She rolled her eyes, pretending to be annoyed. “The more syrup, the better.”
“What’s your journal about?”
I didn’t expect her to answer that one but she came right out and said, “Everything I care about.” She stretched my sweatshirt over her knees. “Those are easy questions. They’re easy ones to answer.”
“For you, they are. I didn’t know any of that stuff. You’re pretty much expert level on the subject of Daryn Martin.”
“Maybe.” She turned to her window. “But you don’t want to know about me.”
Actually, that wasn’t true. But it was fair to say my curiosity went well beyond her, too. “Let’s just keep going. We’ll stop when it’s not easy anymore. You came to find me last night at that party. Right?”
“Yes.” She peered at me. “But I didn’t expect to be sent for you first.”
“Because?”
“Because Conquest is the first horseman, not War. War is the second horseman. But like I said yesterday, none of what’s going on is related to Revelation. The seven seals? The events preceding Judgment Day? This isn’t about that, so I guess the order shouldn’t matter. You’re an incarnation of War. You’ve been given War’s abilities to carry out a mission.”
“Right. Okay. Right.” I couldn’t drive and have that conversation. I needed to give it my total focus, so I pulled off onto the shoulder and peeled the electrical tape under the steering column apart, killing the engine. A couple of surfers were out on the water, shredding. That looked fun. I wanted to be out there, not a care in the world.
“So, this guy,” I said. “Conquest. The other horseman. Wait—girl?”
“Guy.” Daryn was looking through the front windshield like we were still driving. “You’re all guys.”
“So, no horsepersons?” It sounded ridiculous, but it was an honest question.
“No.”
“What are you? Are you, like, an anj—anj—angel?” I’d been joking last night when I’d yelled that at her, but what if she really was?
Daryn shook her head. “Definitely not. I am definitely not an angel.” She looked at me, really directly. The more anxious she was, the more still she seemed to become. “Seeker. That’s … that’s how I think of myself.”
“Seeker.”
“Yes.”
“Is Seeker higher in rank than horseman? In the grand scheme, are you more senior than me?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I’m in the military. Rank matters. I just want to know where I stand. If we had uniforms with stripes on the shoulder, would you have more stripes than me?”
For just an instant, part of an instant, she looked like she wanted to laugh. “You’re unbelievable. Yes. I’d probably have one more stripe than you. I’m kind of the source for…” She paused. “I don’t know. For information. Does that bother you?”
“Why would it?”
She just looked at me.
Did she mean the girl thing? Because I had no problem taking orders from a girl. I’d been doing it my whole life, for one. My mom was the strongest person I knew. And if you were capable, I personally gave no shits what you were. For me character was character, end of story.
“Okay, this is good.” I shook some sand out of my hair, scrubbed a hand over my face. “Gettin’ some answers. Hangin’ in my Jeep with a Seeker in the middle of nowhere.”
“Cayucos.”
“Say what now?”
“We’re in Cayucos, California.”
My gaze drifted out to the surfers on the water. Cayucos. Kye-yoo-kuss. What kind of word was that? Spanish? I was definitely focusing on the wrong things.
“How are you doing with all of this?” she asked.
“Great. Really great.”
“Want me to keep going?”
“Absolutely. Keep going.”
“So … from time to time … I get this sort of … download into my mind. Information, like I said before. That’s how I know what I need to do, what my task is. In the last one, I saw you and the three other riders. I learned that I need to bring the four of you together so you can help protect something that’s very powerful. Something that can’t fall into the wrong hands.”
I nodded, taking a few seconds to let that sink in. “Are you going to tell me what I’m protecting?” It took everything in me not to look right at the silver necklace I’d noticed earlier. There was something unusual about the thickness of the links. Maybe that wasn’t the object, but my instincts were pinging.
“And what about this?” I lifted my wrist, showing her the cuff. “This showed up a few days ago without a manual. Any idea what it does? How it works?”
She looked from the cuff to me, shaking her head. “There are certain things I can’t tell you yet. I told you that. It’s safer.”
“There are certain things you need to tell me, Daryn. Usually on a mission it’s good to have what’s called an objective.”