Riders (Riders, #1)(105)

Marcus looks about fifteen pounds lighter than he did a few months ago when he enlisted. He was always shredded, but now he’s ridiculous. I’m going to have to step up my workouts to keep us even.

“I’m good,” I answer. “My baby’s all grown up.”

She smiles and squeezes my arm. “It’s incredible that he did this, Gideon.”

In the beat of silence that follows I hear the words she doesn’t say: for you.

I didn’t ask Marcus to enlist and become a Ranger. He and I never actually talked about why he did this, but it’s obvious. To me. To Jode … to everyone.

With a prosthetic left hand, finishing the course wasn’t an option for me. Supposedly I’ll be getting a mechanical hand soon, one that’s almost as agile and responsive as a real hand. When they find out you’re War, the government goes out of their way to keep you happy. But RASP and I weren’t meant to be. Plenty of guys who are Rangers become amputees. But amputees don’t become Rangers.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit part of me wants to be standing where Marcus is. Surrounded by other guys who went through the program. Who persevered together, and formed a bond because of it. But I have done that. It’s just that my own graduating class is much smaller.

Five of us were there at the beginning.

Now we’re only three.

I can’t dwell on that right now, though. Not today. Maybe I’m not directly honoring my dad’s memory, but it’s better this way. Marcus isn’t just doing this for my dad and me. He’s doing this for himself too. It’s a pretty awesome trifecta.

“He’s done good,” I say.

Mom nods and squeezes my arm. “You all have.”

As I watch, Marcus shakes Colonel Nellis’s hand. Then they both look to me and snap a salute, which I return.

Mom wanders away to talk to some of the other parents. I watch her approach an older couple and introduce herself as Gideon Blake and Marcus Walker’s mother. That’s a first, but not surprising. Marcus and my mom had a bond from day one. She loved him about as quickly as I hated him—in the beginning.

Mom didn’t ask a single question when I brought both him and Jode back to Half Moon Bay with me, straight from Wyoming. She’d just lined us up and asked us what we liked to eat. Then she’d broken up the chores between us. Laundry, trash, dishwasher. Like, Fall in, children. You can either belong here or you can belong here. And by the way, I’m choosing for you.

Greatest woman in the world. Well. Right at the top.

The three of us spent the first few weeks on self-imposed lockdown. We played a million hours of video games. We ate a hundred of Mrs. C’s olallieberry pies. We started praying together, for Bas. I taught Jode and Marcus how to surf, while I figured out how to surf with one hand.

Jode hit on Anna. Anna hit on Jode. They both drove me crazy.

And Mom took care of us all.

After a couple of months, Jode shipped back to Oxford but Marcus stayed behind. One of the things I learned about him is that he grew up in foster homes. Lots of kids have great foster families, but he wasn’t one of them. He struck out on his own as soon as he turned eighteen, which was right before everything started happening. He didn’t say so, but my sense is that things went from bad to worse pretty quickly.

I still don’t know how he died. Why he was beaten to death. Someday that story will come out. I hope it will. But I’m okay either way. Whatever he wants is good with me.

Jode, Marcus, and me—we haven’t told anyone what happened. Before we left Wyoming, we signed contracts. We promised we’d never talk about the Kindred, or the key, or Jotunheimen, or any of it. We were given a cover story to explain how I lost my hand and how the three of us met.

The cover story goes like this: I can’t tell you anything.

It’s been effective.

I don’t like keeping the truth from Anna and my mom, but it’s not like I want to talk about what happened, either. That would only make it worse. Sharper. More real, the fact that two of us are gone.

Sebastian should be here. He’d be so proud, seeing Marcus do this.

So would Daryn. I think she’d also be proud of me.

I watch as Marcus hugs the guys in his class, as they take pictures and laugh, commiserating over their last weeks together. He’s congratulating them, but he’s also saying good-bye, even though no one else knows it. Tomorrow, the rest of the class will report to one of the Ranger Battalions, but he won’t.

He’ll be reassigned immediately to a newly formed regiment of the US military. A unit specializing in occult warfare, about as classified as you can get. Pretty small. Comprised of Suarez, Low, and myself. And a few other soldiers who were there in Wyoming. We report directly to Cordero, who’s turned out to be pretty cool. She doesn’t wear any perfume anymore. I think she does that for me.

We even have a British liaison if we need him. It takes some pull to get Jode out here—Oxford’s pretty clingy about its students—but Cordero’s up to the task. She got him here for this.

It’s been half a year now, just about. And I feel different. I’ve gotten closure on my dad. I’m definitely carrying around less anger. But there’s a new gap inside me. There are more people to miss. New images to try to unsee.

Bas, on the brink of death. Sacrificing himself to push Samrael into that spectral hell.