Chapter Twenty-Four

Ivan’s skin felt turned inside out.

Everything scraped at his nerves. The drone of the contractor’s voice. The hesitant obsequiousness in his nervous movements. The wind, bringing air that was too warm to be pleasant and thick with the annoyingly domestic scent of freshly turned earth.

Nita’s voice. God, Nita’s voice scraped, because that husky, warm-honey tone that she deployed like a weapon was gone, replaced with a high-pitched, forced cheer that made every word sound like a backhanded accusation.

He’d broken Maricela’s heart, and Nita was never, ever going to forgive him.

Ivan was never, ever going to forgive himself.

The back of his neck prickled, and Ivan tensed to keep from spinning around to check for somebody watching him. It wouldn’t do any good. The layout of the shipping containers made excellent use of space, but it was an absolute nightmare for visibility. Ivan’s muscles had tightened from the first moment he’d stepped into that circular courtyard, and the nagging feeling that something was off wasn’t helping.

Everything was off. His whole fucking life was off.

The conversation stopped abruptly, and Ivan watched as Murphy began to roll up his plans. Nita turned to give Ivan a cutting look he was surprised didn’t actually flay his skin from his body. “You can go do your...whatever with the car. We’ll be along in a moment.”

It was a dismissive command worthy of her mother, but it wouldn’t have slashed so deeply if Maricela hadn’t ignored it, her gaze still fixed on the empty table as if she couldn’t bear to turn around until the sight of him wouldn’t pain her anymore.

Her shoulders were slumped with misery. Ivan’s throat hurt. He turned, swallowing the discomfort as he started back toward the Jeep. He was halfway there before he realized the lump in his throat was tears.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever cried.

The grass was scrubby in the dirt where they’d parked. Ivan dropped and slid beneath the car, his body moving on muscle memory until he spotted a shorn length of wire.

Someone had cut the line from the battery to the starter, disabling the vehicle.

Ice flooded him as he rolled free of the undercarriage, lunged to his feet, and broke into a run. The panic button Zeke had programmed for him was clipped to his belt next to his favorite knife, and it only took a moment to jam the trigger on it.

Zeke would get the alert, and the Riders would come, armed to the teeth. Ivan just had to keep everyone alive until they got here.

His heart didn’t beat again until he crested the tiny rise and caught sight of Nita and Maricela, still standing in a triangle with the contractor, who’d turned to wave an arm in the direction of the community garden.

“Maricela,” he shouted, covering the space between them as fast as he could. “Get--”

It was all he got out before the contractor’s head exploded.

Maricela clapped both hands over her mouth and lunged after him as he slumped to the ground. She pulled him into her lap, dirt and blood grinding into her white skirt as her chest heaved.

The back of Ivan’s neck prickled again, and he dove into an evasive roll as another shot cracked through the air, drowning out Nita’s scream. The bullet whistled past Ivan--close, too close--and he came to his feet again in a dead run.

He reached them just as Nita went to her knees. He caught her arm and pulled her back to her feet. One glance at Murphy told him there was no hope. Ruthlessly, he dragged the man out of Maricela’s lap by his shirt and hauled her to her feet, shielding her with his body as he herded both women into the shadow of the closest shipping container.

It was the model home. Nita was still staring at him in horror, her brown eyes huge with shock. He kept his voice even but firm as he guided them toward the door and opened it. “Get inside.”

“No.” Maricela’s hands were slick with blood and slid over his arms when she tried to grip them. “Ivan.”

“Inside,” he roared. When she didn’t move fast enough, he wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her from the ground, knowing that if he released her she’d try to scramble back to check on a dead man.

Nothing was harder than keeping a Rios alive when people started dying around them.

Nita stumbled inside, and Ivan dragged Maricela across the threshold. “Get down, Nita. Maricela, down.”

She didn’t release him. “Stay here,” she begged. “Please.”

Her eyes were huge and terrified, and her fingers dug into his arms hard enough to bruise. Blood splattered her pretty white dress, so much of it. It stuck to her throat, too, and her cheek. He wiped a bit from beneath her eye and only left a smear.

He couldn’t fix this. All he could do was take care of the problem--or at least hold out long enough for the Riders to get here.

He went to his knees, dragging her down with him. Nita was already there, her back pressed to the unfinished wood of one of the kitchen’s little cupboards. Ivan freed a hand from Maricela’s grip and took the beacon from his belt. “Keep this,” he told her, folding her bloodied fingers around it. “Zeke will be tracking the signal, and he’ll come to wherever it is. I’m going to lead this guy as far away as I can.”

“You can’t,” she whispered hoarsely. “You can’t leave me.”

It would have hurt less if she’d driven her hand into his chest and ripped out his heart. He cupped her cheeks, wishing for more time. Wishing he could take back the last few hours.

“I love you.” He didn’t mean to say the words, but they came out anyway. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I’ll always love you, Maricela. I’m sorry.”

She stared up at him in shock, and he left part of himself behind when he tore free of her arms. He was empty and cold again, cold enough to ignore her strangled, “Wait--”

He slammed the solid wooden door behind him and wished it was steel.

But it wasn’t. The thick walls of the shipping container might stop a bullet, but the doors and windows wouldn’t.

Ivan had to find the shooter.

He shoved away from the container, his mind replaying the last few minutes. The shot had come from high ground. The closest thing was the containers themselves.

A heartbeat later, he heard the soft thud of boots hitting the ground somewhere to his left. He spun and cursed the layout of the containers again as he darted across the open space to find cover.

Visibility was shit. He was trapped in a maze as aggravating as the one in the Reyes family gardens, nothing but narrow pathways and blind corners. Gravel skittered off to his right, and he whipped around the edge of the container, pistol in hand, only to find himself facing down an empty alley.

The sounds had been too far apart. The second he thought it, metal creaked a few rows over.

Fuck, how many were there?

More than one could be too many. It felt like hours had passed in agony, but it had only been minutes since he’d jabbed the panic button. The Riders were fast, but not that fast.

Gravel pinged softly off the other side of the container, and he whirled around it to find nothing, again. Someone was playing mind games, taunting him like a cat with a trapped mouse.

He sprinted across another stretch of empty space, heading for the courtyard. If he could get to the other side and find a vantage point--

Instinct screamed. His skin crawled. He could hear Ashwin in his head, scolding him for letting someone herd him into an ambush.

Ivan whirled and saw the gun barrel three feet from his head.

Training took over.

He ducked and threw himself at the man holding it. The shot went off over Ivan’s head with a deafening crack as he hit the man square in the chest and bore him to the ground. The gun went flying, skittering across the gravel.

Ivan reared back, swinging his own weapon around. He was already squeezing the trigger when brutal fingers dug into his wrist and shoved his arm aside. The bullet went high, shattering a window on a nearby house.

Dead, frozen eyes stared up at Ivan, eyes with the same chilly detachment he’d seen in Ashwin’s scarier moments. White-hot agony shot up his arm as his attacker squeezed with impossible strength, grinding the bones in his wrist together.

Impossible--or genetically enhanced.

Ivan ripped his knife from his belt with his free hand and went for the man’s throat. The blade almost grazed him, but the man--the Makhai--heaved them both up and flung Ivan aside. He hit the ground with stunning force, dropping his gun.

He scrambled after it, but the Makhai was faster.

Ivan saw the blow coming and rolled to one side. The man checked his punch before driving his fist into the dirt and shifted his momentum with superhuman speed, changing his attack into an elbow aimed at Ivan’s throat. He rolled again, this time with a desperate kick to the man’s knee. It barely landed.

Ivan had trained hours upon hours with Ashwin. He knew what a Makhai soldier could do. There was no way a single Rider could take one down without a miracle. His only hope was to hold on, to keep the man too busy to go after Maricela.

To die as slowly as fucking possible.

He kicked out again, drilling his attacker’s ankle. It bought him a few seconds to scramble to his knees and raise his blade. Before he could use it, the Makhai kicked his hand so hard Ivan heard bone shatter. The knife fell from Ivan’s suddenly useless grip.

He ignored the agony. He ignored the probability that at least three of his fingers were broken. He came up with a smaller throwing knife in his left hand and flung it from the hip.

It sank into the Makhai’s shoulder, but Ivan’s momentary relief died when he reached up and jerked it free without even flinching. Ivan wrenched his body out of the path of its return flight and made a split-second decision--no more throwing weapons that could be used against him. He had to get close enough to sink that knife into the Makhai soldier’s throat.

This was going to hurt.

»»» § «««

Ivan loved her.

It didn’t feel real. There was too much going on. Maricela’s hands tightened and relaxed around the tracker Ivan had given her as her brain struggled to process everything that was happening. Her head pounded, her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t stop shaking.

A man was dead.

Ivan loved her.

And he was out there now, searching for the killer.

Her fingers closed around the beacon again. Its blinking green light should have reassured her--the Riders knew they were in trouble. The Riders would come.

But would they make it in time?

She huddled closer to Nita. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What Ivan told us to do.” Nita pulled away far enough to roll to her knees. The vase of flowers sat on the table where the contractor had placed it, the blooms bright and fresh, obviously picked that morning just to please them.

And now he was dead.

Nita grabbed the vase and ducked back beneath the table next to Maricela. She tossed the flowers aside and used the water to wet one of the hand towels that had fallen from the counter in the chaos. “Here, let me--”

The blossoms were scattered on the floor, like the poor man lying outside in the dirt. And Maricela couldn’t even remember his name.

She brushed Nita aside as her friend tried to clean the blood from her face. “I can’t just sit here.”

“You have to.” Nita caught her hand and squeezed it hard. “Whoever is out there is here to hurt you. You have to make it as hard as you can.”

Nothing could be harder than this--waiting, helpless, as Ivan confronted danger all by himself. That was the part that made her skin crawl. Not that he was headed into a potentially fatal fight--he was a Rider, after all--but that there was no one at his back. If he died out there, he would do it alone.

No.

Before she had a chance to say it aloud, a shot rang out, stopping her heart for agonizing seconds. When a second shot exploded, Maricela sprang from her hiding spot beneath the table. “Are you armed?”

“Maricela--”

“Show me.”

Reluctantly, Nita eased up her skirt and pulled a knife from her boot. “I just use it for practical stuff. I don’t even think it’s big enough to be useful in a fight.”

“It won’t come to that.” She shoved the tracker into Nita’s hands. “The rest of the Riders are on their way. Stay here. That’s an order.”

Nita scrambled to her knees again, her eyes full of panic. “No, Maricela. If you’re going, let me--”

“I said stay, Anita.”

Another heartbeat, and Nita sank back, her gaze dropping to the floor. “All right.”

“I’ll be back,” she promised. Maybe it was a lie and maybe it wasn’t, but it was all she had.

Maricela eased through the door, closing it as silently as she could. Then she ran, determined to get as far away from Nita’s hiding spot as possible. Her sandals slapped against the dirt and gravel, but she barely heard it over the sound of her pounding heart.

Where was he?

The way the converted shipping containers had been laid out made it impossible to see anything off in the distance. She moved between them, staying as close to the sanded metal surfaces as she could. If she lived, this would be her new nightmare. Not stumbling to Gideon’s study, but helplessly trying to find her way through a labyrinth of chipped green and murky blue and rust red.

Somewhere to her left, she heard grunts of pain and rage, the kinds of primal noises that raised the hair on her arms. She followed the sounds--

--and walked into the rest of her nightmare.

Ivan was grappling with a man dressed head-to-toe in mottled brown, the kind of color that blended into the desert landscape. Except now those clothes were stained dark with blood, and she couldn’t tell at first whether it was his or Ivan’s.

Then she saw they were both bleeding, and more crimson spattered the ground with every kick and punch. Maricela stood, frozen to the spot, too horrified to hide as the man--the soldier--bashed his elbow against the side of Ivan’s head.

Ivan wheeled back, groaning--

And saw her.

Their eyes clashed for an instant that felt like an eternity. She read the horror there, the fear. She saw his jaw work, knew he was biting back the urge to shout at her to run.

The moment snapped as he lunged forward with a roar, swinging straight for the man’s face with a renewed fury.

This was her nightmare--and this time, she didn’t know how to stop it.