Lightning Rider

by Jen Greyson

  I rise up on my toes. Penya sweeps her hand downward, like she can see me and she wants me to stay hidden. I take another step forward, and she does it again. I stop, and she nods.

  Trust.

  The word reverberates through my head like she just screamed it. I duck back behind the tree.

  A dagger flies from the trees and lands at Ilif’s feet. He raises his weapon but doesn’t fire. Instead, he moves quickly into the trees, panicked fury stretching his features as he throws a last look toward Penya’s hologram. Constantine’s men slip through the glen after him, silent and frightening. A pack of wolves.

  Penya waves me forward frantically, and I bolt into the middle of the glen and slide to a stop in front of her. “Where are you?”

  She shakes her head. “Impossible to tell. It’s not our old lab.”

  “Your what?” My eyes bulge. “You . . . you work with him?”

  “No time for that now. You must ensure Viriato’s death. You must. Everyone’s future depends on it. And then you must save Aurelia.”

  My mouth opens.

  “She is ancestor to one of the greatest scientific minds we know.”

  “When will I know how to find her?”

  “Trust yourself.”

  I bite my lip. I trust everyone else—when will I start trusting my own instincts?

  “And Evy?” She waits for my full attention. “Ilif knows about Aurelia.”

  Of course he does. Couldn’t have things getting easy now.

  Shouts echo through the dawn. I scan the woods, but I don’t see anyone.

  “How do I find you?” I ask Penya.

  Her eyes appear to tear up. “Do not waste time on me. I am an old woman, and if you succeed tonight, my purpose will be fulfilled. Stop Ilif. Ensure Viriato’s death. Save Aurelia.” She leans closer, and her voice softens. “I never underestimated you. Never doubted your strength to grow into the prophecy.” She grabs for my fingers, but her image slides through them. “You must understand, Ilif will not stop until he has contorted the future. It’s up to you.”

  “I can’t. No way. Look how bad I screwed this up. Not just tonight but from the beginning.”

  She reaches for me again. “You are strong. You have abilities as a lightning rider I’ve never seen. Ilif has never seen the likes of you either, and it pushes him over the edge. He sees so much potential in you—potential to change the future, the world. Use that against him.”

  I check over my shoulder. Our time is running out.

  “Tell him I lied to you, tricked you. It’s the only way to find out what he’s up to.”

  I rub my forehead. She’s got to be kidding me. “Without you?”

  “You can do this. You never needed me. You never needed anyone. Do not let Ilif corrode your strength. He’ll test you. He’ll push you. You’ll want to break.”

  Super.

  Reassure her, Constantine said.

  I swallow. “I will. And we’ll find a way back to you. Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”

  “The same goes for you.” She kisses at my cheek. “Be strong. Trust. Go.”

  I back up as the men storm into the glen, Ilif racing in front of them like scared prey. He dives toward Penya, and I roll out of the way. A small dagger spins end over end toward his head. Penya tries to duck, but Ilif scatters her image and they disappear. The point of the dagger impales the soft dirt, dissipating the tiny residue I could have traced them with.

  The men surround me, their chests heaving. “Has Constantine returned?”

  I lift my face and blink several times. This is unraveling. Ilif has separated us, and I have no idea what’s next or where Constantine is. The wrong history is unfolding.

  “Come.” They pull me toward the hill, over it, and straight into Viriato’s camp.

  They move silently, and I do my best to keep my noise to a minimum. I have to shake off the disaster with Penya and focus. Shields, swords, daggers, and a few spears lie amid short grass as we move through the armory. The shadows are long, and the guards are missing.

  I spot a few bodies slumped against a stack of weapons. We appear to be following Constantine’s trail. I wonder if he’s killed everyone who’s heard us. Surely we’ve kicked the beehive with all our commotion. No thanks to Ilif for blowing our stealth attack.

  We work our way around the side of the camp, and I search the dawn for the enemy. We’re so far into his camp we’ll never make it out alive. I take it in. Maybe today is my day to die. My breath comes fast. The men slow. We came here to complete a mission, not to get out alive. Penya said we must succeed at all costs. I’m nearly panting now. This isn’t how I wanted it to end—on the fringe of an encampment two thousand years from home. Bile surges up my throat, and I fist my hands.

  No. Constantine has trained me better than this. I slow my breathing, calm my mind. I am a warrior. We are warriors. I can—I will face this head-on. Whatever dawn brings. With these men at my side, willing to die with me for a cause they know little about, obeying orders from a man they would follow into hell.

  A scream wrenches the night, another startled bird. The camp is silent, the air pregnant with anticipation, like a rotted corpse about to split open. I can barely move through the tension, afraid to be the final pin-drop of noise that explodes the night into a frenzy of battle and death. Constantine’s head rises from behind a small watering trough. He waves us forward.

  My knees give way, and the men grab the back of my armor and put me back on my feet. We move as one toward Constantine. When we’re halfway there, he makes sharp cutting motions with his hands, and the men halt and slide behind me. Two more hand motions, and a small nudge in my back sends me stumbling toward him. It takes me three steps before I realize I’m alone. I glance behind me. The men are gone.

  Constantine tugs me down in a crouch and makes sharp stabbing motions with his fingers. We’re ten feet from Viriato’s tent and the flaps are still closed. Nothing fills the space between our hiding spot and the back entrance. There’s nowhere to hide, nothing to conceal any movement beyond where we are.

  He makes no attempt to ask me what happened with Ilif. He’s focused only on this section of the task. I’d give anything to be able to sectionalize my brain right now. Worry for Penya strains my attention.

  Clouds of breath puff so fast from my mouth I look like a tailpipe, but I can’t get a handle on my breathing. The sound of my heart is thunderous. We’re only moments away from being noticed, captured, and killed.

  His fingers clasp my chin, and he forces me to look at him, to watch his movements. His touch calms me, seals me together before I collapse into tiny pieces. He points to his chest, then to mine, before he puts his fingers together and makes a sweeping motion toward the tent.

  What?

  He scowls and makes the motion again. Plus one like he’s holding a ball.

  Of lightning.

  He wants me to arc him.

  He should know better. This is a terrible plan. I’ll overshoot us or get us there next Tuesday. I can’t move us there like he wants me to, with no time lapse.

  A murmur of voices floats over the silence. Goats bleat welcoming invitations to everyone wandering past their pen. Viriato will not sleep much longer. We’re out of time.

  Constantine’s fingers are firm on my shoulders. He’s right. We don’t have any other options. If we run or sneak, we’ll be spotted and killed. No questions, no hesitation.

  I nod. What do we have to lose?

  Only our entire futures.

  I clench my jaw and fight the surge of emotion.

  This is it, the last thing we will do together.

  He clamps my hand in his, and I take a deep breath. No mistakes this time. My lightning sparks, then fizzles.

  He jerks his gaze to mine, questioning.

  I try again. A ball flares, and he glances over his shoulder.

  Emotion overwhelms me, and I force myself to concentrate.

  A horde of Viriato’s men burst from s
hadows. They haven’t been sleeping. They’ve been stalking us.

  Men race toward us, weapons swinging in attack. One slices a sword and just misses Constantine’s chest. I whip my lightning between the sword and his skin.

  “Go!” Constantine pushes me away and barrels back into the fight, sword raised.

  I arc.

  The image of Constantine’s battle wavers, and then I’m standing at the foot of Viriato’s narrow bed in the center of his sparse quarters.

  He’s asleep and alone.

  Fast labored breaths make his chest rise and fall. Did they drug him before they abandoned him? I don’t have time to investigate—or to chicken out. This is like target practice. I just have to pretend he’s attacking me.

  Then kill a defenseless, sleeping, drugged man.

  A hero.

  A man who’s already dead in my history books.

  If I let him live, Ilif wins. We all lose.

  Lightning flares and consumes the darkness in the tent. This is no longer about me and my single act of murder. This is about humanity as a whole, about everyone’s future. This is fulfillment of this man’s life. A life that ends here tonight.

  I clap my hands together, and a bolt as thick as a pipe fills my hands. We may both die here. One a legend, a martyr. The other an anonymous answer to a prophecy.

  I widen my hands, and the lightning doubles in size. I can barely control it. It’s trying to wrap behind me.

  No more thinking.

  The night goes silent.

  I collapse my hands until the light is a thin line, a precision instrument.

  It’s not about me or him. The big picture comes into focus. I am not condemning Spain to something brutal and horrific. I’m protecting her future. Ilif’s alteration would create a far worse fate—I’ve seen it.

  No way am I letting him have that. I don’t care what he’s after.

  By killing Viriato I give this unconscious man before me what he’s been fighting for—Spain’s future beyond what he can see in his limited lifetime.

  By killing him, I make him a legend.

  A legend who will never exist if I allow Ilif to recreate Spain’s future.

  I lower my lightning to his neck.

  Blood splatters the side of the tent.

  Chapter 26

  I stare up at a familiar ceiling, bathed in bright sunlight. Hand-picked bamboo floors lay beneath me, and a couch and entertainment center are back where they belong—in my own living room. Please don’t let this be before Nick took it all. I can’t go through this whole thing again.

  Pain snuffs my thoughts as it wracks my body, but not the customary stuff. No, this is a gaping hole in my chest, an ache in my joints, a pounding in my brain.

  It’s been days since I’ve been here, but it feels like a lifetime. A gut-wrenching, horrible-ending lifetime. I just murdered a man. Laid four thousand volts of electricity across his neck. Sliced it thin and delicate. A knife wound to ancient coroners.

  My guts heave, and I roll over and scramble to the sink, making it just before I vomit. I retch until there’s nothing left, and then I dry-heave some more. Tears and snot run down my face, and I rip a scrap of paper towel from the roll and dab my lips. I twist the faucet and watch the running water, then plunge my face under the icy stream. My hands tremble.

  This was not how it was supposed to happen.

  I heave again, and my stomach contorts into giant knots of regret and shame. I actually did it. I killed a legend.

  And then abandoned my men, with no idea if the plan worked.

  And Constantine. What about his future? Did it end on the battlefield that night? A sob breaks loose, and I lie across the counter, the cool tiles digging in to my cheek. Damn him. I pound the counter. Damn him for making me love him, for telling me he’d come with me. Protect me. Watch over me.

  Damn him most of all for being dead.

  Please don’t let him be dead. Even in my head, the request sounds puny and weak, but I plead again with the universe that throws me around like a rag doll, with the power that makes me a murderer.

  Please.

  I sniff and stare at the pattern in the grout.

  Facts bombard me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. It was seven against one when I left him, seventy against one moments after.

  My stomach lurches, and I grit my teeth. I was never supposed to be the one. It was never supposed to be me in the tent.

  Penya knew it all along.

  Trust.

  Such a stupid word. I push up on my elbows and flick the water off.

  Faith would have been a better word. Faith in the impossible.

  I drag my sleeve across my mouth, leaving a trail of snot and tears on my favorite cream sweater. I wipe the back of my hand across my leather pants, snagging my watch on the pocket. My head threatens to explode with the normalcy of what’s going on.

  My legs give way and I crumple. I can’t do this.

  The sun slides across my feet, and I sit for over an hour, immobilized by grief. I would sit here forever, but that would be an insult to the warriors who fought with me today. I must find a way to complete this, to burn off the dangling loose ends.

  I pull a soda from the nearly empty fridge and then wander the living room. A folded white tent of paper has fallen over on top of the entertainment center. I pick it up and run a finger through the layer of dust.

  My name is scrawled on the front in what looks like Papi’s handwriting.

  Mija,

  I wanted you to have a home when you returned. Mrs. Steinaman’s feeding Ike.

  Come see me.

  Love and beans,

  Papi

  Well, that explains the furniture. He did a good job. At least he’s still my papi and I didn’t screw that up.

  I don’t know what I’ll do if I find out I failed.

  I straighten. I’m going to handle it, that’s what I’m going to do. When we started this crazy ride, I was nothing but a bike builder. Now, for better or for worse, I’ve just affected the entire population. Heavy stuff. But stuff I’m going to face head-on. I have to. For Constantine. For his men. For Viriato.

  And maybe for me.

  But first, I need to bust ass to Papi’s house. It seems strange that I didn’t land there in the first place. I’ve never come back here. I close my eyes and pull my braid forward, rubbing the ends across my lips. If the alteration started on the mountain when I got my lightning, this was the first home I came to, so maybe I create a great big reset button each time. Every time to Papi’s was during the alteration. For now, it’s as close as I can get to an answer.

  Like an old woman, I hobble down the stairs, snagging my jacket and helmet. I swing past Ike’s cage on the way. His bowl is full of melons. I tap the glass, and he lifts his head and his big mouth opens like a Muppet.

  I slip out through the garage. Snow glitters in the bright light, and my breath catches. Figures we’d get a typical early-spring snowstorm. I ease the bike into the snow. It’s only an inch deep, but my “bust-ass” plan to Papi’s house just got knocked to a “creeping-don’t-die” plan.

  I maneuver the bike through the neighborhood, avoiding the busy roads and their slush. At the entrance to Papi’s subdivision, I notice the first Christmas tree.

  I blink, stunned.

  Six months is substantially longer than a few-hour swing. I can hardly bear another puzzle. Not today.

  Whatever day that is.

  And yet I still have loads of questions. I need the Internet, a history book, and some serious answers. I’ve got to know what happened after I left Spain, what changed, and if the mission was a success or a grand failure. It might be nice to know if I can go to jail for murdering a man a couple of thousand years ago, too.

  A group of bundled kids huddles at the edge of a crosswalk, and I slow the bike.

  The one question I really want answered is jumping up and down, arms flailing in the air.

  Maybe I should find out what happened to that
man I was falling in love with.

  The parade of kids crosses the road, and my eyes burn. If he survived, I’ll get a chance to see him again when I save Aurelia. Not for my own selfish gain, but to soothe his pain, to give Aurelia the future she’s supposed to have. If Aurelia is ancestor to some brilliant scientist, it’s not about me or Constantine—or that giant, beating space between us.

  The crosswalk empties and I roll forward, taking little notice of the snow-covered decorations and cutesied-up houses.

  The bump in Papi’s driveway jolts me back into focus. I pull the bike into the carport and wince at the rumbling echo. My fingers are frozen, and I have to pry them off the handlebars. I rub them together quickly and barrel through the house.

  A chorus of girly voices greets me, and I freeze. Everyone’s here.

  Mami comes around the corner, an apron around her thick waist and her black hair up in a messy bun. She wipes her hands on a towel, sees me, and claps in surprise. “Evy! Come in, come in. We expected you later.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, and I blink them away before she sees. After losing Penya, after killing a man . . . sometimes, I still just need my mami.

  She wraps her arms tight around my waist, and I blink and force a smile.

  “Hi, Mami.” I kiss her cheek and hug her tight. She smells like peppers and roses. I’ve missed her.

  She grabs my shoulders and holds me away, studying me. I’m happy to see her, and that makes it easy to hide everything else. She pats my cheek softly and tugs my coat from my shoulders.

  She guides me through the doorway and pushes me toward the commotion at the front of the house. Papi is in the front living room under a pile of my two littlest sisters. Sophia looks like she’s grown a few inches, and Mami must have finally chopped Desiree’s hair of like she’s been threatening. Tiana perches on the edge of the couch, about to pounce into the melee. Bunch of kids. Maybe this new version of Papi is keeping them all younger in spirit.

  Laughter fills the room, and he tickles Desiree again.