by Kit Rocha
“What do we have?” he asked Deacon as he slid his belt into its buckle.
“A smashed drone on our doorstep,” he answered dourly. “And it didn’t get here on its own.”
“Got something!” Zeke gestured at the wall in front of the couch. “Lucio, can you...?”
Lucio reached up and dragged down the white screen that covered about six feet of wall. Zeke tapped something on his tablet that activated the projector embedded into the ceiling, and the screen filled with a man’s face lit by the soft light of dawn.
He was handsome, Ana supposed. His face held the lines of hard living, but the streaks of silver in his light-brown hair were distinguished, and his crystal-blue eyes were striking.
But they were cold, too. Hard. Mean. So was his smile as he held the camera out at arm’s length and made a tsking sound. “Deacon, Deacon, Deacon. Sent your pretty toy out and didn’t even have the guts to follow it. I’m disappointed.”
His voice was gravelly in a way that could have been sexy if the words hadn’t been so utterly mocking--and if Deacon hadn’t gone rigidly still at the first syllable.
The camera swung in a dizzy turn, and Ana’s blood froze as a building came into focus--the front door of the Riders’ compound. “But time’s up, old friend,” that voice rumbled. “You come home to the Kings, or the next time we visit, we’re not gonna be this nice.”
The audio crackled, and Ana caught a glimpse of the stone pathway rushing toward the camera before the video went staticky and then cut out completely.
Reyes rubbed his chin. “Well, fuck.”
Ana glanced at Deacon, who didn’t move or even blink until Gideon put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s Seth?”
“Yeah.” The word ripped out of Deacon’s throat. “That motherfucker.”
Hunter shook his head. “You can’t be thinking about going.”
“I don’t know if any of us have a choice, not anymore.” Deacon took a step forward and turned around to face them all, his shoulders square with resolve. “Some of you think I have a death wish, some guilt-driven desire to sacrifice myself on the altar of my past deeds. Well, that’s bullshit. I don’t want to die.” His gaze tracked over the room, lighting on each one of them in turn. Lingering on Ana. “I want to live.”
It was a fight to keep her expression composed. Her heart lurched dangerously, not just because his brown eyes seemed to soften whenever he looked at her. The words I want to live had fallen from his lips with the ring of undeniable truth.
Then he looked away, and her skin crawled in warning as her heart lurched in the opposite direction.
“But I know the score. We all do. Gideon makes sure of that before we take our vows and the priestesses draw us on that goddamn temple wall. We’re Riders, and Riders don’t get old and die in their beds. That’s not fatalism or giving up. It’s just fact.”
She could have spoken the words herself, so they shouldn’t have raised the hair on the back of her neck. But her awareness of Deacon had mutated into something more. At some point over the past frantic days, she’d wriggled through the fractures in his armor.
She knew Deacon. And she knew where this was going.
Zeke didn’t. Oblivious to the slow-building tension in the room, he flopped into a chair and glared at the mangled pile of equipment. “I don’t give a shit about facts. I give a shit about murdering these motherfuckers for high crimes against technology.”
“Zeke.”
Deacon’s voice snapped through the room, edged with a growl and rough enough to make hardened soldiers piss their pants. Zeke slumped lower, looking momentarily chastised for once in his life. “Sorry.”
“It’s fact,” he repeated. “And you have to give a shit, all of you, because I need you to listen to what I’m about to say. That’s non-negotiable.” His gaze focused on the busted drone. “I’ve been a Rider for a long time. I’ve fought my way through bad patches and made it through every battle alive, somehow. But I’ve seen lots of Riders fall. Good people, the best. And I can’t let that happen, not this time. Not over this.”
Uneasy silence wreathed Ana, and she dug her nails into her palms until the sting burned, fighting to hold back the words that would stop what came next. The quiet had grown oppressive when Lucio spoke. “What does that mean?”
It pulled Deacon from his reverie. “I’m not heading out there alone. We’re all going, but if it looks like this is gonna get ugly, then I’ll handle it. Just me. I may not make it back, but at least I can take the Kings down with me. That’s more than most people get on their way out.”
He refused to meet her gaze. Her nails broke the skin. Her tiny box closed around her, claustrophobic walls pressing inward. A perfect Rider wouldn’t interrupt. A perfect Rider wouldn’t disobey. A perfect Rider would accept the word of their leader, as well as his sacrifice. Grieve it, certainly, but also honor it. Celebrate it.
“What I need from all of you,” he continued, “is a promise. I’m not looking to die. But if it comes to that, I need your word--no, your oath that you won’t try to stop me.”
The words settled like a fist at the small of Ana’s back. She barely heard Gabe’s murmured assent or Zeke’s subdued, “You’re the boss.”
She was waiting for him to look at her. To have the courage to meet her damn eyes.
It took forever. One by one, the Riders offered their promises. Their oaths. Obedience to their leader, who they worshiped but didn’t know, because no one really knew Deacon except Gideon. And now Ana.
When she was the only person who hadn’t responded, his dark-brown eyes finally sought hers. She consciously relaxed her hands, and her palm throbbed with the imprint of her fingernails.
“Fuck no,” she said, calmly and pleasantly.
Deacon didn’t look surprised. “Like I said, it’s non-negotiable. An order, if you want to call it that.”
“Well, it’s a stupid one--”
Gideon slapped his hand down on the table hard enough to rattle the drone. He pinned Ana with the harshest look she’d ever seen on his face, and her blood ran cold.
“Disobedience gets Riders killed in dangerous situations,” he said in a voice so slashing, Ana felt flayed. “If you can’t respect the chain of command and obey your leader’s orders, you’ll be staying here.”
For a few terrifying seconds, Ana couldn’t breathe. Her lungs had seized, and trying to make them expand was impossible.
She was staring at her nightmare. Not an enraged Gideon--even now, the leader of Sector One was above such petty emotions as rage. No, his usually gentle eyes stared at her with disappointment so withering, her little box felt enormous.
Because she felt so, so small.
This was it. The stumble. Her pedestal crumbling beneath her. She’d allowed herself a tiny bit of space for something other than the mission, and the penance she paid wouldn’t just fall on her own shoulders. The next woman who tried to join the Riders would be judged by Ana’s failure. Too emotional. Too hysterical. Too irrational.
Not good enough.
“No.” Deacon stood there, shaking his head, his arms crossed over his chest. “She goes. We need her there.”
No one said no to Gideon. Ana’s shock melted into the dizzy feeling that Deacon had extended a hand to catch her before she could fall.
Gideon released her from the weight of his gaze and turned to Deacon. “It’s your call,” he said finally. “Outline your plan and let me know the details. I’m going to warn the other sector leaders.”
The uneasy tension was back, reigning in a strange silence that made the whole room feel frozen in time.
Then the door slammed open, and everybody moved at once.
Ana sprang out of her chair, tensed on the balls of her feet. Hunter suddenly had a gun in his hands, and so did Lucio, both trained on the door and the woman standing framed by it.
She was tall, almost as tall as Kora, but that was where the resemblance ended. Instead of soft smiles and curly blonde hair,
this woman was all leather and hard angles and dark-brown hair edged with violent shocks of pink.
And guns. She was covered with guns.
“Jesus.” She held up both hands, palms open and empty. “Am I that scary, or are you guys just twitchy?”
Gabe froze with a knife balanced on his fingertips. “Laurel?”
“In the flesh.” She raised both eyebrows. “Maybe I should have knocked.”
“Maybe you should have,” Gideon said mildly. He gestured to Lucio and Hunter, who lowered their weapons. “Laurel. You’re Six’s girl, aren’t you? Did she send you?”
“Not exactly, but she knows I’m here.” Laurel hefted a large black bag from the ground beside her, walked in, and dropped it on the table, rattling the smashed remains of the drone. “I had a couple of beers with Goose last night. He said you’ve been gathering intel on the Suicide Kings.”
Zeke’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut as he glowered. “I’m gonna fucking kill that little--”
“No, you’re not. He idolizes you, and that’s a hard thing to come by.” She paused and looked around the room. “Well, maybe not around here. Anyway. From the sound of things, it’s just about go time, so here I am.” She held out both arms and bowed with an almost formal flourish. “I want to go.”
That said, she crossed her arms over her chest and stood there like she had every expectation of the men simply shrugging and letting her come along.
The perverse need to laugh added a new dimension to the aching pressure in Ana’s chest, and she decided she liked Laurel.
A lot.
Gabe still looked perturbed, but Gideon’s expression had grown thoughtful. He stroked his chin idly and glanced at Deacon, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
“All right. I just have one question.” His next words felt like a slap across Ana’s face. “Can you take orders? Because if you risk them by going rogue...”
Every trace of easygoing humor vanished from Laurel’s face. “I don’t take chances with other people’s lives. And I can follow orders.”
Deacon looked around. “Anyone have any objections?”
Nobody murmured a protest. With Gideon standing next to him, the memory of his harsh words to Ana still hanging in the air, who would dare?
“Okay, then. Get your gear. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”
The Riders broke apart, and Ana slipped from the chair, still too raw to deal with Gideon. She kept her gaze averted as she edged around the room, but she felt Deacon fall into step behind her as she headed to change.
She expected him to follow her into her room, but when she reached her desk and turned, he had planted himself in the doorway, his face serious, his eyes dark and wary and...
Not disappointed. Not quite. But there was a hurt in them that cut deeper than even Gideon’s disapproval, because that had been a professional catastrophe, but this?
This was so, so personal.
And there was no escaping it. Bracing herself, Ana crossed the intervening space between them, sure that the only thing that could make what followed worse was forcing Deacon to raise his voice loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I know I fucked up. But I’m not sorry for not being able to give up on your life.”
“That’s not your decision, Ana. And if that’s what you think I’m doing, then you weren’t listening.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t let Gideon make you stay behind because I know how much you need this. Being a Rider. But you don’t get to make this call.”
“I was listening,” Ana replied, her voice wavering with the struggle it took to remain calm. If she blew up, if she was emotional, he’d never hear her. “I caught the part that matters. You can’t let us risk our lives over this. You’re not strategizing to win. You’re trying to figure out how to avoid losing any Riders, because you’d feel guilty. You still think this is all your fault.”
His hand tightened on the doorframe. “Seth hand-delivered a message addressed to me right to our fucking doorstep. How much clearer does it need to be?”
“Yeah, some sick asshole is gunning for you.” She started to curl her hands into fists and flinched as her nails scraped her raw palms. “That doesn’t make it your fault.”
“Say it all you want. It doesn’t change anything.” He took a step back. “Get your shit together. Twelve minutes.”
The coldness in his voice hurt. Her defiance had shut down something inside him, killing the softness in his eyes. She wanted to force the fight, to make him say all of it--that this was over. That he’d liked her fine when she wasn’t challenging him on anything that mattered, but trusting her only went so far.
A woman could have fought, but a Rider had to turn off personal feelings and obey. And Ana had already fucked up her duties as a Rider enough for one day. “Fine.”
“It’s not fine.” Deacon pinned her with a hard look. “I overruled Gideon, but not because he was wrong. I won’t be put in that position again.”
He closed the door, and irrationally the quiet click of the latch was the part that upset her the most. Something this final should resonate with raised voices and slammed doors, not this chilly, perfectly controlled silence. Mechanically, Ana turned and began to strip. The usual bubbling anticipation that accompanied pulling on her work clothes was nowhere to be found.
Deacon hadn’t used the words, but he’d just ended things between them. That was the curse of understanding him now. Of having seen past the cracks in his wall.
Not that there were any now. He’d mortared that shit down. His walls were twelve goddamn feet high, impenetrable and unshakable. Ana could throw herself against them until her bones were dust and never get to the other side again.
Assuming he didn’t martyr himself before sundown.
It hurt, being shut out. It hurt more knowing she’d asked for it. She’d gotten careless and sloppy. She’d let Deacon convince her that it was safe to carve out a little breathing room, to be human. That had been her first mistake--how the hell would Deacon understand the pressure to meet some perfect, impossible ideal?
Ana’s father had understood.
William Jordan wasn’t a saint yet, but as Ana laced her boots, she offered a silent prayer to him. Help me get through this fight. Help me be smart. Help me get us all home alive.
And when we are, help me figure out how to be strong enough to live my life alone.
Her father’s voice didn’t answer.
Ana supposed that shouldn’t surprise her. She’d never really believed her father had ended up in some eternal purgatory, damned for his crime of trying to make a world a better place. The God Ana believed in--the one who told her to love fiercely and proudly--would have recognized the honor and loyalty in her father’s heart.
When Ana closed her eyes to pray, she didn’t imagine her father floating in darkness. She imagined him where he belonged after all those years of sacrifice--with her mother. Reunited. Happy. At peace.
They’d never offer their blessings on a solitary life for their only daughter. They’d want her to fight, the way she’d always fought--to believe she deserved everything she wanted and not stop until she had it firmly within her grasp.
But she wanted...love. Not just the big, obvious parts. The filthy ones. She wanted the tiny moments. Deacon watching her with a secret smile. The flour on his cheek and his willing submission to her aunts’ teasing. The warmth of him at night when they curled around each other in bed. The way he asked her advice, and seemed to listen.
The way he’d leaned into her, vulnerable and tired, and let her see the parts of him no one else ever got to see.
The way he’d let her lean against him.
Her throat stung like she’d swallowed glass, and she laughed so she wouldn’t cry. She didn’t want love.
She wanted Deacon.
Too fucking bad. She’d fucked up, and apparently Deacon wasn’t gonna offer her any second chances. And why would he? The rest of the world never had.
Ana swallowed past the lump in
her throat and checked the clock over her desk. Six minutes left. Not enough time to cry. Not enough time to grieve. Just enough time to bury this pain so deep that all she could feel was a numb ache. It might fester there and poison her heart, but Ana didn’t have the luxury of giving a shit.
It wasn’t like her heart had done her any favors lately. Maybe if Deacon broke it badly enough, she could sweep away the unmendable pieces and live inside this numbness forever.
Then she’d be the perfect Rider.
Chapter Eighteen
Some things never changed.
The Suicide Kings’ compound wasn’t one of them.
The surrounding terrain was the same, familiar enough that Deacon had slowed his bike even before reaching the well-hidden turnoff from the main road that led down into the canyon. He’d had to remind himself to keep the wheel straight, to drive past the turnoff and up into the hills beyond.
But now, as he stared down at the façade of the Kings’ compound through the scope of Lucio’s favorite rifle, he felt...nothing. No hint of recognition or familiarity.
The old man had taken possession of a pre-Flare bunker built into the canyon wall, the kind of place where paranoid people had once prepared for the coming apocalypse. Too bad they usually picked the wrong kind of apocalypse. The ones who built this bunker had apparently been braced for a full-scale nuclear conflict.
When the solar storms fried the electrical system responsible for their air and water filtration, they abandoned the bunker entirely. But it had suited the old man’s purposes just fine. He rewired the systems for solar power, reinforced the entrance, and painted the whole thing to blend in with the craggy walls of the canyon. No one who didn’t already know where it was could find the Kings’ compound.
It looked different now, starkly visible in the morning sunlight. The entrance had been expanded, the small, squat vault replaced by a gray concrete building. A fence surrounded it, wicked wires he had no doubt were electrified.