Riders (6 page)

We’re cool. Everybody be cool. Just be calm.

They ignored me, which was perfect, except for Taylor, who started right in with how much she’d heard about me and how much she loved Anna and how much fun they’d been having. I countered with how much I needed a shower and took myself to the bathroom. By the time I got out, my head felt clearer and I had a plan. I’d attack the situation like I’d been trained to do in the Army. Gather intelligence. Create a strategy. Execute on it. I’d figure out what was happening to me, then go about reversing it.

Anna was at her desk when I stepped into her room. She spun in the swivel chair, sliding her cell phone into the pocket of her jacket. “Good look, little brother,” she said, tipping her chin to the pink towel around my waist. I’d been born two minutes after her and she loved to remind me that I came into this world in second place. “The girls in the apartment downstairs are having a party. Joy said she told you about it. You’re coming, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Is Wyatt going to be there?”

“I don’t think so.” She frowned, eyeing me more closely. “Gideon, you don’t look hurt at all. You look bigger.”

“Yeah?” I looked at myself. All I could really see was my stomach, so I patted it. “It’s all the PT I’ve been doing.” I’d always been athletic. Army life had just honed me up more.

“Did you do something wrong?”

It took me a second to realize what she meant. She thought the accident was a cover? “Anna,
no
. I didn’t.”

She didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. We could always tell when the other was holding something back, which was one of the reasons I’d been gone so much over the past year. I hadn’t wanted to take any chances of dragging her down with me. Now was no different.

I rubbed a hand over my wet hair, which was already dry because it was a millimeter long. “Stop looking at me like that. It’s creepy.”

“You’re creepy.” She stood. “See you downstairs.”

“Wait. I need to call Mom.”

“I already told her you’re here. She went atomic.” She tossed me her phone and smiled. “Have fun.”

When she left, I pulled on jeans and sat at the desk. My first order of business was to get information. I fished some medical discharge papers out of my ruck and found the number for the Army physician overseeing my case. Because of the severity of my injuries, I had Dr. Katz’s mobile number. He answered right away.

“Private Blake, how are you feeling?” he asked.

“Good, sir. I’m good … maybe too good.”

“No such thing as ‘too good’ where health is concerned. Glad to hear it.” I heard him tapping on a keyboard in the background. “Looks like we’re seeing you in a week for some follow-up exams. What can I do for you, son?”

“Major, did you or any of the other doctors put a medical bracelet on me?”

“You have no known allergies or preexisting medical conditions. There’s no need for an ID bracelet.”

“Not an ID bracelet. A healing bracelet. On my left wrist?”

“I don’t have a record of that, Private. I don’t want to discourage you, Gideon, but a magnetic bracelet won’t go far considering the severity of your injuries. Is there anything else? How’s your pain tolerance?”

“Good, sir. Thank you. Nothing else.”

I hung up and flipped open Anna’s laptop. The apartment had fallen quiet except for a deep, pulsing bass thrumming from Joy’s party.

I typed one ridiculous search parameter after another.

Unexplainable rapid healing

Manipulating rage in others

Mystery metal bracelets

Just about everything turned up the same result: superhero websites.

That was enough intelligence gathering for me.

I shut the laptop, sat back, and laughed my ass off.

C
HAPTER
9

College parties were a phenomenon I had yet to experience. Unlike my high-school buddies who’d spent the past months filling up Solo cups in parties across America, I’d spent them getting my head shaved, learning to low crawl, and polishing my shoes until I could see my face in them.

Those first few months in the Army were brutal, and not only because they were physically and mentally demanding. In Basic Training, a lot of guys were slackers who didn’t really want to be there and it felt like my sixth-grade sleepover all over again—a bunch of screw-offs giddy on their first night away from home. Until I got a little further along in the process and found guys more like me in RASP, I’d seriously wondered if I’d made the right choice.

I wondered that again as I leaned against the wall in Joy’s living room and watched people toss back drinks and dance to pounding rap music. There were about fifteen girls packed into the small room and every last one of them was hot. I’d been almost exclusively around guys for a long time so this was a welcome change for me.

Not everyone was as happy about my attendance, though. A few of the guys at the party were throwing hostile looks at me, making it clear they didn’t like me encroaching on their territory. Occasionally words like “GI Joe” and “Army grunt” filtered through the music. I even heard a couple of football players in the corner reciting choice quotes from
Full Metal Jacket
. These were probably the same guys who got choked up during the Super Bowl national anthem, moved by those three minutes of intense patriotism. And see, I had a problem with that. To me patriotism wasn’t a mood or a moment. It was so much more.

I ignored them and focused on hanging out with Anna and Taylor. I was still carrying around this scalding energy, this full payload of rage that was right there, reachable inside me. Ignitable. Some part of me wondered if it hadn’t been with me for a long time, only that I’d been denying it. I couldn’t ignore it now. I could only try to manage it.

Taylor turned out to be pretty hilarious. She was a big Dodger fan so we almost went to blows over that, but in a good way. I was glad my sister had made a good friend at school. Just as I was starting to settle in, Wyatt showed up.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t interfere again, so I hung back when Anna left to go talk to him. I couldn’t help watching them though. Even that bugged me. Wyatt’s facial expressions were too extreme. Like, dude. Watch the crazy eyes. Just dial it back a bit. I didn’t know how Anna was doing it. She had to feel like she was talking to a pinball machine.

“You know you have nothing to worry about, right?” Taylor said, laughing at me. “She’s over him. And I’m looking out for her.”

She was right. And Anna was smart. My sister knew what she was doing.

When Taylor headed to the patio to talk to her girlfriend, Joy wandered over. She leaned against the wall beside me and bumped my elbow, spilling a little of her beer on my sleeve. “What’s wrong, Army boy? You don’t drink?”

I did on occasion but not much. I’d been cursed with a stomach that didn’t tolerate a lot of things. Too much sugar, preservatives, grease. If I didn’t keep a good diet, I suffered. With booze especially I paid a pretty steep price, so I had to pick my battles. This wasn’t one of them. With everything going on, the last thing I needed was to lose my edge or spend the night hugging the toilet.

“Actually, Joy,” I answered, “I should be physically destroyed right now, technically speaking, but it looks like I might have developed a freaky fast-healing condition with a possible side of PTSD. So I thought I’d lay off the sauce tonight. Don’t want to push things over the edge, know what I mean?”

Joy cupped her ear. “What? Sorry, it’s so loud in here!”

“Can’t party tonight!” I pulled Anna’s phone out of my pocket. “In case there’s a national emergency!”

“Ohhh, got it!” Joy wrinkled her nose. “It’s so, like,
noble
you do that stuff!”

So far the Army had been the opposite of noble work for me. I got a mental image right then of Cory with shoelaces of snot coming out of his nose during a swim evolution. But hey. Someday I would put my life on the line for my country, so I didn’t see any harm in letting her opinion stand.

Joy and I shouted small talk at each other for a little while. She was cute and she seemed nice. She told me all about the great beaches in the Philippines, where she was from. Some place called Cebu. I wasn’t sure how I was doing hitting on her.

You’ll find this shocking, Cordero, but I haven’t always been the specimen you see in front of you. It wasn’t just the braces or the zits that slowed me down in high school. I never really
tried
. My lack of game never bothered me much, though. I’d never met anyone where it had actually mattered. Not until Daryn. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anna had gone back to hanging out with Taylor again. My sister looked okay. She didn’t look upset. On the other side of the room, Wyatt and his preppy buddies were having a competition to see who could show the most teeth when they laughed.

My gaze went to the patio where I’d met Joy earlier. A girl stood out there with a few other people, but she clearly wasn’t with them. She stood alone in front of the open sliding door. What held my attention, besides the fact that she was pretty, was her expression. She stared right at me, and she looked intense and determined. Like we were in the middle of an argument even though we hadn’t said a word to each other.

She stepped into the apartment and threaded through the people dancing at the center without breaking eye contact. Her gaze felt like a challenge, so I stepped up to the plate and met it. I wasn’t going to break first, but my confusion must have shown. Joy stopped talking and followed my sight line.

“Do you know that girl?” she asked.

“I think so.” She sure seemed to know me. “Can you give us a minute?”

“Sure.” Joy glanced at her plastic cup. “I’m empty anyway,” she said, and headed off.

The girl from the patio came right up and stopped in front of me. She obviously had an agenda. It seemed like the right call to let her make the first move, so I stood there, trying to look relaxed.

She was prettier up close—streaky blond hair that fell over one shoulder and tan skin. Not a lot of makeup. Maybe none. She wore a weathered black jacket, tight jeans, and scuffed boots. A backpack was slung over her right shoulder. She wasn’t a college student, though. She just didn’t look it. This girl had switchblades in her eyes and
don’t mess with me
in her posture. She looked like she could handle herself. Super confident.

Her gaze flicked down to my left wrist. I immediately regretted not wearing a sweatshirt to cover up the cuff. When her eyes lifted again, the look in them was such an insane mixture of curiosity, relief, and fear that for a second, I wondered if I’d met her at some point in the past, offended her, then forgotten all about her.

No way, though. This wasn’t a girl you forgot. I was only five seconds into knowing her, but I already knew that much.

“I need you to come with me,” she said. “Right now.”

“I bet that line works on all the guys.”

Like I said, no game, but she was intimidating as hell. The party swirled behind her, all grinding bodies and thudding music, but she stood there as still as a lighthouse.

“This isn’t a joke.” She glanced toward the front door. “We have to get out of here or you’re going to get hurt.”

I laughed. “Sorry … what?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

That didn’t sit great with me. It struck a nerve that was already pretty raw. “I know a few things.”

“Then why haven’t you found the others?”

“Oh, wait. This is about
the others
?” I straightened off the wall. “I can explain that. See, I tried to find them but the spaceship left right when I got there. Just took right off. Can you believe the others did that to me? Flaky bastards.” I was being a smart-ass, but I didn’t want her to leave. “Look, what do you say we try this again?” I held out my hand, because why? I guess I wanted to make this more awkward. “I’m—”

“Gideon. I know,” she said. Her palm closed over mine, her fingers taking a firm grip of my hand. “I’m Daryn. Let’s get out of here.” She did a one-eighty, still holding on to my hand, and started towing me toward the front door.

I needed a second to process a lot of things. Her crazy behavior. The fact that she had a guy’s name. The fact that she knew
my
name. The fact that she was taking me … where? And that it should’ve felt like a good thing, an awesome thing, but somehow didn’t.

She stopped suddenly. I ran right into her back.

“Whoa, sorry,” I said, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me.

The front door of the apartment had just swung open. Three people entered, two guys and a girl. Adrenaline roared through me. I knew instantly, on a primal level, something was about to go down.

The first guy was in his mid-twenties. Short black hair, and the kind of face that had to make life easier for him. His clothes were pretty slick, modern, and he was built. He had me by thirty pounds at least, but that didn’t necessarily worry me. I could handle myself in a fight. What worried me was that he looked like he could handle himself in a fight, too.

Behind him stood a shorter guy, slight build, hunkered inside a suit that was a few sizes too big. He had stringy brown hair, the cratered skin of someone who’d fought hard-core acne, and glassy black eyes that cast anxiously around the apartment. He reminded me of a possum. The girl was average height and size, around my age, with red hair in a ponytail and tons of piercings—eyebrows, nose, lip. She carried herself with the same fearlessness as Daryn—who I noticed no longer looked fearless.

“Gideon,
run,
” she said, pushing me back.

The tall guy homed in on her immediately, like she was the only person in the room. He said something to the other two, and they locked in too.

Daryn kept telling me to run, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Retreat wasn’t my style, and she was in trouble of some kind. I didn’t stop to consider that she was a total stranger, that maybe she deserved what had just shown up at the door, that maybe I shouldn’t have gotten involved.