Riders (Riders, #1)(14)
“Private Blake, how are you feeling?” he asked.
“Good, sir. I’m good … maybe too good.”
“No such thing as ‘too good’ where health is concerned. Glad to hear it.” I heard him tapping on a keyboard in the background. “Looks like we’re seeing you in a week for some follow-up exams. What can I do for you, son?”
“Major, did you or any of the other doctors put a medical bracelet on me?”
“You have no known allergies or preexisting medical conditions. There’s no need for an ID bracelet.”
“Not an ID bracelet. A healing bracelet. On my left wrist?”
“I don’t have a record of that, Private. I don’t want to discourage you, Gideon, but a magnetic bracelet won’t go far considering the severity of your injuries. Is there anything else? How’s your pain tolerance?”
“Good, sir. Thank you. Nothing else.”
I hung up and flipped open Anna’s laptop. The apartment had fallen quiet except for a deep, pulsing bass thrumming from Joy’s party.
I typed one ridiculous search parameter after another.
Unexplainable rapid healing
Manipulating rage in others
Mystery metal bracelets
Just about everything turned up the same result: superhero websites.
That was enough intelligence gathering for me.
I shut the laptop, sat back, and laughed my ass off.
CHAPTER 9
College parties were a phenomenon I had yet to experience. Unlike my high-school buddies who’d spent the past months filling up Solo cups in parties across America, I’d spent them getting my head shaved, learning to low crawl, and polishing my shoes until I could see my face in them.
Those first few months in the Army were brutal, and not only because they were physically and mentally demanding. In Basic Training, a lot of guys were slackers who didn’t really want to be there and it felt like my sixth-grade sleepover all over again—a bunch of screw-offs giddy on their first night away from home. Until I got a little further along in the process and found guys more like me in RASP, I’d seriously wondered if I’d made the right choice.
I wondered that again as I leaned against the wall in Joy’s living room and watched people toss back drinks and dance to pounding rap music. There were about fifteen girls packed into the small room and every last one of them was hot. I’d been almost exclusively around guys for a long time so this was a welcome change for me.
Not everyone was as happy about my attendance, though. A few of the guys at the party were throwing hostile looks at me, making it clear they didn’t like me encroaching on their territory. Occasionally words like “GI Joe” and “Army grunt” filtered through the music. I even heard a couple of football players in the corner reciting choice quotes from Full Metal Jacket. These were probably the same guys who got choked up during the Super Bowl national anthem, moved by those three minutes of intense patriotism. And see, I had a problem with that. To me patriotism wasn’t a mood or a moment. It was so much more.
I ignored them and focused on hanging out with Anna and Taylor. I was still carrying around this scalding energy, this full payload of rage that was right there, reachable inside me. Ignitable. Some part of me wondered if it hadn’t been with me for a long time, only that I’d been denying it. I couldn’t ignore it now. I could only try to manage it.
Taylor turned out to be pretty hilarious. She was a big Dodger fan so we almost went to blows over that, but in a good way. I was glad my sister had made a good friend at school. Just as I was starting to settle in, Wyatt showed up.
I had promised myself I wouldn’t interfere again, so I hung back when Anna left to go talk to him. I couldn’t help watching them though. Even that bugged me. Wyatt’s facial expressions were too extreme. Like, dude. Watch the crazy eyes. Just dial it back a bit. I didn’t know how Anna was doing it. She had to feel like she was talking to a pinball machine.
“You know you have nothing to worry about, right?” Taylor said, laughing at me. “She’s over him. And I’m looking out for her.”
She was right. And Anna was smart. My sister knew what she was doing.
When Taylor headed to the patio to talk to her girlfriend, Joy wandered over. She leaned against the wall beside me and bumped my elbow, spilling a little of her beer on my sleeve. “What’s wrong, Army boy? You don’t drink?”
I did on occasion but not much. I’d been cursed with a stomach that didn’t tolerate a lot of things. Too much sugar, preservatives, grease. If I didn’t keep a good diet, I suffered. With booze especially I paid a pretty steep price, so I had to pick my battles. This wasn’t one of them. With everything going on, the last thing I needed was to lose my edge or spend the night hugging the toilet.
“Actually, Joy,” I answered, “I should be physically destroyed right now, technically speaking, but it looks like I might have developed a freaky fast-healing condition with a possible side of PTSD. So I thought I’d lay off the sauce tonight. Don’t want to push things over the edge, know what I mean?”
Joy cupped her ear. “What? Sorry, it’s so loud in here!”
“Can’t party tonight!” I pulled Anna’s phone out of my pocket. “In case there’s a national emergency!”
“Ohhh, got it!” Joy wrinkled her nose. “It’s so, like, noble you do that stuff!”