Seeker (Riders #2)

Daryn shakes her head absently, her attention elsewhere. She leans toward me, ducking to look at the roof of the yellow bungalow. “Gideon…”

I turn to see what she sees.

Someone is up on the roof, standing right at the edge where Dad stood that day.

It’s a woman I’ve never seen before—but I know who she is.

Daryn’s mother is in a white dress that blows in the breeze. Her shoulder-length hair is a lighter blond than Daryn’s. Her complexion’s lighter than Daryn’s honey-colored tan, too. But she has Daryn’s long legs and straight posture. And like Daryn, there’s a quiet challenge in her eyes. Not hostile. Just daring you to put anything less than your best foot forward.

She steps to the very edge of the roof. She looks ready to jump.

“Mom?” Daryn says. “Mom!”

Fear crashes into me. Daryn yanks at the door handle. “It’s locked! Gideon, it’s locked!”

My side is locked, too. The lock is mechanical but it won’t give. I slam my shoulder into the door. Daryn is screaming and hitting the driver’s-side door, and there’s no sound worse than the raw fear in her voice.

“Gideon, how do I get out? How do I stop her?”

I don’t know. It kills me that I don’t know. I keep throwing myself against my side, smashing my shoulder into it. It feels like it’s made of concrete, and suddenly I know we’re not meant to get out. Nothing we do will change what’s going to happen.

Huge black clouds are tumbling across the sky. They come like waves, casting shadows across the street and the house, plunging us into instant twilight. Gusts roll past, lifting leaves and blowing them across the lawns.

In just seconds it’s growing dark. The houses at the end of the street disappear. Then the ones closer to us.

“Don’t do this, Mom,” Daryn pleads. Her mom has inched closer to the edge of the roof. “I’ll come home. I’ll come home. I’m coming home, Mom.”

I grab Daryn’s hand. I’ve never felt more useless.

The last thing I see before darkness takes everything is the flash of her mother’s hair as she steps off the edge—a gold flame that burns bright, then snuffs out.

In the silence of the truck, all I hear is Daryn’s breathing and mine.

“Oh, God. What just happened?”

I can’t answer that. I reach over and pull her onto my lap.

“Gideon, I don’t understand. What happened? Did she jump? I didn’t see. I didn’t see her fall.”

I bury my hand in her hair and bring her forehead to mine. I’m glad she can’t see my face in the darkness. I went through this. I lived this. I did see my father fall. I don’t want her to feel this. I don’t want her to know this pain, too.

The truck begins to shake. We instinctively latch on to each other.

Here we go.

I hear the sound of metal bending and groaning.

Something rough and dry snakes over my wrists. Then my ankles. The smell of dirt invades my nostrils.

Roots. I’m being shackled by roots.

They twist around my legs and arms. Twist around Daryn, too. I feel us being plucked up. Lifted off the seats of the truck. I hold on to her and we keep rising, up, up, up. Like the hellacious fall, but in reverse.

Dirt falls over me. Into my eyes and my mouth.

Daryn coughs. I’m hacking too, trying to clear my throat, when we’re thrust up violently.

We push through a wall I can’t see—a wall that hits me everywhere. Then we break into air, cool air, daylight surrounding us. Trees all around.

Airborne for an instant.

A lifetime.

Then we come down hard. Daryn lands square on my chest; my back hits earth that’s sealed shut behind me. Around us roots slither into the ground like retreating eels, disappearing.

Jode and Marcus run up, weapons drawn, cursing. Ready to do anything to help.

I’m still trying to make sure it’s over. Whatever it is.

Daryn rolls away from me, still coughing. She brushes her hair out of her eyes and sits up, looking at me.

“It wasn’t her,” I tell her. “It wasn’t real.”

Empty words. They do nothing to ease the devastation on her face.

There’s not a single thing in the world that actually seems worth saying.

I feel like I failed her. Like I should just walk away. At the same time, I feel like pulling her into my soul.

But neither can happen right now.

The trees are rustling with a breeze that smells like smoke.

We know what that smell brings.

The last thing I want to see right now is the Harrows.

We mount up and ride.

*

My mood is off by a few thousand degrees, and Riot feels it.

He keeps us covered in flames, and won’t pull back on them.

He burns so hot he leaves a trail of charred hoofprints, which is a problem. If the Harrows are out there trying to hunt us down, we don’t need to become any easier to find.

I rest my hand on his withers, trying to convince him that I’m all right, but until I know Daryn’s all right, I won’t really be. It’s a chain reaction.

An hour later, the burnt smell is gone. The wind has died down, and leaves hang still on the branches. Feeling relatively safe from the Harrows, we ride abreast so we can talk about what happened.

Marcus wants to know. Jode really wants to know. And they deserve to. They’re at the mercy of this place, too.

I describe falling through the ground, then falling through darkness for ten minutes or maybe more, and finally ending up in Dad’s truck with Daryn beside me.

“You saw your dad’s death?” Marcus asks. He looks worried. He knows how that day still haunts me.

I shake my head. “He wasn’t there. It was only the place. The house where it happened.”

“You were in the truck. Then what?” Jode asks.

“It went dark. We were mauled by roots, and then we came back up.” Something keeps me from telling them about Daryn’s mom being the one on the roof of the yellow bungalow.

I glance at her and find her watching me, her eyes narrowed in anger. “You don’t have to protect me, Gideon,” she says. Then she gets Shadow moving and pulls ahead.

I want to go after her. But I need to figure out where I went wrong first.

Marcus looks at me. He cues Ruin, catching up to Daryn.

“Traitor,” I mutter.

“Yes,” Jode says in a deadpan. “He’s ever so eager to betray you.”

*

The day grows bright, even under the thick canopy.

Sunlight catches dust motes swirling in the air and peppers the forest floor with white spots, illuminating our tour through psychological land mines. Judging by what Daryn and I just experienced, the tour is now interactive.

We’re ready for it. Every one of us feels a constant mild headache. It’s so constant, we start to not notice it.

Game on, Rift. Bring it.

We come across a red canoe resting on the forest floor. It’s made of real wood and looks authentic, handcrafted and old, like something passed down through generations.

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