Riders (Riders, #1)(99)

Am I a southpaw. He’s been trying to talk for a full minute and this is what he wants to know. If I’m left-handed.

I want to answer him, but I also want to howl until my throat turns inside out. I want to know if Daryn knew. I’m so sorry, she’d said on our last night in the hut as she’d squeezed my hand. Did she know? What I want more than anything is to get out of this chair and pick my hand up off the floor. But I just nod and say, “Yes. Lefty.”

“Righty now, kid,” Texas says in his drowning voice.

Righty now. I nod. Okay. Okay. But it can’t be that easy.

Then my eyes pull past him, to the door.

To Marcus, who explodes into the room.





CHAPTER 56

When Marcus sees what’s happened to me, he loses his mind. He instantly starts yelling and swearing. Calling for help. Cursing the Kindred. More out of control than I’ve ever seen him.

It legitimately moves me. I have to put my head down because it’s the nicest thing he’s ever done for me, hands down.

Hand down.

My hand is still down on the floor somewhere.

Marcus’s cuff is still on his wrist, which means we still have a chance. As long as we keep one, we still have a chance.

People stream into the room behind him. One is a stocky man wearing a black beanie. He picks up my hand, takes a quick look at it, then gives it to a red-haired guy about my age and barks some orders. The red-haired guy listens, nods, listens, nods; then he flees the room like a thief.

Black Beanie kneels beside me and opens a medical kit. He sprays something where my hand used to be, telling me that it’s under control, don’t rule anything out, reattachment is still a possibility.

I don’t say anything but I’m not so sure, given the way I heal. The bleeding’s already slowing. My nerve endings and muscular tissue may have already decided to move on, without my hand. Even the pain is lessening. Something’s kicking in. Adrenaline or some internal defense mechanism has kicked in. I’m getting less shaky. Things are making more sense.

As my arm is being wrapped in gauze, Texas is helped out of the room. Malaphar’s body is removed. The desk and chair where Cordero sat go next but I’m not clear on the urgency there. Is there some kind of office emergency?

Then Beretta comes back in. He tips his head, giving me a look like, We pulled it off, kid, it could’ve been worse.

Some part of me had begun to accept that he hadn’t survived, and the relief of seeing him is intense. He doesn’t look at the stump that’s part of me now, which makes the vote unanimous: he’s a human being of quality.

The bandage is tied off and it helps. It makes the end of my arm look better. Tidier.

I pull myself to my feet. I want to throw the chair against the wall, demolish it, but instead I wait for the room to finish taking a spin around me.

There are seven, eight people in here now. Wedged in this small room. Standing on human and demon blood. They’re all Army. Strapped down with rifles. Pistols. Radios. Everyone is talking and listening at the same time.

“Where is he?” I ask Marcus. “Where’s Samrael?”

“Outside, with the rest,” he says. “Daryn, Jode, and Bastian are out there.”

Information flows around me. The Kindred are digging in. Fighting for the other cuffs, of course. They won’t leave until they have them all.

A man steps forward and regards me with a penetrating look. I remember myself and salute, fighting through another round of dizziness.

“At ease, soldier,” he says.

At ease. It seems like an impossible thing to be.

Major Robertson’s decorated, has the look of someone who’s seen his share of combat. Nothing like this, I’m sure. But even this he seems to take in stride.

“Malaphar fooled us all,” he says to me. His eyes move to Beretta. “We had no idea until Sergeant Suarez told us.”

Suarez—that’s Beretta’s name.

“We’ll have air support in twenty minutes, sir,” Suarez says.

“Seventeen,” amends a guy wearing an earpiece.

Marcus and I look at each other. What kind of damage can Ra’om, Samrael, Ronwae, and Bay do in that amount of time?

The answer is: Too much.

“Ready?” Marcus asks me.

“Yes.” I’m ready to fight. But I didn’t just lose my hand—I lost the cuff. I don’t know if I still have my sword, my armor, or Riot.

I don’t know if I’m still War.





CHAPTER 57

Outside, a battle is raging.

I pause on the front steps with Marcus and adjust to the scene. Our cabin is one of a dozen on the edge of a wide field where the fight is occurring. Dense woods surround the field, tall pine trees that rise like black spires. Gray clouds hover around the granite peaks of the jagged mountains in the distance. Snow patches spill like paint over the steep slopes. The terrain reminds me of Jotunheimen—if Jotunheimen were dropped and shattered.

“Wyoming,” Marcus says, sensing my disorientation. A familiar flurry of ash circles ahead of us, and then Marcus is running. He meets Ruin as she forms and gallops into the fray.

Across the field, I see Jode and Lucent—a bright pair in the twilight. Jode is firing arrows at Bay’s monsters and Ronwae’s scorpions—a sight I saw constantly on our bluff—then my eyes pull to the black horse and rider. Sebastian is here. Bas, who was missing before. He’s here. And fighting. But he has no choice. One of the cuffs is on his wrist.