Riders (Riders, #1)(27)

Cordero thinks for a moment. “You think what you did makes you bad?”

“It doesn’t make me good.”

“Would you have kept going?”

“I might have. I know I wasn’t slowing down when they pulled me off him. I might’ve kept going. How many people have you met who have the potential to kill, Cordero? How many people have that capability?”

My eyes drift to Beretta and Texas, who’ve become marble lions at the door. I know they have it too, this ability to turn to darkness.

“More than you think,” Cordero replies. “You’d be surprised. Sometimes the most average-seeming people are killers. You’d never know it by looking at them.”

It’s my turn to study her this time. Psychiatrist? Is that what she is? Something stressful. Small lines of tension crackle away from the corners of her eyes. I hadn’t noticed them before.

I wonder what she’s seen.

Has she met worse than me?

Cordero shifts in the chair. She rubs her knuckles, then laces her fingers together. “I probably shouldn’t say this, Gideon. I know I shouldn’t but”—she purses her lips, unhappy with herself—“I don’t think that incident necessarily defines you as bad. I think it makes you human. And I believe you would have stopped yourself. I think that’s what makes a person good. Not that you make mistakes, but that you recognize them. You feel remorse for them. You want to correct them and do better.”

It’s a surprisingly decent thing to say. And I think she’s right. When I think about that day, I can’t ever imagine that I’d have kept going. I do think I would’ve stopped myself. That day was a low point, but it woke me up. It turned me around.

Thank you doesn’t seem like the right response, considering Cordero’s pretty much interrogating me, so I nod.

She gives me a nod back and then draws a deep breath, putting that small moment of humanity behind us. “Where were we? I think you’d just agreed to help Daryn, and the two of you were heading to…?”

“LA. To find Famine.”





CHAPTER 16

Before we left Cayucos, I snapped my Jeep’s soft top into place. It wouldn’t eliminate all the noise on the freeway, but Daryn and I would be able to hear each other a little better. The day was sunny and clear as I drove us south, the ocean and sky to my right, blue and bluer.

I kept the conversation going. We’d finally started talking and I didn’t want to stall out. I told Daryn about my parents and Anna. People get extra curious when they find out I have a twin, so that took some time. Then I told her I used to play ball before senior year.

“Catching is like quarterbacking. It’s a real mix of strategy, aggressiveness, and quick reaction. You’re managing the pitch count, watching the runners on base. You control the whole game behind the plate.”

“Is that what you liked about it—being in control?”

“Definitely. Control’s my favorite.”

Daryn’s smile was a quick flash. I could tell she didn’t hand them out easily. “Baseball. That explains this sweatshirt. Thanks, by the way. So why did you stop playing? You said you played until senior year.”

Why had I said that? “Outgrew it, I guess,” I replied, avoiding the truth. I’d left out the part about my dad not being alive when I’d mentioned him. “Decided to go the Army route.”

“But you didn’t enlist during high school, right?”

“My contract started right after graduation, but I wanted to be ready. I spent most of this spring working out, doing stuff that would prepare me.”

I was building a pretty good house of cards. The part about me doing all that stuff was true, but I didn’t want to get into the trigger that got me to enlist.

The guy I’d messed up at the baseball game? His dad, Mr. Milligan, had come to the house a few weeks after it happened. Evidently he and my mom had been talking on the phone a lot. He came by one afternoon and sat on the couch in our living room and told me I needed to get my shit together. Except he said it in a really decent paternal way that made me feel like crying my head off. I didn’t, though. I’d tried a bunch of times after my dad died, but I could never manage it. I had a jam in my tear ducts or something. As he left, Mr. Milligan gave me an Army recruiter’s number on a yellow Post-it, which lived on my desk for a few weeks until I finally accepted that it was exactly what I needed.

I had no idea why I was lying to Daryn about my dad. Lying sucked. I guess I didn’t want her pity. Being pitiful sucked more than being a liar. At least right then that was how it seemed.

“Were you? Prepared when you got to Fort Benning?” she asked.

“As much as I could be. More than a lot of other guys. All the PT we do in RASP? The physical training? Grueling. But it could’ve been worse.”

“You look like you’re in good shape.”

My brain took a quick vacation. When it came back I had to crank the wheel to keep us on the road, which was embarrassing. And confusing. Because why? I didn’t like her. I mean, I didn’t think so. But still.

“How about you?” I asked, trying to keep words happening. “Play any sports?”

“I might have.”

“Instruments?”

“No.”