Riders (22 page)
Authors: Veronica Rossi
“Okay. Thing number two. Well, let’s see … I spent three months in a mental institution last year—how’s that? It was right when I first started blacking out and waking up knowing things. Before I really understood. I thought I was going crazy. Literally, I thought so because my mom suffers from depression and anxiety, and it’s bad sometimes. Really hard on her. On all of us. My whole family. So when I started passing out, the doctors thought it was mental illness again, only manifesting in a different way. And I guess I did too at first. My psychiatric team—I had a team—strongly suggested committing me. My parents agreed and I didn’t disagree, so I ended up at this private hospital in Maine.
“I actually had to break out of there or I’d probably still be there. You’d have been proud of me. It was totally
Escape from Alcatraz
. I had to dig a hole and crawl under a fence. I gouged my back doing that. It hurt so much. It gave me a big scar that I can only see when I look in a mirror—three lines running down my back like a tiger almost caught me. It was pretty gross when it was new. But I did it. I got out and I haven’t been anywhere near there or my home since.”
My pulse had picked up, hearing all that. I wanted to shoot into the past and help her bust out of that place in Maine. And I wanted to know more about her. A lot more. “Why haven’t you gone home?”
“Because nothing is different. This is my life. This never ends for me. I always have to leave. I always have to go where I’m needed. And it would just be too hard to see my family, then have to say good-bye. It’d be too hard for
them
. I do what I can to make it easier. A few months ago I sent them a postcard from Croatia, telling them I was traveling around the world finding myself and not to worry. I hope it helped. It’s better than if they knew the truth.”
I could relate to that. I’d left Anna and my mom without an explanation or good-bye.
“Are you turned off yet?” Daryn asked. “Are you picturing me in a straitjacket?”
“Was that your plan? Nice try, Martin. But it backfired. I like you even more now.”
That last part wasn’t supposed to come out but there it was. And there it stayed, second after second. I had no idea what she thought of it. None. My confidence was dying a thousand deaths.
Then she said, “Don’t you want to hear thing number three?”
I pressed the talk button. “Sure do. Lay it on me.” I was ready for things three through a hundred.
“This one’s a little different. It’s something I’m just realizing, kind of a revelation, and it’s that … it’s that your eyes are my favorite.” Her voice had gone all gentle and soft, so I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right until she kept going. “They’re amazing. So blue and direct sometimes. Other times, when you’re not being sarcastic or contrary, when you’re listening or when you’re just driving, there’s such humor in them. Such humor and kindness. Then there are the times I catch you watching me, and what I see in them makes me forget everything. What I am, and what I do, and … I’m just a girl again. A girl who gets a million butterflies in her stomach over a boy with the prettiest blue eyes. It feels so normal. So normal and so good.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know how to speak anymore. My heart was going ballistic in my chest. Finally I got it together enough to respond. “So what you’re telling me is that I make you feel average?”
She laughed. “Yes. You make me feel perfectly ordinary. It’s the best.”
“Daryn … Dare. Just come over here.” I didn’t say “please,” but it was all over my voice. I wanted her with me. I was losing my mind, I wanted that so badly.
But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Every second that passed felt like she was putting mile after mile between us again. If this was her life—postcards from Croatia?—then I was beginning to understand the distance she needed. Not easy to get attached to people when you were always leaving. Coming from a military family, I knew about that.
“We should get some rest,” she said. “Special Agent Daryn Martin, signing off. Good night, Gideon.”
“Night, boss.”
I shut off my radio. But I didn’t fall sleep for a long while after.
I woke up hungry, tired, and partially deaf, but ready to coordinate our ingress into Italy. Four stowaways climbing out of a cargo plane on the Fiumicino Airport tarmac were bound to attract some attention, so. Time to plan.
I stood, stretched, and put Lia back in her cage, giving her one of my granola bars. Sebastian and Marcus were both awake, but Daryn was still out cold, using my Giants sweatshirt as her pillow.
I thought about our conversation over the radios. I wanted to get smart about depression so I could talk with her about it without sounding like an idiot. The scar on her back? Definitely wanted to see that. She’d acted like it was ugly, but no way. It just couldn’t be. And the last thing she’d said? Mind-blowing.
I checked my watch and decided to let her sleep a little longer. We still had some time before we landed. We’d left Los Angeles at 11:55 p.m. Direct flights from LA to Rome took around twelve hours, and we’d gained nine hours in time-zone difference. That added up to it being night again in Rome when we’d land, somewhere around the 9:30 p.m. range, local time. Night was good. Darkness gave us more options. I set my watch. If I’d estimated everything correctly we had about thirty minutes until we touched down.
Moving to the rear of the plane, where there was more room, I presented the objective of deplaning without getting arrested to Marcus and Bastian.
“I’ll handle it,” Marcus said, before I’d finished. “I got an idea.”
I aimed my penlight on him. “No. Not unless you run your idea by me and I approve it.”
He scowled, squinting at the light. “I don’t answer to you. You think ’cause you were in the Army for a month, you know everything? You don’t know
nothin’
about the real world.”
I didn’t know who’d told him I was in the Army—Bastian or Daryn. Either way I didn’t appreciate it.
“We find Contempt and I’m gone,” Marcus said.
“You mean Conquest,” Bas offered.
“You already found contempt, bro.”
“Who you calling
bro
?” He shoved me in the chest.
I escalated immediately by throwing a punch, but Sebastian shot between us and I couldn’t avoid him. I tagged the back of his head, sending him sprawling. Marcus came in and swung at me. I took a grazing hit to the forehead, but it still rocked me. My head went flying and I had to follow it. I collided with a steel pallet.
Lia was barking now. I knew Marcus was coming for more—but the sound of the landing gear whining stopped me.
Two things hit me then. Actually three. The first was Marcus, who took advantage of my momentary lapse of focus to punch me across the temple. The second was the fact that Bastian and Daryn stood nearby in a panicked discussion about how to handle us. Third was that my timeline calculations had been way off. We were beginning our descent
now
.
At Marcus’s punch, I saw brightness, the painful kind, mirrors under the sun, then red like bursting capillaries. When my vision came back, Daryn and Bastian had positioned themselves between me and Marcus. They were talking, but I couldn’t hear much. Just something-something-something
shadow
.
“Whose shadow?” Marcus asked Bas.
“My horse,” Bastian explained. “I named her that. It seemed like she should have a name.” He glanced at me, all worried looking. “Lia has a name, so why shouldn’t my horse?”
“I think he should summon her when we land,” Daryn said.
I stood there for a second, trying to catch up. Then I said,
“What the—?”
The floor shook as the wheels touched down.
We all staggered, then froze. Even Lia stopped barking. We were in Rome.
Italy.
And we still didn’t have a plan.
“Call her, Bastian,” Daryn said. “Summon her now.”
“No! Do
not
call her, Sebastian.”
“I don’t know what to do, Gideon! You said Daryn was in charge!” Sebastian cried. Then he closed his eyes for a second and that was it.
Shadow came up the same way she had at the studio lot—black smoke twisting and filling in the shape of a horse until she solidified and stood right there, between the pallets and the rear door. Her beauty struck me again, all hollowed-out darkness. In the murky light of the cargo hold, you could’ve missed her completely if she’d been standing still, but she wasn’t. As soon as she took form, she started dancing nervously, the dim light catching on the shift of muscle and mane, her hooves clanging on the steel floor.
I looked at Marcus. His eyes were locked on Shadow and he looked legitimately shaken. I wondered if this was his first time seeing one of the horses.
“Go to her, Bastian,” Daryn said. “You need to settle her down.”
He moved right away, approaching the mare slowly. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s me.” He put his hands out and moved closer. Gradually Shadow’s movements became less jerky. Her eyes grew softer, settling for longer stretches on Bastian, and her ears came forward as she listened to him. Finally she let out a long snuffling breath and relaxed.
“That’s it.” Bastian reached up and ran his fingers down her jaw. “Good girl, Shadow.” He turned to us, emotions flashing across his face—surprise, happiness, pride—and then he broke into a big grin. “She’s awesome, right? Okay, what do we do next?”
They looked great together—both kind of spindly and
right
. A matching pair. And I thought of my horse—a creature that was aggression horseonified and appeared to be made of fire—and for a second there, I almost felt sorry for myself, except I had more urgent issues to handle. The plane was taxiing but it wouldn’t be for much longer.
“Good question, Bas.” My plan had involved getting into the shipping containers. We didn’t have time for that anymore. I looked at Daryn. She’d set this thing in motion already. Time to make the most of it. “What’s next, Martin? What are we doing here?”
“I was thinking Bastian and I will take Shadow out first? We could use her as a diversion so you and Marcus can get off the plane.”
“Then what?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Bastian and I will bluff. We’ll act like we don’t understand the problem. If we act like we’re the ones who are confused, maybe they’ll think they messed up on their end. Maybe didn’t get the right paperwork or whatever. We’ll talk our way out of it.”
“Got it. So we’re going with the old
we FedExed a horse
plan. Classic. That one always works.”
“Did you think of any better ideas while you and Marcus were beating each other up? Besides, there’s a
dog
on board. And what other option do we have? We can’t just walk off this plane.”
“Daryn, twenty people parading off this plane would be better than that horse!” How was this the plan she wanted to go with? “Get rid of the horse, Sebastian. Right now.” He was our best asset—not his horse.
He pushed his hands into his shaggy hair. “I can’t, Gideon. She just calmed down. She’s starting to trust me and if I send her—”
We stumbled a few steps as the plane stopped taxiing.
I grabbed Bastian’s shoulder. “Be ready to do the pass-out thing, you got me? Everyone get your stuff packed up, then don’t do anything else unless I say so.” I pulled the rope from my backpack and tied a quick slipknot at the end.
“What’s that for?” Daryn asked.
“You know what’s more noticeable than unloading a horse off a cargo plane? Doing it without a lead.” I shoved the rope at Sebastian. “Put it over her neck.”
As soon as he moved toward Shadow, the horse let out a low grunt and shied back.
“Tie her up, Sebastian.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I wasn’t. Each step he took toward Shadow only made the black mare more agitated—and then it was too late.
A gust of night air blew past me as the rear door yawned open. The ramp began to lower. Bright artificial light sliced into the plane. Sounds came next—the rhythmic beeping of a truck backing up. Voices. They were speaking Italian but the tone was universal—the sound of people shooting the breeze as they worked.
The ramp was halfway down when I heard a furious metallic clatter and saw a sleek black blur. Shadow launched herself out of the plane with the same flair for drama as her horseman, her long legs pushing her into the air, her tail lashing like a black whip.
Then there was just … shouting.
I took in the scene as I ran down the ramp.
About twenty meters away, Shadow ran in tight circles, trying to find a way past the people, trucks, and other obstacles that framed her in. Every single person in the vicinity had stopped what they were doing to watch her. Two cargo handlers stared in shock, ignoring the shipping boxes that tumbled from a conveyor belt to the asphalt. A woman jumped out of a van and fumbled for the radio at her belt. Closer, a bald man dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross.
Daryn grabbed my arm. “Gideon, look!”
About fifty meters away, two Italian customs officers burst out of a car, both carrying rifles. Sebastian saw them too, and made a break for Shadow.
“Hold on!” I caught a handful of his shirt. “She’s your horse, Sebastian. You panic,
everyone
panics.” I pressed the rope into his hand. “Get out there and get her under control.”
Sebastian gaped at me. “I can’t use this on her!”
“
Do it,
Sebastian.”
“Gideon, this won’t work!”
Marcus looked from me to Sebastian, swore, and then tore away at a sprint.
It was the worst possible thing he could’ve done. Until then, Shadow had done what Daryn had hoped—created a diversion. The second Marcus ran, we were on everyone’s radar, too.
“
Stai fermo!
” yelled the two officers. They unshouldered their rifles and split targets—one on Shadow, one on Marcus.
“Go!” Daryn said. “You get Marcus. I’ll help Bas.”
It was the right call. I’d already made a snap decision to follow Marcus, sensing the greater potential for problems there. I ran after him, holding up my hands so the officers could see them. “It’s okay! It’s okay!” I yelled. “He just got scared!”
