Bone Rider (39 page)

“Andrej!”

Misha didn’t hesitate. He pushed Riley back against the wall where the ground looked stable and jumped over the edge. He skidded down the descent in something between a dead run and a controlled fall, eyes on his partners, heart in his throat. Kolya had managed to slow Andrej’s tumble, but couldn’t stop it. He must’ve heard Misha come after them, because he glanced up, face pale, mouth a grim line, and threw out his free arm. Misha was almost there. When Kolya reached out, Misha went down on his ass, grabbed Kolya’s wrist in a death grip, and dug in both heels. It was almost enough.

Unfortunately, “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

The yawning maw of the gorge below grew bigger and bigger. Misha gritted his teeth and threw back his head, fought the pull with every fiber of his body, but there was nothing to hold on to, not enough give in the ground to really dig in, and Andrej and Kolya’s combined weight and momentum was simply too much to overcome. They were going to go over the edge and disappear into the belly of the earth.

Riley was going to end up vivisected after all.

Damn it. No!

With a hoarse bellow of denial, Misha scrambled and bucked, heels kicking up dirt and rocks. Fuck this. He was not leaving, not yet. He had unfinished business. He had Riley. He was not going to go out like some second-rate movie villain and neither were his friends. Kolya and Andrej worked with him, flattening themselves out and using every little foothold available to slow their slide until bit by bit they regained control. They came to a staggering stop much too close to the edge. Panting, caked with dirt, bruised and bleeding, but alive.

They had a second to process that they weren’t dead before an armored figure skidded to a halt next to them in a cascade of pebbles and dirt, and almost pushed them over after all. Cursing and flailing, the four steadied themselves and each other and scrambled back up a bit.

Too damn close.

They stared down at the chasm and took a moment to just breathe. The fingers of Misha’s left hand were still wrapped around Kolya’s wrist while his right was clutching Riley’s so hard he’d have left bruises if not for the metal gauntlet protecting Riley’s skin. McClane had slung several hooks around Misha in turn and driven half a dozen spikes into the ground to stabilize them both. It made the armor look even more alien than usual. Andrej’s eyes were wide as saucers and more than a little wild. He didn’t do well with heights on his best days and had ended up closest to the edge.

Kolya was the first to recover. He let go of Andrej, spat out a wad of spit and grit, and wiped a hand over his face to check if he was bleeding. He was. “Fuck,” he rasped, and hacked out some more dirt. “Gravity is out to get us today.”

It wasn’t all that funny, but it made them chuckle anyway, probably because their blood-to-adrenaline ratio was pretty messed up by this point. McClane took their laughter as his cue and disappeared, drifting back into Riley’s skin, hopefully to finish mending Riley’s injuries. Misha tried not to speculate about what kind of damage the mad dash down the slope might’ve done. There wasn’t anything he could do about it. He had to trust that McClane was taking care of Riley. Kept him together, kept him as pain-free as possible. He still shifted closer, scanning Riley’s body for potential new injuries. Kolya followed his example and checked a sputtering Andrej for serious wounds or broken bones.

Somewhere behind and above in the maze of tunnels, the dogs were barking wildly. Misha glanced up. The goddamn mutts sounded like they were almost on top of them. Not much time left. The tunnel entrance was a long way up on shifting, treacherous ground. Riley and McClane might be able to carry or pull them up, but Riley was hurt, too hurt to take them all at once. Maybe too hurt to take them at all.

They were fucked. This was the end.

Both Kolya and Andrej pretended not to look when Misha rolled to his knees and pushed into Riley’s space to cradle his beloved face between his hands and press his mouth to Riley’s in a sweet, desperate kiss. It contained a little too much grit to be fantastic, but more than enough Riley to make up for that. Riley’s hands came up between them to grab two fistfuls of Misha’s shirt and pull him even closer. One of them made a sound very much like a whimper, but Misha couldn’t have said whether it had been Riley or himself. All he knew was that this was probably the last chance they’d get to do this.

So Misha made the best of it, closed his eyes and lost himself in the taste and the presence of the man who’d become his salvation, because even if they died here, in this cold cave, it had been worth it. The nameless longing that had haunted Misha for as long as he could remember was sated when he was with Riley. Breathing in the scent of Riley’s skin and sweat, basking in his heat, Misha felt at peace. He shifted, licked deeper into Riley’s mouth, tasted earth and coppery blood and something a little odd that was probably McClane. His fingers scratched lightly through Riley’s short hair, stroked down the tense neck and across broad shoulders held carefully still while McClane knitted them back together. He could’ve sworn he felt something touch back again, smooth as silk, scratchy as a cat’s tongue, but it didn’t seem to bother Riley, so Misha wouldn’t let it bother him.

He pulled back eventually to look at Riley and was met with a heavy-lidded, silvery gaze and a fond smile. Such a beautiful smile, even when it was sad. Misha thought it was going to be one of the things he’d miss the most. The smile and the way Riley looked at him sometimes, as though he could
see
Misha, all his issues and flaws, and still thought Misha was pretty damn perfect as he was. He hadn’t seen that look in a while, but it was there right now, in the crinkles around Riley’s eyes, in the warmth of his unwavering gaze.

“Just so we’re clear: I don’t regret leaving,” Riley said, but one corner of his mouth twitched a little, softening the words even before he added, “I’m glad you came after me, though.”

Misha grinned back helplessly, because, yeah. Yeah.

“Always,” he promised, and meant it.

W
E
GOTTA
run
, McClane urged, not for the first time since they’d entered the tunnels.
Shut down pain perception completely and haul ass. They want
us
, Kolya and Andrej will be fine. Damn it, Riley. Let’s grab Misha and fucking
run
.

McClane had grown steadily more agitated as it became clear they weren’t going to be able to shake their pursuers, not at the rate they were going. Not with their well-meaning but unenhanced escort slowing them down. Healing their injuries had kept McClane busy and nicely distracted for a while, but he was starting to freak out now, slowing down his repair work to listen to their pursuers’ approach.

Come on
, he wheedled, and tried to nudge Riley into moving.

Riley shook his head and merely got to his feet to help up Misha. “We’re not running.”

“Yeah,” Andrej grumbled, “that’s because we got nowhere to run.”

Not the four of them, no. There was no way Riley and McClane could get them all up that slope in time to evade capture. And even if, through some miracle, they managed that feat, they still had to get out of the canyon and to a city where they could lose themselves in the crowds and disappear. Couldn’t grab a car, because Riley was pretty sure that was how they’d been tracked to this remote hideout in the first place somehow, so they’d have to hoof it. Riley could’ve made it through the desert, especially with McClane there to help, but Misha and Andrej were city boys and Kolya couldn’t be good at everything, right? Right. So, no more running. Time to shit or get off the pot.

NOW you pick to make your stand
, McClane moaned.
This is not a good time to choose fight over flight.

“Why the fuck are you freaking out
now
?” Riley asked, because, seriously, what the hell? Why not at the diner? Why not while they’d been running from a swarm of heavily armed helicopters throwing everything at them but the kitchen sink?

It’s kind of hard to freak out with you at all
, McClane snapped, and it could’ve been an accusation but it was accompanied by a flood of emotion that ruined the effect. McClane, Riley realized, felt safe with him. Felt like they could take on the world. As though they could make it through whatever anybody threw at them… but now there was Misha too. Leaving Misha behind wasn’t an option, letting him die even less so. The reason why McClane was throwing a shit fit was that this was the first time they were truly trapped and their options pretty damn limited: kill everybody who came at them, get killed, or surrender.

McClane, unsurprisingly, refused to consider the third option.

No. No fucking way. No surrender. If they catch us, they’re gonna bag us like tadpoles and take us apart!

Riley frowned. “Tadpoles?”

I don’t know
, McClane grumped, his train of thought temporarily derailed by Riley’s refusal to join the panic party.
You thought of them and that… that fish net….

“Dip net,” Riley corrected, remembering many a fond afternoon he’d spent at the pond behind his parents’ house scooping up tadpoles to put in his sisters’ shoes.

I don’t care what it’s called; you planted the tadpole idea, stop criticizing my metaphors!

This time it was English Lit teacher Mrs. LeHane from his high school days who bubbled up from somewhere. This, Riley thought, might just be his version of his life flashing before his eyes. Figured, that he wouldn’t get to revisit the cool parts.

“Similes. Not metaphors.”

McClane somehow managed to slap his head from the inside without damaging him further. He was getting way too good at this kind of shit.

“I’ll pay you good money if you never tell us what you and the alien were just talking about,” Andrej piped up from where he was checking his gun for damage.

Somewhere very close by, one of the dogs yipped hysterically.

It wasn’t just hooks this time; McClane scrabbled all over, mending muscles, fusing cracked and splintered bones, reattaching sinews, and even though Riley knew that was what he was doing, it felt like scratching and biting and frantic tugging. It didn’t quite hurt, but it was distracting and highly uncomfortable. Riley must’ve winced or something, because Misha stopped scanning the slope for the extra magazine he’d lost during their wild tumble down and gave him a worried look.

“How bad off are you?” he asked softly. “Can you climb?”

Yes
, McClane begged,
we can climb. We can get out of here. We can lead them away, they just want us. We’ll be doing them a favor if we leave
.

Yeah, because they’d let Misha and his men go after all they’d done to help Riley and McClane. As though there was any chance Riley and McClane could break them out once they were in military custody. Those three weren’t innocent citizens; they were stone-cold killers, much as Riley was trying to repress that little fact. No way could they produce the kind of clean backgrounds necessary to maybe,
maybe
swing an insanity defense and avoid the death penalty, not if the authorities looked closer… and with Riley on the run, they would run
very
thorough checks on any known associates. Their only chance lay in the distraction Riley could provide, because whoever was in charge of this manhunt wasn’t after three suspicious characters, they were after an alien life form and its host. Dead or alive.

If those are our only choices
, McClane whispered in Riley’s mind, implacably,
then dead. They will hurt us if they catch us alive. They will hurt us so much.

Riley didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to end up in a top-secret lab somewhere, either. He didn’t want to be interrogated and dissected. He didn’t want to lose McClane, and he had no idea how the hell to get them out of this. All he knew was that he’d left Misha behind once and that he couldn’t do it again. Certainly wasn’t going to do it knowing Misha would pay a heavy price for Riley’s freedom, no matter that the stupid bastard was probably going to pay it gladly.

“We’re not running,” he repeated firmly, and met Misha’s frustrated glare with a hard look of his own.

No surrender
, McClane whispered back, and his determination hummed through Riley’s nerves and seeped into his bones like bloody ink.
No surrender no surrender no surrender
.

Andrej sighed. “Doesn’t make sense for all of us to go down. If you can make it out of here, go. We’ll… I can’t believe I’m saying this.” He pulled a face and waved his gun. “We’ll hold them back. Give you and your hitchhiker a chance.”

“Just so we’re clear,” Kolya grumbled, “I’m Sundance.”

“You lost your gun,” Andrej reminded him with a little smirk. “You can be the damsel.”

If we make it out of here
, McClane told Riley with only the slightest tremor betraying his apprehension,
we’re so watching that damn movie.

“All the movies you want,” Riley promised, heart pounding fearfully.

Misha chuckled faintly. “I’ll bring the popcorn.”

“You’re dumbasses, both of you,” Andrej informed them. “No, wait: all
three
of you. See if we’re gonna offer to sacrifice ourselves for you again.”

The tunnel entrance above was lighting up, powerful flashlights pushing back the dark. The dogs had gone quiet, but they could all hear their eager panting now. Misha moved to stand in front of Riley as he’d done a lifetime ago on the stairs when they’d faced his family. As then, Riley stepped out from behind him to stand by his side, because—

We’re not the damsel
, McClane declared.

Damn right.

R
ILEY
probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the sheer number of soldiers who came pouring out of the tunnel. After all, McClane had rated a minimum of three fully crewed and armed helicopters even the first time round at the diner. Still, there were an awful lot of heavily armed people filling up the small cavern very quickly. It was pretty intimidating and it might’ve ended in a firefight right then and there if the two-man advance guard hadn’t stepped over the edge and fallen down the slope much as Andrej had. The dogs didn’t fall. The dogs were smarter than that.