Riders (Riders, #1)(40)

Moonlight filtered through thick cloud cover but I could see enough. She had pulled off the freeway onto a dirt road surrounded by hard earth and scrub brush. We were in the middle of the desert. Black mountains rose in the distance, thunderheads flashing above them. Fifty meters ahead of us, another car was pulled over—just a dull shape in the darkness.

“I don’t know exactly,” Daryn said. “But this is where we’ll find Death.”

I stared at her for a second, kind of amazed that that didn’t faze me as much as it should’ve. Then I noticed a light buzzing sensation from the cuff, similar to what I felt from Sebastian, but faint, and deeper in tone. I turned to the backseat to see if he felt it, too. He was asleep in a jackknife position, his head on my duffel.

“How do you know he’s here?” I asked. “Death?”

“Because I know,” Daryn said.

That wasn’t enough for me and she could tell. “I saw him here. At the gas station, I had … visions of this.” She winced. “I hate that word.”

“Wait. Visions? That happened at the gas station?” I thought back. She could only mean the time she spent in the women’s room. “Daryn, did you—” I was suddenly seeing these horrible images of her curled up in a metal stall with her eyes rolled to the back of her head. “Do you pass out?”

“If you’re asking whether I can’t see anything else while I have them, yes. Yes, okay? I get headaches beforehand. That’s how I know they’re coming. Then I fade out and I can’t see anything else. Stop looking at me like that, Gideon. And take the anger down, too. I locked the bathroom door from the inside. I was fine. Can we please focus on what’s important?”

She kept talking like I’d said yes. She had no idea how hard I was trying not to lose my mind. She’d been in that bathroom alone, totally defenseless. Did she think the Kindred would be stopped by a locked door?

“He was in that car right here,” she was saying, shaking her head. “But I don’t know. Sometimes what I see isn’t perfect. Well, actually it is. I’m the one who has to catch up. Figure out the clues and trust that—”

“Trust that what? Trust that what, Daryn? Talk to me.”

She looked out the windshield.

“Right. You want to write in your notebook for a while and pretend I’m not here?”

“No. I want to get this done.”

“Weird. I want this to go on forever.” I bit down, making myself shut up. This was going in a bad direction. Why was I so wound up? Was it being in the open, at night, with no concealment and a pack of murderous psychopaths coming after us? No. That wasn’t it.

It was Death. I’d never had a good experience with death. My dad’s still haunted me. And I had died and come back to life as War, so. Not a big fan, but it couldn’t matter. Time to suck it up and go meet him, face-to-face.

“Was he alone in your vision-download?” I asked.

“Yes. Should I wake Bastian?”

“No. I’ve got it.” Sebastian had negative combat instincts based on what I’d seen at the studio.

I climbed out of the Jeep. The air felt thick and hot with moisture. Charged with electricity. Thunder rumbled, close. The storm was heading our way.

“We’ve got it,” Daryn said, jogging up beside me. “I’m coming with you.”

The anger I’d pushed down a second ago came right back up. “Do you have any comprehension of danger?”

“Me? I wasn’t the one who confronted Samrael at a party.”

“But you did march into a high-rise in LA with no regard for whether he’d be there, which he was.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“That’s what I’m saying. We should assume the Kindred are everywhere.” I had to readjust. Switch tactics. “I’ll make you a deal. If you come with me, then I want to be there when you have the visions. You tell me as soon as you feel the headaches and I’m right there. From here on out.”

In the moonlight, I saw tears pool in her eyes. Once again, I had no idea where I’d gone wrong. Not a clue.

“I’ve been on my own a long time, Gideon.”

“Okay. I get that. But now you’re not. I told you I was going to help.”

She didn’t say anything, and I was done. She kept too much from me. She didn’t trust me. It felt like she was working against me. “Whatever, Martin.”

I grabbed a tire iron from the back of my Jeep. It felt solid and heavy in my hand. Sebastian’s scales would’ve been about a hundred percent better but he was still out and I wanted him to stay that way. I hesitated a moment, my eyes drifting to my cuff. Sebastian had said we all had weapons. What was mine? I should’ve asked him earlier. How the hell had I missed that? But too late now. It wasn’t like I knew how to access the weapon anyway, whatever it was.

As I came around the Jeep, Daryn planted herself right in my path. She stared up at me, her expression all determination. “I’ll take the deal. I’ll tell you before the next time.”

I nodded. My focus had already moved onto finding Death. “Is it safe to assume you don’t have any experience approaching an enemy force in the dark?”

“He’s not the enemy.”

“He is Death and the Kindred could be out there waiting for us, so we’re damn well going to proceed with caution. I’ll make the initial contact since—”