Riders (Riders, #1)(33)

I’d already figured where we were when Sebastian said, “It’s the back lot.”

The studio looked buttoned up tight, with high concrete walls bordering the perimeter. I didn’t want to get stuck in there with Samrael. But the guardhouse was a hundred meters away, with nothing for cover except flowers and Porsches. We’d be seen before we could get outside. Leaving the studio would also take us further away from the parking garage, where Daryn was. I changed plans and led Sebastian deeper into the lot, hoping for better options.

The alarm from the high-rise had faded when the door closed behind us. Now it spiked, cutting through the quiet of the studio lot. Looking back, I saw Samrael and his buddies.

With no one else on the street, they spotted us right away, but Sebastian and I had reached the sound stages and if we could just get around the corner, a little farther, we’d be in … New York City?

We’d run into a street lined with brownstones on both sides. Steam tumbled out of the gutters. A yellow cab was parked along the curb farther down the street. The front page of the New York Times floated in the puddle I’d just passed.

I’d slowed down, and Sebastian came even with me. “What do we do? It’s Gideon, right? Where do we go?”

I couldn’t even answer him. Real fear was spreading through me as I remembered Samrael mentally beating me down. We needed cover now.

I turned it back up, sprinting to the nearest building—a corner market with crates full of plastic produce and silk flowers. The windows were actually paintings of scenes you’d expect to see inside, like a woman working behind a cash register. A grinning butcher holding up a ham hock. This was a fa?ade, but I yanked the door open anyway just in case. Plywood.

Sebastian breathed hard at my side. “What do they want with us?”

“Daryn.”

“Who?”

I firmed my grip on the chains. “The girl who isn’t my sister. Get behind that cab and stay there.” As I jogged to the middle of the street, I thought about how I’d been trained to do exactly this—fight. Partially trained. With actual firearms, not nunchuk-disk-things. But so be it. A fight was a fight.

Samrael came around the corner first. Two others jogged up next. Ronwae and the new guy, the skater with the red beanie, who went by the name Pyro, I’d learn later. They stopped on either side of Samrael. I kept expecting Malaphar, but he didn’t show up.

“Did you get tired of running, Gideon?” Samrael stopped at the top of the street, but it was so quiet he spoke without raising his voice. “Or tired of being a coward?”

“Just tired of you.” I brought my hand out slightly, my pre-throw position. The disks unlocked, separating by some miracle, but it must’ve looked like I knew what I was doing.

“What do you have there?” Samrael asked.

“Nothing,” said Sebastian, coming to my side. “We don’t even know you, so why—”

He gasped and folded like he’d taken a gut shot, grabbing his head with both hands.

I knew what this was. Samrael had done this to me at Joy’s party. Except this was over faster. Sebastian straightened again almost immediately and looked at me. “What was that? What did he just do to me?”

“Help me understand something,” Samrael said. “You’re both involved in this—I can sense that you know that—but you haven’t been told the most salient crucial piece?” He laughed, and said something to Ronwae and Pyro. I didn’t hear it, but it made Ronwae laugh too. Not Pyro. He stared at us with crazed eyes, shifting his weight like a hunting dog waiting to be released.

“This is stupid,” Pyro said. “Let’s just kill them.”

“Not yet.” Samrael’s focus moved to me. My turn again.

The pressure started over my eyes, the sensation of thumbs digging their way into my head, probing inside. The feeling spread and turned sharper, casting a barbed net over my brain. The darkness came, wheeling around me, pulling me back as the world pushed further and further away.

I wanted him out. Out of my head.

Get out. Get out. Get. Out.

But I need something, Gideon. Where is it?

His voice was inside my mind.

Then I saw images. Quick flashes. Daryn at breakfast in Cayucos, writing in her notebook. Daryn sitting in the passenger seat of my Jeep, feet up on the dash. Daryn in the elevator, finger drifting over the panel to the eleventh-floor button.

This was why she’d withheld critical information about our mission. She knew what Samrael could do. He wasn’t attacking. He was searching. Through my head.

Daryn is her name? Unusual. She’s kind on the eyes, isn’t she? And much smarter than you, it would seem. In the context of her strategy, your extreme cluelessness is almost forgivable. Where is she, Gideon? Right now, where is she?

I tried to fight back, concentrating on pulling down the net. Pushing against the pressure.

Admirable attempt, but not good enough. Let’s try this again. Where—pain, pain like nails driving into my head—is she?

A sound ripped into the quiet of the street. It came from close, from my throat. My knees smacked the asphalt. Sebastian yelled something. Yelled for Samrael to stop.

Samrael didn’t stop.

Insanity. Death. They were the only ways out of this agony. Were they close?

Yes, Gideon. Very.