Riders (Riders, #1)(8)

“Whoa! Mom! I was—”

I was what? Freaked out by a little old lady and a dog? But the sight of my mom put that all out of my mind, and it was good. Just real good to see her without being in the haze of painkillers.

I hadn’t had an actual conversation with her in weeks, since before I started RASP, and there were a dozen questions I wanted to ask her. If she was doing okay with the house thing. If she was lonely without Anna and me around. If she’d considered dating again—just a yes or no answer would do on that one. I knew she’d move on eventually. She was tough, my mom. And she was young. She’d had Anna and me when she was only twenty and she took care of herself and all that. A lot of times people thought she was Anna’s older sister, since they looked so much alike. Way more than Anna and me.

A second or two passed before I realized we were still standing there. Mom hadn’t said a word and neither had I. For all that I’d wanted to ask her, I couldn’t execute an emotional pivot. I still had this pissed-off furnace cranking inside me. When I finally spoke, what came out of my mouth was, “Were you ever planning to tell me about the house?”

She started in surprise. “We are not talking about the house right now, Gideon. We are talking about you. Were you trying to scare the life out of me? I leave for half an hour and you disappear? You’re not even supposed to be out of bed!”

A grocery bag tipped over on the kitchen counter, and an apple rolled into the sink. “I’m fine, Mom. I just needed some air.”

But it was like she didn’t even hear me. “I called Anna,” she continued. “I was about to call Cory. Don’t you think I’ve been through enough this week? I don’t think you realize what this has been like for me. Do you know how close you came to dying?”

“I’m okay, Mom. I had to get out of the house for a second. Calm down, okay?”

She didn’t. She kept yelling at me, saying she couldn’t believe my lack of judgment. Didn’t I understand how serious my injuries were? Was I purposely trying to hurt her by hurting myself? She’d seldom laid into me that way before, with so much relish. When she finally slowed down, I told her I was going to go back to bed.

“That is a very good idea,” she said, but her tone was more like get out of my face.

I hightailed it back to my room. Nothing felt normal and I needed to think.

I dropped onto my bed and stared at the ceiling, going through every step I’d taken from the minute I’d left the house. I’d gotten to Jackson’s rabies episode when it hit me. After I saw Jackson, I’d run home. Awkwardly with the casts and the crutch. But not the limp of a guy with broken bones. That wasn’t all. I’d stood on both feet while Mom had yelled at me. Then I’d walked right into my room and lain down. No hobbling. No drag step. No pain.

I looked down at my leg and wiggled my toes. Then I flexed my muscles inside the cast and did the math. So … I was two hours overdue on pain meds, I just ran up a hill with a pulverized arm and leg, and I felt fine?

“Gideon?” My mom knocked on the door. “I’m sorry I yelled, honey. I don’t know what came over me. I guess the stress got to me. And I didn’t expect to see you moving around so soon and it scared me. I don’t want you to get hurt again, but it wasn’t right to take it out on you.”

Now, that sounded like my mom. Hearing the softness in her voice relaxed me a little. “It’s okay.”

“Can I get you anything?”

She wanted an excuse to come into my room but I had too much going on in my head for that. “No thanks. I’m going to rest now.”

“All right. I’m right here if you need me.”

As soon as her footsteps faded away, I sat up and stared at my leg cast, having a little argument with myself over whether I wanted to look or not.

I had an okay stomach for seeing blood. Food and drugs, not so much. But blood and injuries I could handle pretty well. Only this was my leg. Did I really want to see it bloated and bruised? Crisscrossed with staples?

Yes, I decided. Yes, I did. I had to figure out what was happening.

I undid the Velcro straps and pulled apart the plastic frames of the air cast.

My leg looked like my leg, with the addition of a few pale scars that were so faint I almost couldn’t see them. I had no bruises. No swelling.

Right. Okay, so … Was I dreaming? Seeing things?

Panic built inside me as I unstrapped the cast on my arm next, pulling that off.

Surprise again. My arm had healed, just like my leg. Insane. Completely insane, but there was something else. Something on me.

A thick metal band circled my wrist. Two inches wide, and the metal itself was nothing I recognized. It looked like mercury, but it gave off a red glow. The light that bounced off it was deep red. Crimson.

My first thought was medical bracelet. It had to be one of those magnetic healing bands. But I couldn’t find a clasp or a buckle. The metal ran around my wrist without a single scratch, button, or hook. And it was tight. Glued-on tight. I had no idea how it’d been put on me.

More important, I didn’t see how it would ever come off.





CHAPTER 6

“You can stop there, Gideon.”

I clear my throat, caught off guard by Cordero’s interruption. It takes me a couple more seconds to come back completely. Leaving the past is a slow process. Thick. Sticky. Like bellying out of a swamp.