by Kit Rocha
Ana’s voice came from just behind him. “Zeke says he found a signal, but their network is locked up pretty tight. He thinks he can get in, though.”
The sound of her voice hurt. Not just his head or that vague place in his chest where his heart was supposed to be. He ached all over, like he’d trained too hard and then collapsed afterwards with innumerable bruises.
He couldn’t flinch every time she spoke to him. But he couldn’t quite face her, either. “The Kings want me in there, so Hunter and Gabe will find an access point. But Zeke’ll have to work harder if he wants to breach their systems.”
“Then any access point they find will be a trap.”
He finally looked at her. She was calm, unruffled. Half a foot away, but she may as well have been on the other side of a whole fucking ocean. “We knew that already. But I made a promise not to go in there without the other Riders at my back, and I plan to keep it.”
She stared at him in silence for a moment and then looked away.
Lucio took the rifle from Deacon’s hands and peered through the scope. “No guards stationed outside.”
Laurel was kneeling behind a cluster of scrub a few yards away, a pair of binoculars around her neck. “I saw two, but they didn’t seem to be patrolling. They came outside, had a smoke, and went right back in.”
Lucio tilted his head--hesitant, though his expression didn’t change--and gestured toward the opposite ridge. “Some well-placed explosives could bring the walls of the canyon right down on the complex. We could bury it without having to risk engagement.”
Even if they knew for certain that only Kings were inside that bunker, the lingering questions, the possibility that Seth may have escaped, would haunt Deacon. But that wasn’t the only reason the idea turned his stomach. “We have to assume there are noncombatants in there. Domestic workers, maintenance staff. Children.”
“Yes.” Lucio rubbed his chin. “Reyes?”
“You know me,” he drawled, both thumbs hooked into his belt loops. “I never take the easy path if there’s a rougher one available.”
“So we’re going in,” Ana said quietly.
“Not all of us,” Deacon told her.
Her brow furrowed, and she started to open her mouth, but her gaze shifted at the soft rasp of boots on gravel.
Hunter and Gabe crested the ridge behind them. They’d circled around the long way, making sure to stay out of sight of any lookouts or surveillance. Deacon turned away from Ana and raised one eyebrow. “Well?”
Hunter’s expression was grim. “We found a defunct ventilation shaft. It’s big enough to rappel down, no laser grid. We should be able to get into it easy enough.” He shook his head. “In other words, they left a door open for us.”
“Wouldn’t be the first trap we’ve sprung,” Gabe countered. “Nobody’s ever really ready for us.”
The Kings might come close, but the Riders had advantages. They trusted each other, and they knew how to get shit done. But, more than anything, they were fighting for something bigger than money.
“We’ll be fine,” he told them. “Reyes, Gabe, Hunter, and Lucio--grab the gear you need. You’re with me. We’ll get down there, see what happens. Ana? Zeke and Laurel will stay here with you.”
He saw the questions piling up behind Ana’s eyes. The stiffness in her muscles. But she remained rigidly, coolly controlled. “What’s our objective?”
Her doubt hurt more than her chilly regard, but in a different way. A less personal one. So he embraced it, facing her squarely as she glared at him. “The most important one. Zeke will keep trying to bust into their network, and you’ll work on contingency plans. If the mission goes sideways, your job is to get the rest of the Riders out.”
“The rest of the Riders,” she echoed, each word precise.
He couldn’t slip it past her. She was too ready for him to pull some supreme act of self-sacrifice. And it was tempting, really, to go ahead and embrace his destiny. To stop fighting the fact that the whole goddamn sector was just waiting to turn him into paintings and prayers and tattoos. A sainted martyr.
Except that somewhere along the way, this had stopped being about him, about vengeance or settling old scores or cleaning up what was left of his guilty past. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Seth surviving. Sector One in danger.
Ana in danger.
No. He had to finish this.
“You have your orders,” he whispered.
Her eyes blazed. She hated him for doing this to her, but she kept it from her voice as she replied just as softly, “Yes, sir.”
If they listened hard enough, could the others hear his heart break?
He spun around. “Everyone on comms. Let’s move.”
Lucio, Reyes, and Hunter fell in behind him. Gabe took the lead, tracing a path back past the line of sight of the surveillance cameras. When Deacon glanced back, Zeke was bent over his portable laptop, intent on whatever had his fingers flying over the keys and screen. Laurel had unzipped the massive bag she’d insisted on bringing, and Ana--
Ana was staring after him, just as focused as Zeke, as if fixing the image of their retreating forms into her brain.
“Worst way to die,” Reyes said brightly. “Who’s up? Lucio?”
For once, he didn’t rattle off fifteen carefully researched historical tortures like scaphism or waterboarding. “In an obvious trap we walked right into, knowing full well it might get us killed.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
“Shh.” Gabe scrambled over a boulder and glared back at Reyes. “Stealth. You understand the concept.”
“Gallows humor,” Reyes shot back. “You understand the concept.”
“If you both don’t shut up,” Hunter muttered, “the Kings won’t have to kill you.”
The top of the ventilation shaft looked like any other kind of aging access door--plain, unmarked steel, five feet across, with peeling paint and pits of rust dotting its surface. There was a slot for an old-fashioned padlock to secure it, and the broken lock lay on the rocky ground nearby. The rusted hinges shrieked as Deacon pulled open the door, and he cringed before stepping back to let Gabe go to work on cutting the bars across the top of the shaft.
Lucio handed out the rigger’s belts as Gabe fired up the tiny oxy-fuel cutting torch. Then he glanced over at Hunter. “Best way to die.”
Hunter pulled away the first bar as Gabe freed it. “Starting to think maybe there isn’t one.”
“Hmm. Reyes?”
Reyes didn’t answer until the final bar had been detached and tossed aside. In fact, he was uncharacteristically quiet as he fixed his belt in place, checked the retracting wire mechanism, and smoothed his gloves.
Then he winked at Lucio and grinned. “With your boots on.”
“Notice he said boots, not pants,” Gabe murmured.
Reyes waggled his eyebrows. “No tengo pelos en la lengua.” With that, he clipped his carabiner to the solid steel frame ringing the ventilation shaft and lowered himself in.
Lucio froze, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Did he just...say he doesn’t have a hairy tongue?”
Hunter snorted out a laugh and clapped Lucio on the back. “It’s an old saying. It means he’s not afraid to tell it like it is.”
“Maybe the rest of us should stay up here and let him talk the Kings to death.” In spite of his words, Deacon fixed his carabiner in place and dropped down into the abyss.
The ventilation duct felt smaller on the inside. Deacon cut on his light so he could see the bottom, but it seemed dull and dim, unable to penetrate the gloom. His ears rang from the harsh sound of the rappelling wire spooling free as he sank into the darkness.
A few feet from the rough concrete floor, he flicked the switch on his belt and shuddered to a halt. He released the buckle on the belt and dropped the last bit of distance to the floor, landing with a soft thud.
Deacon activated his earpiece as the others slid down behind him. “You got me, Zeke?”
“We’re in. Stand by.”
The hallway dead-ended beneath the shaft. The other disappeared around a single corner, and Deacon motioned for Gabe and Reyes to take point. The familiar rhythms of working as a team, moving as one unit, were taking over. It didn’t matter that his thoughts were somewhere else, lingering up on that ridge with Ana. This was his job, his life.
The only thing he’d ever been any damn good at.
Reyes flashed the all clear, and Deacon flowed forward with Hunter and Lucio at his heels. They rounded the corner, and all he could see was red as laser sights splashed through the darkness and off the walls before honing in on his chest. A quick glance at the others revealed dozens of them, trained squarely on each of them.
“Lights.” Seth’s voice was still echoing around them as electricity clicked and buzzed, chasing away the darkness.
They were in a huge, cavernous room lined with catwalks--and men bearing rifles. Completely surrounded, and all Deacon could do was give the order. “Stand down, Riders.”
Next to him, Gabe tightened his grip on his weapon, his eyes feverish. Wild.
“Montero.” Deacon waited until Gabe looked at him, then repeated his words through gritted teeth. “Stand. Down.”
The others were already lowering their weapons to the floor. After a tense moment, Gabe exhaled and followed suit with tense, jerky movements.
“Nice,” Seth drawled, clapping his hands together mockingly. “You always were good at that, weren’t you, old friend? Finding obedient puppies to follow you around and only piss when you tell them to.”
He didn’t have much time before they were disarmed, stripped of their equipment--and checked for communications devices. He had to make these words count. “Six-to-one odds, Seth. Not much choice in the matter.”
Seth strode forward until he was nose-to-nose with Deacon. Still smiling that mocking smile, he reached up and plucked the communications transmitter from his ear. Seth turned it over in his fingers, examining it for a moment, then dropped it to the concrete and crushed it under his boot.
“Sweep them,” he ordered.
Chapter Nineteen
She’d probably never see Deacon again.
For long minutes after Laurel returned to her surveillance, Ana watched the spot where he’d disappeared into the trees, trying to reconstruct her last sight of him.
He’d looked back at her. Their eyes had clashed. He’d looked away.
Maybe, in the lonely days to come, she’d be able to augment the memory, make it more than it was. She would close her eyes and pretend they’d stared at each other for endless, breathless seconds. That she’d seen futures that could never be in the darkness of his gaze, words he couldn’t say. Promises he wished he could keep. His apology. His regret. His love.
Goodbye.
Instead, she’d seen his unyielding acceptance of his own death. And what had he seen in her face? Nothing soft, that was for sure. She hadn’t sent him into the beyond with sweet smiles and tender goodbyes. She should have, even as she hated him for leaving her behind. She should have.
But she couldn’t.
It didn’t hurt yet. It would, eventually, she supposed. But the only thing she could feel now was chilling, icy numbness and resolve to do the job she’d been given. To obey her orders.
To be the perfect Rider.
Turning her back on the path the others had taken, she glanced at Zeke. “What’s the status on their network?”
“I’m trying,” he muttered, a warning sign even without the deep furrow between his brows and the tense set of his shoulders. Zeke never tried. Zeke just did, usually with plenty of boasting and bravado along the way. The lack of either signaled significant trouble.
Another reason to keep her cool.
Ana crouched next to Laurel. “Notice anything else?”
“Just the obvious.” The woman gestured down into the canyon. “Still no patrols, so they’re not worried about security. Which means they’re locked up tighter than Grandma’s good silver.”
Ana dug her binoculars out of her pocket and unfolded them. The approach was steep and offered next to no cover. Undoubtedly every inch was covered by cameras and motion detectors. The fence would be a bitch to climb and the razor wire at the top discouraged it. Cutting through wouldn’t be so bad--if the thing wasn’t electric.
Behind her, Zeke said, “Loud and clear, boss.” Awareness tingled along her spine, making all of her distant numbness a lie. Deacon’s voice was in Zeke’s earpiece, and she was hungry for it in a way that had her gripping her binoculars too tightly. One more bit of him, before he threw his life away like it was worthless. Just one more--
Fighting back the ache, she shifted her surveillance to the doors. “How’d those smokers get in and out? Keycards or codes?”
“Definitely a code, but I didn’t catch it. The panel’s half-hidden behind that little tree, of all damn things.”
Of course it was. Even if they could get past the cameras, and the motion sensors, and the fence...how did you get into a door you couldn’t hack and didn’t have the codes for? “Zeke,” she said, “how’s--?”
“Shit.”
The panic in Zeke’s voice had Ana on her feet and halfway to his side while the blond was still fumbling at his keyboard. “Deacon told them to stand down,” he said, still typing frantically. He smashed a final button, and a familiar, gravelly voice spilled out of the small speakers.
“--weren’t you, old friend? Finding obedient puppies to follow you around and only piss when you tell them to.”
Seth’s voice. The mockery was unmistakable. So was the satisfaction.
“Six-to-one odds, Seth,” came a just-as-familiar voice, and Ana’s heart and stomach leapt in opposite directions. “Not much choice in the matter.”
Deacon sounded so calm, still in control, passing them the information they needed to arrange their plans. Five men had gone in, which meant Deacon had eyes on at least thirty Kings.
Her whole body ached, helplessly tensed for his next words. But all they got was a muffled noise and a crackling sound, followed by static and then silence.
“Zeke--” She gripped his shoulder too hard. “What happened? Can you get anyone else on comms?”
“I’m trying.” He worked rapidly, swearing under his breath in increasingly colorful language as words scrolled across his screen too fast for Ana to read. “Shit, they’re going offline one by one. Shit.”
He looked panicked. Ana didn’t have that luxury. She forced herself to relax her grip on his shoulder until it was encouraging instead of frantic. “That’s okay, Zeke. We knew this could happen. We’re Plan B, right? So focus and get us into their security system.”
“Right, right.” Zeke exhaled roughly and drove his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit that had become a tic since Jaden’s death. She squeezed his shoulder again and returned to Laurel’s side.
Part of Ana curled in on herself, clutching her shredded, bleeding heart. But the rest of her--the woman trained by William Jordan--surveyed the compound as her father’s voice drifted through her memory.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, girl. Work the problem. What do you have? What do you need? How can the things you have get you what you need?
She needed information. She needed a way in that wasn’t a trap. She needed to find the Riders, get them out, and kill every last King she encountered along the way.
One problem at a time, babygirl.
She had a jumpy hacker and a clear-eyed Sector Three sniper who’d arrived with a bag of toys. Ana nudged it with her foot as she squinted at the fenced-in entryway. “You’ve been watching a while. Have the smokers come out more than once?”
“Twice. Ten minutes apart.” She glanced at her watch. “If it’s a pattern, we have about two more minutes until we see them again.”
Ana had gone through Laurel’s bag when they’d first arrived to categorize the various tools. Apparently
, some part of her brain had already started working the angles, because the idea came as easy as breathing. “Don’t you have something in here that can shoot darts?”
Laurel nodded and reached for the bag. “It’ll shoot just about anything you want.”
Ana retrieved Zeke’s bag and dug through it until she found one of his tiny listening devices. “Hey,” she told him, poking him to get his attention. “Pair this up. Fast.”
In a few seconds, it was done. Ana surfaced with the quick-drying adhesive and took a dart from Laurel, affixing the tiny bug to the end. “Can you compensate your aim for this weight?”
Laurel took it back from her, testing its weight by bouncing it in her hand. “Yeah, no problem.”
Easy words, but then Laurel loaded the dart, stretched out on her stomach at the edge of the ravine, and braced the gun on her arm. After two seconds--and one slow, deep breath--she fired, and the dart vanished.
Ana lifted her binoculars and scanned the area near the door. Most of it was unrelieved concrete and steel, and she was about to ask Laurel where she’d aimed when her gaze passed over the tiny potted tree placed specifically to hide the entry panel.
A tiny black dot was barely visible against the dark bark of the trunk--a trunk all of two inches wide. Admiration momentarily overrode everything else--Lucio and Ashwin were both good, with the mental agility to perform complex calculations in their head. But she wasn’t sure either of them could have hit a target that small, from this distance, even without an awkwardly weighted dart. “Nice shot.”
They both ducked back behind cover as the door opened a moment later. Zeke turned up the volume on his spare tablet and pushed it toward them before returning to his computer.
The bug worked perfectly. They heard the snap of the door and the scrape of boots over concrete, even the click of a lighter. Then, “Fuck, shit’s getting stupid in there.”
It was a smooth voice, deep and pitched low. A second voice--higher, with a hint of a drawl--replied, “Getting?”
A snort. “Seth’s around the bend on this one,” Low Voice said. “It could have been over weeks ago.”