Riders (Riders, #1)(49)

“What are you looking at?” he asked me.

I felt the cold creep of fear along my neck, that falling sensation nudging toward me.

“You want to go again?” I said, but Sebastian shot over and pulled me away, “Chill out, Gideon,” he said, and dragged me to a bank of vending machines outside the convenience store. I could still see the Jeep. Daryn was talking to Marcus. Whatever she said made him run a hand over his scalp and loosened the tension in his shoulders.

“How do you call the scales?” I asked Bastian as I watched them. “The weapons? You said you’d tell me.” I needed to know how to get the sword. Marcus had command of the scythe. I couldn’t be at such a disadvantage.

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll tell you.”

“Do it. Now.”

“Okay. Well, you have to find it inside yourself. Really search, and when you’re on to it, you lock in.” He snapped his hand shut in front of him like he was catching a bug. “It takes practice, but you’ll get it.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

He grinned. “I’m not. It’s the truth.”

“Shit.”

“Hey, you got any money?”

I shook my head. How did the guy on a soldier’s paycheck become the one with the money? I dug around in my pocket, finding three dollars for him, then watched him fight with the vending machine over how flat the bills needed to be.

Two girls in a white BMW on the third pump apparently thought this was adorable. They giggled, acting like he was a rock star or something.

“Hey, Bastian. Are you famous?”

He’d finally managed to get a Coke and some Skittles. “No. Not even close.”

Whatever he was, girls liked it. They snapped photos of him with their cell phones as they pulled away from the pump. Bastian was oblivious.

“You eat a lot,” I said.

He tore into the bag of Skittles. “Man, I love food.” He shoved a handful in his mouth and offered me some.

I shook my head. “No, thanks.” I liked Skittles but they turned into mini grenades in my stomach. They were harder on me than most food. “You know it’s eleven a.m., right?”

Bastian’s eyebrows went up. “Wow. Early.” He swallowed. “Gideon, I don’t mean to overstep, but we can’t mess this up because of our differences.” He glanced toward the Jeep. Toward Marcus. “We’ll never get out of this situation if we’re fighting amongst ourselves. Maybe you can just try to keep your eye on the bat.”

I was with him up until end. I’d heard him screw up phrases like that before and let it go, but this time I couldn’t. “Dude, it’s ball. It’s keep your eye on the ball. Keeping your eye on the bat would be … not good, man. What’s up with the cliché mutilation?”

“Oh, that. I think it’s because English was my second language. Shoot, no. I don’t think that’s it.” He lifted his shoulders. “I just get ’em wrong. But at least I get my lines right. Man, can you imagine if I couldn’t remember my lines?” He said this with devastation, like if he couldn’t remember his own mother.

I stared at him for a few seconds, not sure if he was messing with me or not. Then he grinned like gotcha, tossed a handful of Skittles into his mouth, and chomped away.

I held my hand out. “Give me some of those.”

When we got back to the Jeep, Daryn was sitting in the back talking to Marcus. She trailed off when I climbed into the driver’s seat. Either she’d been talking about me or she didn’t want to keep talking around me.

Whatever. I didn’t care either way.

I had a horseman to find, so. Eye on the bat.

Since it was my car, and since I felt confident it would make Marcus miserable, I pushed the Pearl Jam cassette into the tape deck as I got back on the freeway and turned it up. After a couple of tracks, Bas got hung up on trying to figure out the lyrics to “Yellow Ledbetter”—an unattainable goal since they were basically undecipherable sounds with a few words sprinkled in. The song was all feeling, but he was determined. We listened to it over and over, and caught a little more each time. Metaphorically, the song felt perfect for the mission we were on.

About eighty miles outside of Los Angeles, Daryn suggested we stop for food. I pulled into a roadside diner—a place that would’ve looked super stylish if the year was still 1972—and scoped it out. Not a lot of cars in the parking lot. Only a few truckers and older folks inside. I asked for a table by the exit, view of the entrance, view of the parking lot, view of the entire dining area.

The Kindred had killed someone in the middle of a studio. And Alevar—the creepy bat guy—had found me in the middle of the desert. No place was safe.

Everybody ordered, and then commented on my “just bread, no butter” selection. I was forced to explain about the Skittles and my dumb stomach.

“So War has a sensitive tummy?” Sebastian said, grinning at me from across the booth.

“War has nothing sensitive, okay jackass? Eat your French toast. Who has breakfast at two in the afternoon, anyway?”

Beside me, Daryn glanced up from her blueberry pancakes.

“Dude, it’s so. Good,” Bastian said. “Ahhh, look at that. Delicious!”

He was having a great time at my expense. It did look damn good. Meanwhile Marcus wolfed down his burger like we weren’t even there.