s not true--”
“But I could be.” His humor faded. His hands skimmed over her arms, then closed on her shoulders. “I think I can be the man they look up to...but not without you.”
Her breath caught. Her stomach flipped. Her heart--
No, she couldn’t listen to her heart right now. Not just her heart. She grasped desperately for her brain, but her thoughts were skittering in all directions, too. But one remained clear. “I meant what I said. I’m not sorry for going back for you. I’d do it again. If you can’t handle that, all we’ll ever do is rip each other to shreds.”
He gazed at her--intense, focused. “Why did you do it?”
All the bold defiance from Gideon’s office had bled out of her over the last twenty-four hours. She could hardly believe she’d faced the leader of her sector--a goddamn saint in human flesh--and proclaimed her love for Deacon.
It had seemed so easy. Loving someone was the highest compliment available in Sector One. She loved her fellow Riders. She loved Maricela and Nita and plenty of the people who worked the Rios estate and had formed a loose, extended family for her as she grew up.
But that love was open and simple and rarely had the power to cut deep enough to leave her bleeding. Her feelings for Deacon were new and bright and still lined with unexpected sharp edges.
And if she got the words out and he bent over laughing again, she’d die. Or murder him.
“I had to,” she whispered finally. She wanted to look away, but his eyes held hers, compelling the truth in all its messy glory. “If I’d thought it was too dangerous, I wouldn’t have risked the others. I know that mattered to you. I care that it mattered to you. But if I hadn’t tried--”
Tears filled her eyes, even though she should have been cried out. Her words came out hoarse. “I know you could die tomorrow. So could I. But you didn’t have to die in that bunker. If it had been Zeke down there, or Hunter, or anyone--I would have gone back. And no one would be asking me why, why, why because they wouldn’t be assuming I’m some idiot girl in love who can’t assess risks properly.”
“Now who’s assuming?” But he was smiling as he touched her face, brushing away a tear that had slipped free to track down her cheek. “You did risk, Ana. You and the other Riders could have been long gone before Seth activated that self-destruct. But I understand now what a blow it would have been to the Riders--not just you--to leave without trying, no matter what my orders were.”
A blow? It would have crushed them. Even now, he underestimated his own value--but at least he knew he had some. A heartbreakingly small step forward, but progress. “You have to decide if you trust me to protect their lives, just like I protected yours.”
“You were right,” he murmured. “And you were wrong. Acceptable risk doesn’t exist until it all works out in your favor. Things can go south too fucking easy for it to be any other way. That’s leadership.”
“I know,” she admitted. And because she didn’t feel cornered anymore, it was easier to admit the thing she hadn’t even told Gideon. “When I was down there and they were picking you up--I realized I’d fucked up. I grabbed Zeke and Hunter because they were the biggest, but if we had gone down... You and Hunter and I are the three best trained in tactics and leadership.”
His fingers slid over hers, wrapped around them. “I don’t know if anyone can really understand it, not until they’ve made a bad call. Gotten someone killed.” He took a deep breath. “My first one was two years in. Mad was still running with us then. It wasn’t bad intel or any kind of conspiracy. I just fucked up. I would have died, but Drake took the bullet meant for me.”
It took her a moment to connect the name to a painting. Drake was one of the first paintings on the left wall--not an original Rider, but one of the earliest to replace a fallen member. No one left in the Riders barracks had known him, but there were always fresh offerings and flowers laid at his feet. And now that she thought about it, Deacon always drifted to that corner whenever they gathered in that sanctum.
No wonder this ripped him up. If someone jumped in front of a bullet for Deacon now, Del would be starting sketches for their saint’s painting before the body was even burned. But no one remembered Drake.
No one except the man he’d saved.
Ana turned her hands to grasp his. “What do you want us to be to each other, Deacon?”
When he answered, it was slowly--nothing easy, but with the weight of thought behind his words. “We have to find a way that we can be together without sacrificing who we are.”
So simple on the surface. Potentially impossible in practice. Deacon would have to order her in
to danger without flinching, knowing any mission could be the one that killed her.
And if he chose to take his own risks, she’d have to let him.
“It won’t be easy,” she acknowledged. “It’s gonna hurt like hell sometimes. We’re probably going to fight. But I was willing to risk dying to keep you in my life. I’ll fight for you. But you can’t--”
Her voice broke. The tears returned.
“I know.” He bent his head and pressed his forehead to hers. “We both had shit we needed to say, things to settle. I shouldn’t have walked away, especially when I knew what we were heading into. I’m sorry.”
“That was almost the last thing we said to each other,” she whispered, curling her arms around his neck. Impossible to remember how close to death he’d come when he was here, as strong and solid as ever, and warm against her body. But she couldn’t stop crying. Whatever switch she’d flipped to shove the bad stuff down was broken. “I don’t know how I would have moved on. It would have been a wound that bled forever.”
“Ana--”
She kissed him. Hard, out of control, because it felt so good. The warmth of his lips, the scrape of his beard, the way they improbably fit together, like they’d been forged from the same steel. “Promise me,” she murmured against his lips in between kisses. “Promise me we’ll never go into battle angry.”
“Never again.” His teeth scored her lower lip. “I promise that the last thing you’ll ever hear from me will be how much I love you.”
Ana kissed him again, and her heart...healed.
Not like new. It wasn’t like Kora and her regen tech, wiping away the damage so completely it was as if you’d never been broken. Ana felt like the pottery her aunt’s second husband made by fitting broken pieces back together with adhesive dusted with gold.
The broken places might always be visible, but Ana wasn’t ashamed of them. They made her stronger. They made her Ana.
