Bone Rider (24 page)

The sun was glinting off the smeared, dirty glass, the room beyond a dim, murky void. Young could hardly see the booths by the window, much less the counter. He couldn’t make out movement, either, nothing except for the blurry mirror image of the spinning rotor blades and their shadows. Somewhere in there, the alien was lurking like a great white shark just waiting for some idiot to poke a limb into the dark.

“Sir?” the squad leader said from next to him, breaking his focus. “We’ve confirmed the tango’s position behind the front room counter. Also, Roost says the locals are getting restless.”

Monitoring the relevant radio frequencies in the area was SOP
{11}
and Young hadn’t expected the El Paso PD to stay out of his way indefinitely, but this meant their window was closing fast. No matter. With the host’s position verified, they were good to go. He spared one last look at the diner, a chill in his bones despite the pity he felt for the cowboy, then he focused on getting the job done.

“Let’s roll.”

I
N
THE
diner, behind the counter, Riley Cooper sat forlornly on the not-very-clean tile floor with his back to the wall, his daddy’s gun in his hand and the smell of burnt bacon and cheap cleaning solution in his nose. He felt weird. Kinda numb. Kinda scared. Kinda hungry.

“We’re fucked,” he muttered, staring at the gun mostly because it was more comforting than the avocado-green tiles. He briefly considered loading it, but in the end he didn’t bother. He wasn’t going to shoot anybody, not with the sight of the little girl’s shocked eyes still freshly burned into his memory.

McClane didn’t say anything, which Riley took as agreement. He sighed and tucked the weapon back into his waistband. He could hear thumping and clanging from the back of the kitchen where the soldiers were still trying to open the back door. Judging from the almighty bang he’d heard a few seconds earlier, the freezer must’ve toppled over and was probably stuck like a cork now in the narrow passage between the exit and the counter. Riley didn’t doubt they’d get in eventually, but he figured the troops out front were the more pressing problem at the moment. Maybe they should just run for it. He had a gun and a bone rider who’d already demonstrated he was bulletproof. It might be worth a shot.

Bulletproof, yes
, McClane said bleakly.
But if they have bigger explosive devices, we’re screwed.

“What? How much bigger?”

Grenades? Or bombs? Would they have bombed the aliens?
Nah
, Riley thought,
that would’ve killed the soldiers, too. Then again….

Missiles
, McClane explained, before Riley’s imagination could start creating doomsday scenarios.
Fired from handheld launchers. It was just enough to kill both armor and host. If they’re even half competent, they brought some of those.

Riley was sure they had, which made running for it a Butch-and-Sundance kind of choice.

Did they win?
McClane asked, apparently picking up the images flashing through Riley’s mind of Paul Newman and Robert Redford dashing out of that besieged building side by side in a desperate last charge.

“No.” Riley sighed, closed his eyes, and thumped the back of his head against the counter in frustration. “They were gunned down and died.”

Oh
. McClane dug into Riley’s hips for a second, readjusting his position.
Can you think of something a little more positive, please?
he grumbled once he was done.
We’re not gonna die here
.

Dying, Riley thought grimly, was not the worst that could happen to them. He rubbed his hand over his face and tried to think, but it was hard to focus with McClane’s anxiety fueling his own and the noise from the helicopters outside pounding through his skull. To make matters worse, the stench of charring food was growing stronger. The way his luck was going, it was only a question of time until the kitchen went up in flames. He would’ve gotten up and turned off the stove, but that would’ve meant getting closer to the soldiers at the back door and he had absolutely no desire to do so. Riley frowned, remembering what McClane had told him about his previous run-in with the United States Army.

“How did you survive the first time round? You said all the other armor systems were killed.”

Silence. McClane went still. Completely motionless, not a twinge of movement against Riley’s insides. The ripple of apprehension that shivered through Riley’s muscles was his own body’s reaction to the sudden lack of stimulation. It made him realize just how used he’d gotten to the constant touches, subtle as they were. McClane was always moving somewhere. A flutter here, a tickle there, a painless but insistent humming along bone in between. Those little signs of life had become a background sensation like the beating of Riley’s heart, the ebb and flow of his breath.

I wasn’t fully bonded with my host
, the alien confessed finally, as if admitting to an awful crime.
I couldn’t stand him. I faked it. Remained a separate entity.

That explained… absolutely nothing.

“So?” Riley pushed. “You’re not fully bonded with me, either.”

So I sacrificed him
, McClane snapped, voice harsh with tension. His grip on Riley’s insides tightened abruptly. For once, Riley felt more relief than irritation at the sudden ache. The stillness had been disconcerting.
I let him take the brunt of the explosion because he was an asshole and I wasn’t gonna die for him
, McClane continued, sounding angry and defensive, but not apologetic at all.
It was a different situation, all right? We go out there and we can kiss our ass goodbye, because I’m not doing that to you. I’m not giving you up. I’m sure as hell not watching you die.

“You sacrificed your host.”

Riley blinked, unsure what to make of this revelation, surprised by the blunt admission, still reeling from the discovery of how much he’d gotten used to McClane’s physical presence as well as his voice. He was starting to feel a bit punch drunk.

McClane made a sound somewhere between a snort and a snarl.
Can we please argue about ethics later? We got bigger problems right now
.

“I think the bacon’s on fire,” Riley agreed.

Riley….

“I know. I know. Gimme a sec.”

Riley took a deep breath to steady himself, then straightened consciously and shook his head to get rid of the daze. He looked around, trying to go about it methodically.
Think small
, his father had liked to tell him whenever Riley had gotten stuck doing something.
Take it step by step. Sometimes you don’t need the big picture
. He’d been talking about engines, mostly, but it was sound advice and had helped Riley out of more than one tight spot.

They couldn’t go out back. There was a fire, a freezer, a dozen armed soldiers, and a big-ass helicopter in the way. They couldn’t go out front for similar reasons. They couldn’t go up, because they’d be spotted the second they crawled out on the roof. Couldn’t go down: no basement. Riley turned his head, studied the wall to his left. This was a utility building; little more than a big container sectioned off into store-sized compartments by wood and plaster partitions. McClane, on the other hand, was made of metal.

Experimentally, Riley lifted his arm and slammed a fist against the wall. McClane, quick as always, coated his skin before it made contact.

The dent they left was impressive.

Good thinking
, McClane praised, and then they were up on their knees, punching the barrier over and over again. Chunks and splinters rained to the ground and into the hollow space between the walls. The force of the blows traveled up Riley’s arm, but whatever McClane had done to make his bones and joints more resilient worked like a charm. It didn’t hurt, and after the first few hits, Riley realized his knuckles weren’t merely covered in silver, they sported spikes that amplified the impact and tore into the cheap plyboard, splintering and weakening the structure. It was tough going, but it was definitely doable.

They had almost made it through when Riley heard a weird whistling sound and the crash of breaking glass. He gasped at the sudden pinprick sensation of metal shooting from every pore of his skin, hot and cold and overwhelming.

His world exploded.

M
ISHA
’
S
heart broke with a bang.

Three consecutive bangs as three grenades exploded in the diner. No warnings, no attempt to negotiate. No time to realize how deadly serious the soldiers were or to keep them from firing.

Everything stopped.

Sound. Sensation. Sanity.

Misha’s vision tunneled until there was nothing but the broken glass front of the diner across the street, the smoke drifting from the inside, the lick of flames back in the darkness. The last time he’d seen Riley smile had been the morning before everything had gone to shit. They’d been in the kitchen, Misha’s body still heavy and sated from Riley’s wake-up call, the sunlight painting Riley’s skin golden as he contemplated his morning coffee. Misha remembered staring at him, completely enthralled by the way the sun turned those changeable eyes more green than gray. He remembered that ever-present hunger for Riley had churned in his belly and clawed up toward his heart, a sweet ache that had consumed everything. Riley had looked up, met his gaze and held it. He’d smirked at whatever he’d seen on Misha’s face, and then, slowly, his expression had softened into something else. Something that had crawled into Misha’s bones and heated his belly, had made him struggle for breath, still hurt in the best way whenever he let himself think about it.

This was why he hadn’t been able to let Riley go. He knew with icy certainty that nobody had ever looked at him like that before and nobody would ever look at him like that again if he let Riley slip away. This was Misha’s one and only chance. It was need and idealization wrapped in bittersweet what-could’ve-beens. It was possessiveness, obsession, lust, and projection. It was love in its scariest, most primal form. It was huge. It was all-consuming, different from anything Misha had experienced before, and he was so far gone he couldn’t even be properly terrified of how completely invested he was in Riley Cooper.

There was no going back. Misha had known from the moment he’d realized Riley had run that he was going to find Riley again. He’d explain about the hit man thing so Riley could actually understand it. He’d promise whatever necessary to allow Riley to get over it. Do anything. Riley would forgive him. They’d be together again.

Only they wouldn’t; because, just like that, Riley was gone.

Worse, Riley had died alone, thinking Misha had played him, wasn’t going to mourn him, might even be relieved to hear of his death.

Misha moved slowly. Opened the car door, slid out to stand beside the van, that one thought hammering relentlessly through the shocky, staticky buzzing in his brain.

Riley had died alone.

The smell of smoke was in the air, carried across the parking lot and the street by the helicopter-borne wind. The
whup-whup-whup
of the rotor blades never changed, unmoved by what was going on below. Car alarms were wailing, people chattering excitedly, some of them pointing at the devastation, all of them gawking at the building where Misha’s whole world had just gone up in fire and shrapnel.

Riley was in there. Misha was out here.

It didn’t compute.

Someone was saying his name, over and over. He knew the voice, but he didn’t bother to answer the call. His mind wasn’t tracking so well, stuck on the fact of Riley’s absence. The fire in the diner was spreading slowly. The soldiers across the street had inched closer to the scene of their crime, but they weren’t moving in yet, held back by the tall man in black who was obviously giving the orders. The man was staring at the broken window intently, as if waiting for something, and that didn’t make sense, but Misha was already so far beyond sense it really didn’t matter.

“Fuck, Misha, you’re starting to scare me, buddy. Misha, come on. Come on, man, we gotta go. There’s nothing we can do here. Do you hear me? Look at me. Misha!”

Andrej. He sounded worried. Very much so. He was right there too. Not touching, because he wasn’t stupid, but close. Misha hadn’t heard him get out of the car or move around it, which was… huh. How had he missed that? Probably because his gaze was still locked on the diner that held Riley’s body. If the flames weren’t extinguished soon, they’d consume the whole place. They’d eat Riley’s remains like a half-assed funeral pyre while a bunch of complete strangers and Riley’s murderers watched and that….

… that wasn’t acceptable.

“I’m gonna go get him,” Misha said calmly.

He didn’t mean to provoke—it was a statement of fact—but Andrej didn’t take it as such. “The hell you are,” he snapped, aghast.

Misha didn’t look at him, still mesmerized by the flicker of light in the darkness, but his tone brooked no argument.

“I’m not leaving him.”

Not in there. Not alone. Not for strangers to drag out and desecrate at will.

There was a sense of movement and then Andrej was in front of him, blocking his line of sight, forcing him to engage. The familiar face was tense, all harsh lines and stony professionalism, but there was concern in Andrej’s hazel eyes, in the tightness around his mouth. Andrej looked older, Misha noticed vaguely, as though something he saw in Misha’s eyes was breaking him a little too. Strong hands came up to clutch Misha’s shoulders, another attempt to ground him. As if Misha needed it, needed coddling. As if he weren’t perfectly cool and rational.

“They hit him with three grenades,” Andrej reminded him, gently, firmly, as though he was talking to a fool or a person in shock. “There’s next-to-no cover in there. He’s dead, Misha.”

So Misha met his friend’s worried stare, grasped Andrej’s wrists to let him know he was fine, and then repeated it, because apparently Andrej hadn’t gotten it the first time.