Free Riders by Veronica Rossi

of fidgety—and by the intense look on her face, like she was daring you to make eye contact with her. I got the feeling that with a good ghillie suit and the right training, she’d have made a great sniper.
    A silver chain hung around her neck. The links were heavy, thick, and disappeared beneath her leather jacket. Daryn looked back at me right as I was looking at her, uh … her chestal region. Because of the chain, Cordero, I swear. But it must’ve seemed different to her. Probably it did.
    I expected her to lay into me for it, but she just gave me a super-slow-motion once over, from my running shoes all the way up to my eyes, totally up front about what I’d just done on the sly. “There’s no easy way to say this,” she said.
    “Fine. Then say it the hard way. Or the medium way. Just say it.”
    I was starting to break a little. My control was.
    “Okay.” She looked right into my eyes. “You’re War, Gideon. You are War .”
    I did a quick rewind and playback. “Say again?”
    “You’re War,” she repeated.
    It sounded the same the second time. “Going to war? Yeah, someday. When I deploy. I’m a soldier in the US Army.” I stopped there for a second because it was still new and it felt good, claiming it. “But I haven’t been to war yet.”
    “Okay.” Daryn nodded. She pushed her hair behind her ear. “That’s not what I meant but that does makes sense.”
    “No. It doesn’t. Nothing makes any sense and if this is your explanation, then it’s a really shitty explanation.”
    “Okay. All right. Gideon … you’re the second rider. You are War, the red horseman. From Revelation.”
    As she spoke, my heart squeezed like a fist inside my chest. It kept squeezing tighter and tighter. If heart cramps were possible, I had one.
    “None of this rings a bell?” she said. “None of this sounds familiar? You have to have seen some signs … something … haven’t you?”
    Every single gear in my mind was grinding and clattering, trying to keep up with what she was saying. I turned toward the ocean. Everything I’d seen over the past week, from my fall to Samrael’s monstrous face, was coming back to me. Revelation? I knew so little about it. What I knew, generally, was that it had always scared me. Wasn’t it about the end times? The Rapture? Plagues and fires?
    “Gideon, I know it’s a lot to take in, but—”
    “No,” I said, something snapping shut inside my brain. This was a dream. A nightmare. I was Gideon Blake in an alternate dimension. “No, it’s fine. I think I’m gettin’ it. I’m War. I’m one of the four horsemen, which means I have three buddies—help me out here. I forget who they are.”
    “Conquest, Famine, and Death.”
    A chill shot straight down my spine. I shook myself like a wet dog. “Right. Those guys. And we’re supposed to end the world or something?” I wanted no part of that.
    “No. You’re only a manifestation of War. You’ve been given some of the abilities of War, but for another purpose, to carry out a specific task.” She sighed. “I didn’t realize I was going to have to explain all of this. I would’ve thought it through better.”
    “Yeah, I’m really sorry you’re having to explain all of this to me. If I’m War, what does that make you, Peace? Because you’ve got some work to do.”
    “I’m not Peace,” she said simply, and waited for my next move.
    My next move was slamming my hands against the door of my Jeep. Stupid thing to do, but the anger and confusion had boiled over inside me and I’d erupted. I’d forgotten about my busted hand, but now I remembered. Now I felt sick, I remembered so well.
    Daryn jumped off the car. “Hey! Could you calm down?”
    “You just told me I’m War . When is war ever calm? Who are you, anyway? You show up in my life with a trio of psychopaths chasing you and this is how you’re explaining it? You know what? You’re crazy. This entire thing is—”
    She shoved me in the chest. The