Page 17 of The Red Rider
“Leif too.”
“Stop stalling.”
“Quit rushing me.”
“Focus on Aeron and Leif. You had been talking to them online for months. You had painted all of us together, and you were excited to meet them. You remember doing the painting. Try to remember the days after that.”
It was like Dice’s smooth voice hypnotized me. I found myself slipping into the past. I was years younger, and my hair was much pinker then. Aeron and Leif. I was excited to meet them. What the fuck happened then? I knew we were supposed to meet at my favorite falafel place. Why didn’t I tell him to pick me up at home? I felt like I was falling into a trance.
I want to leave right away. Aeron and I are supposed to have a quick dinner and then hit the road. I know if I ask him to pick me up at my apartment, we are going to sit and chat, so I ask him to meet me at the restaurant. My heart is pounding in my ears. My bag is packed, but I change clothes four times. Miss Mabel knows I’m leaving, and she’s going to watch my apartment. We have plans to come back here after we beat my father and start some hippie love community with the three of us.
I don’t take my car. The restaurant is within walking distance. I lace up my rollerblades and skate to the restaurant. Aeron is already there. I can see him in the window. I’m still across the street. I’m waiting for the light to change, then I’ll skate across the street to meet him.
I’m waiting at the stoplight when a van pulls up to the curb. It’s almost too fast to notice. Three men jump out the back of the van and grab me. They weren’t counting on me being on rollerblades, and we all nearly face plant on the pavement. I fight as hard as I can, but they have something over my mouth, and I can’t scream.
It must be chloroform because the harder I try to breathe and scream, the hazier everything gets. I blackout just as they throw me in the back of the van. I never even had a chance to cry for help, and it happened so fast, no one even saw me get abducted.
I gasped as I came out of my memory. Aeron needed to be here. Aeron blamed my entire abduction on himself, but those men were organized and had their faces covered. It might not have had anything to do with him.
“Get Aeron!”
I’d hardly gotten the sentence out when Aeron practically kicked the door in. I was pretty grateful for the whole angel radio thing, but what exactly did Dice tell him? Aeron looked like he was ready to kill anything in the room that wasn’t us, and his sword was out. His chest was heaving, and his eyes darted around the room.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“I remember the day they took me. I’m not in danger.”
Aeron’s sword disappeared, and his eyes cut to Dice.
“You seriously need to work on your communication skills. When you pop into my head and tell me Ariel needs me and she’s supposed to be safe with you, I expect the worst!”
“You’re such an alpha male, Aeron,” Dice groaned. “Ariel can still need you without you having to kill something. Boyfriends talk about feelings too, you twat. You can’t kill those.”
“Let’s just chalk this up to miscommunication,” I said before they started fighting again. “Aeron, I remembered the day I was taken. It was coordinated and planned. It happened right across the street from the restaurant in broad daylight. It was so fast, and I don’t think anyone saw it. I know that intersection. A lot of drug deals go down there because there are no cameras on the street. I should have either picked a different place to eat or just had you pick me up at my apartment, so we could immediately disappear. I thought if you picked me up there, we’d never leave because we’d get stuck chatting or furiously making out.”
Aeron ran his fingers through his hair and started pacing.
“I should have known. I should have insisted on picking you up. I should have bought you a plane ticket and never crossed the border!”
“Man, you’re both going to drive yourselves insane with all the what-ifs. Neither of you could have known because we didn’t get into his secret server until a year after I was called. You could only see what he didn’t mind other people seeing.”
“I should have gotten better at hacking,” Aeron grumbled.
I walked over and wrapped my arms around his waist. I buried my face in his chest and nuzzled him with my cheek. I was about to say something, but Dice beat me to it.
“You are good at hacking. I taught all of you. We haven’t been called in a while, remember? We had to get used to modern technology before I could get into Isaiah’s things. It took me a year, and I’m the best, remember?”
“It’s no one’s fault but Isaiah’s,” I said.
“The Nephilim speaks the truth.”
Aeron cupped my chin and lifted my face to his.
“You’re making progress with your memories. That’s good because Leif will be ready to go to Florida in three days. He’s going to be holding a mass vaccination party, and then we are leaving.”
“To take care of that crazy preacher?”
Dice and Aeron just laughed.
