Riders Page 5

  CHAPTER 9

  College parties were a phenomenon I had yet to experience. Unlike my high-school buddies who’d spent the past months filling up Solo cups in parties across America, I’d spent them getting my head shaved, learning to low crawl, and polishing my shoes until I could see my face in them.

  Those first few months in the Army were brutal, and not only because they were physically and mentally demanding. In Basic Training, a lot of guys were slackers who didn’t really want to be there and it felt like my sixth-grade sleepover all over again—a bunch of screw-offs giddy on their first night away from home. Until I got a little further along in the process and found guys more like me in RASP, I’d seriously wondered if I’d made the right choice.

  I wondered that again as I leaned against the wall in Joy’s living room and watched people toss back drinks and dance to pounding rap music. There were about fifteen girls packed into the small room and every last one of them was hot. I’d been almost exclusively around guys for a long time so this was a welcome change for me.

  Not everyone was as happy about my attendance, though. A few of the guys at the party were throwing hostile looks at me, making it clear they didn’t like me encroaching on their territory. Occasionally words like “GI Joe” and “Army grunt” filtered through the music. I even heard a couple of football players in the corner reciting choice quotes from Full Metal Jacket. These were probably the same guys who got choked up during the Super Bowl national anthem, moved by those three minutes of intense patriotism. And see, I had a problem with that. To me patriotism wasn’t a mood or a moment. It was so much more.

  I ignored them and focused on hanging out with Anna and Taylor. I was still carrying around this scalding energy, this full payload of rage that was right there, reachable inside me. Ignitable. Some part of me wondered if it hadn’t been with me for a long time, only that I’d been denying it. I couldn’t ignore it now. I could only try to manage it.

  Taylor turned out to be pretty hilarious. She was a big Dodger fan so we almost went to blows over that, but in a good way. I was glad my sister had made a good friend at school. Just as I was starting to settle in, Wyatt showed up.

  I had promised myself I wouldn’t interfere again, so I hung back when Anna left to go talk to him. I couldn’t help watching them though. Even that bugged me. Wyatt’s facial expressions were too extreme. Like, dude. Watch the crazy eyes. Just dial it back a bit. I didn’t know how Anna was doing it. She had to feel like she was talking to a pinball machine.

  “You know you have nothing to worry about, right?” Taylor said, laughing at me. “She’s over him. And I’m looking out for her.”

  She was right. And Anna was smart. My sister knew what she was doing.

  When Taylor headed to the patio to talk to her girlfriend, Joy wandered over. She leaned against the wall beside me and bumped my elbow, spilling a little of her beer on my sleeve. “What’s wrong, Army boy? You don’t drink?”

  I did on occasion but not much. I’d been cursed with a stomach that didn’t tolerate a lot of things. Too much sugar, preservatives, grease. If I didn’t keep a good diet, I suffered. With booze especially I paid a pretty steep price, so I had to pick my battles. This wasn’t one of them. With everything going on, the last thing I needed was to lose my edge or spend the night hugging the toilet.

  “Actually, Joy,” I answered, “I should be physically destroyed right now, technically speaking, but it looks like I might have developed a freaky fast-healing condition with a possible side of PTSD. So I thought I’d lay off the sauce tonight. Don’t want to push things over the edge, know what I mean?”

  Joy cupped her ear. “What? Sorry, it’s so loud in here!”

  “Can’t party tonight!” I pulled Anna’s phone out of my pocket. “In case there’s a national emergency!”

  “Ohhh, got it!” Joy wrinkled her nose. “It’s so, like, noble you do that stuff!”

  So far the Army had been the opposite of noble work for me. I got a mental image right then of Cory with shoelaces of snot coming out of his nose during a swim evolution. But hey. Someday I would put my life on the line for my country, so I didn’t see any harm in letting her opinion stand.

  Joy and I shouted small talk at each other for a little while. She was cute and she seemed nice. She told me all about the great beaches in the Philippines, where she was from. Some place called Cebu. I wasn’t sure how I was doing hitting on her.

  You’ll find this shocking, Cordero, but I haven’t always been the specimen you see in front of you. It wasn’t just the braces or the zits that slowed me down in high school. I never really tried. My lack of game never bothered me much, though. I’d never met anyone where it had actually mattered. Not until Daryn. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Anna had gone back to hanging out with Taylor again. My sister looked okay. She didn’t look upset. On the other side of the room, Wyatt and his preppy buddies were having a competition to see who could show the most teeth when they laughed.

  My gaze went to the patio where I’d met Joy earlier. A girl stood out there with a few other people, but she clearly wasn’t with them. She stood alone in front of the open sliding door. What held my attention, besides the fact that she was pretty, was her expression. She stared right at me, and she looked intense and determined. Like we were in the middle of an argument even though we hadn’t said a word to each other.

  She stepped into the apartment and threaded through the people dancing at the center without breaking eye contact. Her gaze felt like a challenge, so I stepped up to the plate and met it. I wasn’t going to break first, but my confusion must have shown. Joy stopped talking and followed my sight line.

  “Do you know that girl?” she asked.

  “I think so.” She sure seemed to know me. “Can you give us a minute?”

  “Sure.” Joy glanced at her plastic cup. “I’m empty anyway,” she said, and headed off.

  The girl from the patio came right up and stopped in front of me. She obviously had an agenda. It seemed like the right call to let her make the first move, so I stood there, trying to look relaxed.

  She was prettier up close—streaky blond hair that fell over one shoulder and tan skin. Not a lot of makeup. Maybe none. She wore a weathered black jacket, tight jeans, and scuffed boots. A backpack was slung over her right shoulder. She wasn’t a college student, though. She just didn’t look it. This girl had switchblades in her eyes and don’t mess with me in her posture. She looked like she could handle herself. Super confident.

  Her gaze flicked down to my left wrist. I immediately regretted not wearing a sweatshirt to cover up the cuff. When her eyes lifted again, the look in them was such an insane mixture of curiosity, relief, and fear that for a second, I wondered if I’d met her at some point in the past, offended her, then forgotten all about her.

  No way, though. This wasn’t a girl you forgot. I was only five seconds into knowing her, but I already knew that much.

  “I need you to come with me,” she said. “Right now.”

  “I bet that line works on all the guys.”

  Like I said, no game, but she was intimidating as hell. The party swirled behind her, all grinding bodies and thudding music, but she stood there as still as a lighthouse.

  “This isn’t a joke.” She glanced toward the front door. “We have to get out of here or you’re going to get hurt.”

  I laughed. “Sorry … what?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

  That didn’t sit great with me. It struck a nerve that was already pretty raw. “I know a few things.”

  “Then why haven’t you found the others?”

  “Oh, wait. This is about the others?” I straightened off the wall. “I can explain that. See, I tried to find them but the spaceship left right when I got there. Just took right off. Can you believe the others did that to me? Flaky bastards.” I was being a smart-ass, but I didn’t want her to leave. “Look, what do you say we
try this again?” I held out my hand, because why? I guess I wanted to make this more awkward. “I’m—”

  “Gideon. I know,” she said. Her palm closed over mine, her fingers taking a firm grip of my hand. “I’m Daryn. Let’s get out of here.” She did a one-eighty, still holding on to my hand, and started towing me toward the front door.

  I needed a second to process a lot of things. Her crazy behavior. The fact that she had a guy’s name. The fact that she knew my name. The fact that she was taking me … where? And that it should’ve felt like a good thing, an awesome thing, but somehow didn’t.

  She stopped suddenly. I ran right into her back.

  “Whoa, sorry,” I said, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me.

  The front door of the apartment had just swung open. Three people entered, two guys and a girl. Adrenaline roared through me. I knew instantly, on a primal level, something was about to go down.

  The first guy was in his mid-twenties. Short black hair, and the kind of face that had to make life easier for him. His clothes were pretty slick, modern, and he was built. He had me by thirty pounds at least, but that didn’t necessarily worry me. I could handle myself in a fight. What worried me was that he looked like he could handle himself in a fight, too.

  Behind him stood a shorter guy, slight build, hunkered inside a suit that was a few sizes too big. He had stringy brown hair, the cratered skin of someone who’d fought hard-core acne, and glassy black eyes that cast anxiously around the apartment. He reminded me of a possum. The girl was average height and size, around my age, with red hair in a ponytail and tons of piercings—eyebrows, nose, lip. She carried herself with the same fearlessness as Daryn—who I noticed no longer looked fearless.

  “Gideon, run,” she said, pushing me back.

  The tall guy homed in on her immediately, like she was the only person in the room. He said something to the other two, and they locked in too.

  Daryn kept telling me to run, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Retreat wasn’t my style, and she was in trouble of some kind. I didn’t stop to consider that she was a total stranger, that maybe she deserved what had just shown up at the door, that maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved.

  I moved right into action.

  CHAPTER 10

  I’m going to tell you right up front, Cordero. The tall guy’s name is Samrael. I don’t want to keep calling him “Tall Guy” because … I don’t know. It’s dumb. For that matter, the girl with the red hair was Ronwae, and the possumy guy with the acne and the shifty eyes, that was Malaphar.

  Don’t worry. You’ll know them all soon enough. Plus four more because there are seven in the Kindred. Seven total. But I’m skipping ahead again.

  Back to the party.

  Samrael looked like he was in charge, so I went after him, ready to brawl over a girl I didn’t know. The theory that popped into my head as I crossed the room was that he was Daryn’s violently jealous ex. It seemed plausible considering his intense focus on her. But Ronwae and Malaphar’s involvement didn’t fit well with that theory.

  As I pushed through the last few partyers, I saw Daryn make a break for the patio. Ronwae plunged through the crowd, following her. I made a quick decision to stay on course. The best thing I could do was prevent the two guys at the door from joining in pursuit.

  Joy had reached the front door moments before me and demanded to know who they were.

  “You’re leaving,” I said to Samrael as I came to Joy’s side. “Right now.”

  People stopped dancing and talking as the threat of danger percolated through the apartment. They circled around, a few of them pulling out phones, ready to catch any action.

  “We’ll leave when we have what we came for,” Samrael said.

  His voice was strangely calm, almost solemn, but I heard it perfectly through the pumping rap music. There was something dangerous about the total lack of emotion in his eyes. He was looking right at me, but he could’ve been looking at a chair or a lamp. And his posture triggered a warning inside me. I’d spent a lot of time around guys who made their livelihood off harnessed aggression. I knew potential hostility when I saw it.

  I repeated my directive using more compelling language. His attention moved more fully onto me, a palpable weight descending on my shoulders.

  “Who are you?” Samrael asked quietly, giving me a detached assessment.

  Pressure settled over my eyes like a headache coming on, but it quickly turned painful. A feeling like invisible fingers prying around my eye sockets and digging deeper. It shocked me. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even speak. Black spots flickered at the edges of my vision and a hot sting spread over my scalp. Fear tightened my lungs. I knew I wasn’t passing out. I could still feel the tension in my muscles, and the drumming of my heart, but I couldn’t stop what was happening.

  The spots melded into darkness and my field of view narrowed. Then the darkness started to swirl around me and stretch into a tunnel. My feet were planted in Joy’s living room but I felt myself pulling back. Felt the party recede, everything moving further away as I sank into a whirling black funnel.

  “Weak,” Samrael said, “whoever you are.”

  The pressure in my head sharpened to spikes walking over my skull.

  He smiled. “Gideon Blake … so much anger…”

  I heard myself groan. I wanted to fight, but my legs and arms wouldn’t answer. I had one possible move.

  Pushing through the black tunnel with my entire focus, I felt myself pulling closer to the party. My gaze went to the two huge football players by the door—the same two guys who’d called me “GI Joe” an hour earlier. Their attention was already on me.

  I threw open the rage throttle.

  Bring it, I told them. Fight.

  They reacted instantly, exploding forward like they’d come off the line. The larger guy bolted past me, dropped his shoulder, and buried it into Samrael’s back. The other one went after Malaphar, who plunged into the crowd.

  The mental hold Samrael had cast over me broke. The pain released, the lack of it so overwhelming that for a second I felt like I was floating. My eyes cleared, the distancing swirl of darkness faded back, and my limbs unlocked.

  The football player and Samrael grappled nearby, trapped in a struggle. Samrael was contending with the much stronger opponent. I looked for Anna and spotted her, but no Daryn.

  Samrael freed himself from the football player’s grasp. With savage force, he took the guy’s head with both hands and drove his knee up. There was a sickening, meaty sound as the blow connected and then gasps erupted from across the apartment. The football player’s eyes rolled back and he went down, three hundred pounds dropping to the floor like a boulder.

  I stepped in, already swinging as he fell. My fist met Samrael’s face, square on the jaw. He felt immovable, like I’d just tried to deck the Great Wall of China. He jerked back and the inside of my hand let out an audible snap.

  Pain speared up my arm. I grabbed my hand, my instincts firing. I needed to withdraw, assess damage. But Samrael caught me around the throat and shoved me across the living room. Pain-drunk, I could only backpedal. We knocked over a small table and sent a lamp crashing to the floor. Then my back struck the wall with so much force, I felt it crack behind me.

  Samrael had me pinned. My lungs couldn’t get enough air. And I must have hit my head because his face blurred in and out of focus. The room had grown dimmer with the lamp broken, but in the semidark, I saw a trail of glistening blood dribble down his mouth and over his chin.

  “Fool,” he whispered, but his flat eyes were alive now. “Who sent you?”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. The pressure came back over my eyes and my ears. He was getting inside my head again. As the stinging spread inside my scalp, the darkness began to whirl around me. I felt myself drawing back, separating from reality.

  I didn’t know how to fight this way. How was I supposed to defend myself? I couldn’t even move.

>   Samrael smiled. His grip was crushing my throat. I still couldn’t get enough air. “You know, for a moment there I thought you weren’t pitiful. I guess I was wrong, pitiful Gideon.” He angled his head slowly, left and then right. “But you’re not scared, are you? How about now?”

  His smile went wider. No … it was his mouth. His mouth pushed forward, forward, forward, elongating into a muzzle or … a beak? What was it? A snout?

  His skin curdled into worn leather as his skull reshaped. His eyes pulled back, sloping, the black irises stirring, lighting with something dark inside. I saw a sea of torment in his eyes. Cries of anguish, fear, and weakness writhed there. I heard howling, and begging, and—

  Enough. What are you? What the hell are you? Are you an animal?

  “Not animal,” Samrael said. “Worse.”

  Monster.

  “That’s closer.”

  “Hey, asshole. You need to let go of my brother.”

  My consciousness lurched back into the apartment. My sister appeared in my peripheral vision. She was holding a baseball bat.

  Why wasn’t she reacting to Samrael’s horrific appearance? Why wasn’t anyone reacting?

  Samrael looked at Anna. “Sure thing,” he said mockingly. He released me. In an instant his features shifted back to normal. He was just a guy again. With a split lip leaking blood that was just a little too dark, like wine.

  I took the bat from Anna. “Get out,” I rasped.

  I still wasn’t completely myself but I had every intention of attacking if he didn’t leave. Taking a life was something I’d been preparing myself for, as a soldier. But I’d never imagined it happening this way. With a bat, in front of my sister.

  Samrael turned to the front door. Ronwae, the redhead, stood there breathing hard. “She’s gone. I looked everywhere,” she said, her voice chiseled with an accent I didn’t recognize. She disappeared into the hallway.

  A mild look of disappointment crossed Samrael’s face, like he’d been told he’d just gotten a parking ticket. He followed her, but hesitated at the door. “Whatever you do, Gideon, whatever you think you can do”—he opened his hands and showed me emptiness, futility—“it won’t matter,” he said, and he was gone.