Riders (Riders, #1)(48)

She looks right at me, her eyes flaring with relief.

She’s here.





CHAPTER 29

Texas recovers and lunges at me. There’s nowhere for me to go. My hands are tied, this hallway is tight, and he weighs almost a hundred pounds more than I do.

My forehead crashes into the pine paneling. My vision cuts out. Everything is a blur as I’m shoved back, back, back. Then I’m in the bathroom again, where Texas jams his forearm under my jaw and pins me to the wall.

“Stupid little shit,” Beretta growls behind him as he yanks the door shut.

“Okay,” Texas says, taking a second to catch his breath. A line of blood trickles from one of his nostrils. “Okay, listen up.” He leans in, inches from my face. “You listening, Blake? ’Cause you’re gonna need to hear this.”

Daryn is outside. She’s here.

I nod.

“Me and my buddies,” Texas continues, “we’ve got this informal code going between us. Whenever we see or hear somethin’ we shouldn’t have, which happens a lot, Blake, happens a whole lot, you know what we call it?”

He’s leading me somewhere. Normally I’d try to figure out where but there’s no chance of me thinking clearly. She’s right outside.

“Look at me, Blake.” Texas digs his forearm into my throat. “Do you know what we call it? We say it’s a gold-medal moment. Not sure how it started, but that’s what it is. Whenever anybody says those two words, gold medal, we know we’re in the presence of information that we should never talk about. Gold-medal moments go to the grave.” He narrows his eyes. “You hear what I’m sayin’?”

“I hear you.” I just had a gold-medal moment. Daryn is here but I’m not supposed to know. I’m not supposed let Cordero know that I know.

Texas eases back, releasing me. “I’d have done the same thing in your shoes.” He drops the hood back over my head. “’Cept I’d have gotten to her.”

“I didn’t want to get your ass court-martialed,” I manage, finally getting my bearings.

He snorts. “Might still happen.” He flex-ties my hands behind my back this time. I’ve been downgraded. “Keep your trap shut and remember what I said.”

The walk back to the room passes in a second. I’m there before I know it, Texas slipping new ties around my wrists and ankles, tethering me back to the chair. He leaves my right hand free. Beretta hands me an unwrapped granola bar. Food is the last thing on my mind, but the fuel is important. It’ll help me shake off the drugs faster. I eat it in two bites and get a stomachache. Behind me, my old friend the radiator clicks on. But the bulb is going to go. It’s going to burn out and this room will go dark. Just a matter of time.

Why is she here? She’s the one who left me in Jotunheimen. Is she okay? Was she captured or did she come here on her own power? I don’t know what to think. I just need to see her.

Cordero comes back. She scoots under the desk and opens the file. Business as usual. “We were out in the Mojave Desert when we left off. I believe you were waiting three hundred seconds.” She gives me a small, humorless smile. “What happened when Daryn came back around?”

Does she know? Does she know that I know?

“Gideon?”





CHAPTER 30

Daryn, um …

She came back slowly. When she lifted her head, her eyes were unfocused. Distant. And with the heat of the desert, and my body heat, she’d gone a little sweaty around the forehead. She looked like she’d woken up from a long sleep.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, but she looked around, clearly disoriented.

A dozen questions were on the tip of my tongue, but Marcus and Sebastian were walking back to the Jeep. I’d save my questions until the time was right. Bastian’s expression didn’t change when he saw us standing close, but Marcus’s glass-colored eyes moved from me to Daryn like he was making some calculations.

Daryn pulled away from me when she saw them coming, sort of suddenly, putting a few steps between us. She looked at them, and at the Jeep, and not at me.

Okay, right. Message received.

“We have to go,” she said. “We need to go back to Los Angeles.”

We all stared at her for a few seconds; then we piled into my Jeep. No questions asked. I didn’t know what had convinced Marcus to come. Believe me, if I did, I’d have done the opposite. Within five minutes of being back on the road, it was obvious that he spoiled the easy vibe between me, Sebastian, and Daryn. As a trio we’d been stable, but Death added a new element that didn’t fit. He didn’t say anything rude or confrontational. The guy barely talked. He sat in the back with Sebastian, totally quiet, but quiet like a fog machine. He altered the landscape of my Jeep without making a sound.

I thought of the bloody towel I’d found. The fact that he’d left the Mustang behind without a word. Obviously, he’d stolen it. He was dangerous. I didn’t trust him. But I couldn’t deny that the cuff on my wrist liked having him around. I felt both his and Bastian’s presence through it now. Two distinct tones. But they weren’t a distraction. I could choose to focus on them or not, just like with my other senses.

By around eleven, the desert heat was beating us down. We pulled over at a gas station to put the top down since my Jeep’s air-conditioning was fresh air. Marcus took off his ripped-up sweatshirt. He had a detailed tattoo on his left forearm, some kind of script, the ink only a few shades darker than his skin, but what I really wanted to get a better look at was his cuff. The thing looked like it was made of alabaster—but molten, like someone had dripped wax around his wrist.