by Kit Rocha
The sounds had been too far apart. The second he thought it, metal creaked a few rows over.
Fuck, how many were there?
More than one could be too many. It felt like hours had passed in agony, but it had only been minutes since he’d jabbed the panic button. The Riders were fast, but not that fast.
Gravel pinged softly off the other side of the container, and he whirled around it to find nothing, again. Someone was playing mind games, taunting him like a cat with a trapped mouse.
He sprinted across another stretch of empty space, heading for the courtyard. If he could get to the other side and find a vantage point--
Instinct screamed. His skin crawled. He could hear Ashwin in his head, scolding him for letting someone herd him into an ambush.
Ivan whirled and saw the gun barrel three feet from his head.
Training took over.
He ducked and threw himself at the man holding it. The shot went off over Ivan’s head with a deafening crack as he hit the man square in the chest and bore him to the ground. The gun went flying, skittering across the gravel.
Ivan reared back, swinging his own weapon around. He was already squeezing the trigger when brutal fingers dug into his wrist and shoved his arm aside. The bullet went high, shattering a window on a nearby house.
Dead, frozen eyes stared up at Ivan, eyes with the same chilly detachment he’d seen in Ashwin’s scarier moments. White-hot agony shot up his arm as his attacker squeezed with impossible strength, grinding the bones in his wrist together.
Impossible--or genetically enhanced.
Ivan ripped his knife from his belt with his free hand and went for the man’s throat. The blade almost grazed him, but the man--the Makhai--heaved them both up and flung Ivan aside. He hit the ground with stunning force, dropping his gun.
He scrambled after it, but the Makhai was faster.
Ivan saw the blow coming and rolled to one side. The man checked his punch before driving his fist into the dirt and shifted his momentum with superhuman speed, changing his attack into an elbow aimed at Ivan’s throat. He rolled again, this time with a desperate kick to the man’s knee. It barely landed.
Ivan had trained hours upon hours with Ashwin. He knew what a Makhai soldier could do. There was no way a single Rider could take one down without a miracle. His only hope was to hold on, to keep the man too busy to go after Maricela.
To die as slowly as fucking possible.
He kicked out again, drilling his attacker’s ankle. It bought him a few seconds to scramble to his knees and raise his blade. Before he could use it, the Makhai kicked his hand so hard Ivan heard bone shatter. The knife fell from Ivan’s suddenly useless grip.
He ignored the agony. He ignored the probability that at least three of his fingers were broken. He came up with a smaller throwing knife in his left hand and flung it from the hip.
It sank into the Makhai’s shoulder, but Ivan’s momentary relief died when he reached up and jerked it free without even flinching. Ivan wrenched his body out of the path of its return flight and made a split-second decision--no more throwing weapons that could be used against him. He had to get close enough to sink that knife into the Makhai soldier’s throat.
This was going to hurt.
»»» § «««
Ivan loved her.
It didn’t feel real. There was too much going on. Maricela’s hands tightened and relaxed around the tracker Ivan had given her as her brain struggled to process everything that was happening. Her head pounded, her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t stop shaking.
A man was dead.
Ivan loved her.
And he was out there now, searching for the killer.
Her fingers closed around the beacon again. Its blinking green light should have reassured her--the Riders knew they were in trouble. The Riders would come.
But would they make it in time?
She huddled closer to Nita. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What Ivan told us to do.” Nita pulled away far enough to roll to her knees. The vase of flowers sat on the table where the contractor had placed it, the blooms bright and fresh, obviously picked that morning just to please them.
And now he was dead.
Nita grabbed the vase and ducked back beneath the table next to Maricela. She tossed the flowers aside and used the water to wet one of the hand towels that had fallen from the counter in the chaos. “Here, let me--”
The blossoms were scattered on the floor, like the poor man lying outside in the dirt. And Maricela couldn’t even remember his name.
She brushed Nita aside as her friend tried to clean the blood from her face. “I can’t just sit here.”
“You have to.” Nita caught her hand and squeezed it hard. “Whoever is out there is here to hurt you. You have to make it as hard as you can.”
Nothing could be harder than this--waiting, helpless, as Ivan confronted danger all by himself. That was the part that made her skin crawl. Not that he was headed into a potentially fatal fight--he was a Rider, after all--but that there was no one at his back. If he died out there, he would do it alone.
No.
Before she had a chance to say it aloud, a shot rang out, stopping her heart for agonizing seconds. When a second shot exploded, Maricela sprang from her hiding spot beneath the table. “Are you armed?”
“Maricela--”
“Show me.”
Reluctantly, Nita eased up her skirt and pulled a knife from her boot. “I just use it for practical stuff. I don’t even think it’s big enough to be useful in a fight.”
“It won’t come to that.” She shoved the tracker into Nita’s hands. “The rest of the Riders are on their way. Stay here. That’s an order.”
Nita scrambled to her knees again, her eyes full of panic. “No, Maricela. If you’re going, let me--”
“I said stay, Anita.”
Another heartbeat, and Nita sank back, her gaze dropping to the floor. “All right.”
“I’ll be back,” she promised. Maybe it was a lie and maybe it wasn’t, but it was all she had.
Maricela eased through the door, closing it as silently as she could. Then she ran, determined to get as far away from Nita’s hiding spot as possible. Her sandals slapped against the dirt and gravel, but she barely heard it over the sound of her pounding heart.
Where was he?
The way the converted shipping containers had been laid out made it impossible to see anything off in the distance. She moved between them, staying as close to the sanded metal surfaces as she could. If she lived, this would be her new nightmare. Not stumbling to Gideon’s study, but helplessly trying to find her way through a labyrinth of chipped green and murky blue and rust red.
Somewhere to her left, she heard grunts of pain and rage, the kinds of primal noises that raised the hair on her arms. She followed the sounds--
--and walked into the rest of her nightmare.
Ivan was grappling with a man dressed head-to-toe in mottled brown, the kind of color that blended into the desert landscape. Except now those clothes were stained dark with blood, and she couldn’t tell at first whether it was his or Ivan’s.
Then she saw they were both bleeding, and more crimson spattered the ground with every kick and punch. Maricela stood, frozen to the spot, too horrified to hide as the man--the soldier--bashed his elbow against the side of Ivan’s head.
Ivan wheeled back, groaning--
And saw her.
Their eyes clashed for an instant that felt like an eternity. She read the horror there, the fear. She saw his jaw work, knew he was biting back the urge to shout at her to run.
The moment snapped as he lunged forward with a roar, swinging straight for the man’s face with a renewed fury.
This was her nightmare--and this time, she didn’t know how to stop it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ivan had three broken fingers, a rapidly swelling eye, knife wounds in his shoulder and in his side, and a bur
ning pain in his chest that might have been fractured ribs or internal bruising--it was hard to be sure when everything hurt.
All of that vanished when he saw Maricela.
Panic roared through him, giving him a second wind. He drove his good fist into the man’s face, taking out his rage at himself on his opponent. It should have bought him time to get to the backup gun in his boot, but the bastard was on him again in a heartbeat.
He’d known better. He’d known better. He should have found a way to lure the Makhai soldier away, because you couldn’t trust a Rios to stand back when the people they loved were in danger.
Now all he could do was keep the man from realizing his target was right behind him. No more dragging it out. No more playing it safe.
Ivan had to kill an unkillable supersoldier.
The next blow hit him in the gut. Ivan stumbled back more than he had to, drawing the man with him. With his good hand, he groped for his last throwing knife, staying bent over his bruised stomach to hide the movement.
Too slow. The Makhai was so fast, on him before he managed to straighten. The weight of the other man’s body slammed into him, and his ears rung under the force of another blow upside his head.
His vision wavering, Ivan spun and lashed out, driving the tip of the knife toward the Makhai’s unprotected face. His blade grazed the man’s cheek. Skin split. Blood ran.
Ivan’s feet left the ground as the Makhai hauled him up and threw him at the table in the courtyard.
The wood shattered. Fresh pain erupted from a dozen parts of his body in the moment before his head crashed against a rock. Dirt stuck to the blood on his face, and he groaned as he rolled, frantic to find Maricela.
To make her run.
To see her one last time.
She was there, hovering in the shadow of a shipping container. Blood splattered her dress. Her arms. Her face. Her eyes were huge. Hurting. Time slowed, and he lived a lifetime of regret in the space it took to draw in one pained breath.
He wanted to take back his impulsive I love you. His death would have hurt her less that way. Now, even if she survived this, she’d never be able to escape him. He’d haunt her forever--on the walls of the temples, on cards they sold in the market, in the artwork inked onto people she passed in the street. A saint and a ghost, her first heartbreak. A soul-crushing world of could-have-been.
Don’t turn me into a saint. Let me vanish into darkness. Let her heart heal.
The crunch of gravel snapped the world back into focus. The Makhai soldier was walking to pick up Ivan’s discarded pistol. Every stabbing breath hurt, but Ivan tried to make his broken hand move, to grasp the gun in his boot.
He couldn’t even feel his fingers.
He switched hands, twisting as far as he could as fire from his broken ribs grayed out the edges of the world.
But he could still see well enough to glimpse Maricela stepping out of the shadows.
»»» § «««
Maricela didn’t realize she was going to move until she did. But the moment she took that first step into the courtyard, she knew what she had to do.
With Gideon, she’d stumbled across the botched attempt on his life almost by accident. She’d intervened--unthinking, out of pure reactionary instinct. She’d rushed Donny, heedless of the gun in his hand or any other weapons he might be carrying.
Heedless of the very real, very mortal danger.
She wasn’t that naive anymore. She knew now what it felt like to stare down your own demise, to see it racing toward you like a summer thunderstorm, violent and unpredictable. It was all around her here, that sensation of inevitability and tragedy, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
But she wasn’t scared. Ivan kept a backup pistol in his ankle holster. If she could buy him enough time to reach it, her death would be worth it. It fit with the narrative of her life, of what it meant to be a Rios--courage, sacrifice. They’d plaster her image all over the temples and their skin and write songs about her, and they’d never know the truth.
She was too selfish to watch him die.
Somehow, the soldier didn’t notice her. It had to be tunnel vision, an adrenaline-fueled artifact of the fight, but a tiny part of her whispered that it was a sign. She was meant to do this. Maybe they’d sing about that, too--a small, perfect miracle at the hour of her death, grace where there should have been none.
Looking at Ivan hurt. He groped at his boot with his good hand, his face lined with pain, his eyes begging her not to do this. His shirt was soaked with blood, and even more dripped from the wound on his head. He was in bad shape, but not too far gone to make it.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, and she believed every word.
She even believed it when the soldier swung around, the pistol in his hand pointed toward where Ivan lay on the ground. She stepped between them, her heart pounding a hard but steady beat.
“No.” The word came out clear, no hint of unsteadiness, because she’d never been more certain of anything in her life.
The man’s blank expression didn’t waver. He stared back at her, his eyes flat except for a spark of something vaguely like surprise tinged with annoyance.
But he didn’t squeeze the trigger.
Maybe this was that trick of the brain the Riders talked about sometimes, time stretching out until it felt like all of eternity was swirling around you, seconds ticking by in excruciatingly slow motion. Or maybe she was already dead, and this was her existence now.
If so, it was closer to heaven than hell. Ivan was alive, and nothing hurt. She’d take it.
The soldier’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled the gun back just a little. For the span of a heartbeat, Maricela almost let herself hope that he was relenting, that somehow the brashness of her command had driven him to surrender.
He stepped to one side. Around her.
Before she could react, a gunshot blasted through the stillness. For the second time that day, hot blood spattered her skin, and she squeezed her eyes shut, her ears ringing painfully.
Irrational fear seized her as she turned, but it was Ivan who held the smoking gun, and the nameless soldier who slumped to the ground, dead.
Ivan’s arm wavered. Agony twisted his features. But his gaze locked on her, raking over the blood on her skin. “Are you--?”
He sounded even worse than he looked. “Don’t.” She dropped beside him, half-crawling to him across the dirt and gravel. “The other Riders will be here soon.”
“No.” The gun fell from his hand. He gripped her arm instead, his fingers digging in with a fraction of his usual strength. “Don’t ever...do that...again. Promise me.”
“Oh, Ivan.” She tried to wipe away the half-dried, sticky blood on his face. “I can’t.”
“Mari--” Her name dissolved into a broken cough that filled his eyes with agony. His hand found her cheek, clumsy but intent. “Promise me,” he rasped. “Promise me you’ll live.”
The rumble of engines in the distance saved her from having to lie. She pulled his hand to her lips instead. “We’ll talk about it all you want. After Kora fixes you up.”
His thumb shifted, brushing the corner of her mouth. “My princess.”
My love. Before she could whisper the words, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp. She prayed it was just the pain driving him out of consciousness, but the specter of possible internal injuries haunted her as she threw back her head and screamed for help.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The numb detachment that had gotten Maricela back to the palace had settled firmly around her, making it hard to focus. Gideon and Ashwin were deep in conversation, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Some of the other Riders were arguing. Zeke was bouncing out of his skin, Deacon glowered from the corner, and Nita was clinging to Hunter, sobbing as if her heart would break.
At least everyone had stopped staring at Maricela.
It was all happening very far away. When Ana tried to press a glass of
water into her hand, she was far away, too, her words echoing and dreamy, like they’d drifted to her ears from the other end of a long tunnel. There was an odd sort of safety in that distance, and Maricela clung to it even as she shoved the glass away, just like she’d shoved away Ana’s attempts to get her cleaned up.
There would be time for that. Later.
In another room specifically outfitted for life-threatening emergencies, Kora was taking care of Ivan. She literally held his life in her hands, and Maricela wasn’t ready to deal with the tension and fear lashing through the room. It had all been so clear in her head--if she managed to give Ivan enough time to take down his attacker, then he would be okay. But the thought of winning the fight only to have Ivan succumb to his injuries...
It didn’t make any sense. It had terrible narrative flow. Even defeat could carry a measure of glory, tragedy that still managed to sing triumphant. Those tragedies became songs and murals and tattoos and epic poems whose recitations were reserved for the holiest of days. Things worthy of Ivan.
A win that slipped, whimpering, into loss was just sad.
She knew she was being stupid. She knew. She was fixating on this because she needed it to make sense.
She needed it to make sense.
A sharp, vicious curse from the other side of the room drew her sluggish attention. Even braced for the worst, she wasn’t prepared for the next word to penetrate her haze of confusion.
Makhai.
“What are you saying?” Deacon demanded.
“I’m saying the dead man in the back of your truck is Wyatt,” Ashwin answered in a firm, sure voice. “A Makhai soldier two classes ahead of me.”
Reyes drove both hands through his hair. “Does this mean there’s going to be a squad coming in behind him?”
“I don’t know. It seems unlikely that the Base would send another Makhai soldier into Sector One to execute a mission objective when I’m already here, but I can’t rule out the possibility, either.”