Unremarkable (Anything But) (8 page)

Waking up underground in what
; if the putrid scent was anything to go by, was a pile of watered-down sewage, was cause for great alarm, in Ryder’s estimation. He gingerly touched the back of his throbbing head as he stood, bracing a hand against the smooth cement wall. His hair was matted down and wet. When he looked at his fingers in the dim light, it was to see dark liquid on them. Blood. Someone hit him in the back of the head and tossed him in a tunnel. Why? What purpose would that serve? And where the hell was he?

Ryder had no answers and no choice but to walk and see where it got him, so with a heaving sigh, that was what he did. His body ached like he’d been beaten all over instead of just his head and it didn’t take long for him to tire. He forced himself to keep moving, always taking the center tunnel when given an option between three, and resting minutely when another step was impossible. He was weak, hungry, and thirsty. 

He’d been walking for what felt like hours when he found her at the end of the tunnel. She was looking around a corner, a handgun held between her hands, intent on watching something on the other side of the tunnel. She stiffened as though sensing his presence. It was dark and still he knew her.

Ryder would recognize her no matter what. Her petite frame, her midnight hair, those dark blue eyes and pale features—it was Honor. Air escaped him in a ragged breath and his insides twisted. Wonder washed over him, making him dizzy. Was it really her, or was it a cruel trick courtesy of his eyesight?

“Are you a ghost?” he whispered, his vocal cords failing him as he crept toward her.

“
Get back!” The gun was suddenly aimed at him, Honor’s back against the damp wall of the underground maze. “Wait.
Ryder?
” The word was a question, his name on her lips enough to make him shudder. He took another step closer. “Damn it, Ryder! You never listen!”

She sounded frustrated with him, but not hateful, and even if he had wanted to listen to Honor, he wouldn’t have been able to. His feet pulled him to her like she was a magnetic field and he was unconsciously drawn to her. He couldn’t fight it, couldn’t deny the need to be nearer to her.

“Did they send you for me? I’m not going back. You’ll have to kill me.”

He flinched at her words, shaking his head. “You’re not real. You’re dead. You have to be a ghost.”

Blue eyes full of fire flashed at him. “If I was a ghost, I would haunt you.”

“
You have to be. You are. You do.”

“
I do what?”

“
You haunt me.” Ryder’s eyes stung and he blinked it away, the pressure in his chest tight.

“
I should shoot you.”

He ripped his shirt over his head, ignoring Honor’s protests, and flung it to the ground, baring himself to her. Widening his stance, he raised his arms out from his sides, his eyes locked with hers. “Do it.” Ryder tapped the place where his heart rapidly beat beneath his flesh. “Right here. One shot. One good shot is all you need.”

Her hand wavered on the gun. “Why would you
want
me to shoot you?”

“
Why
wouldn’t
you want to? I shot you. I could have…I thought…” He swallowed thickly. “I thought I killed you, Honor.”
I thought you were dead. I wanted to die.

“
Sorry to disappoint you.” The gun lowered.

He clenched his jaw. “I didn’t want to shoot you. I didn’t even know I did until it was too late.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“
I am
not
lying,” Ryder enunciated slowly.

Honor bristled. “Whatever. All you’ve done since you moved to Anderson Junction is torment me. You hate me, that’s never been a secret. I almost broke your nose. You said you would get back at me—”

“I wouldn’t
shoot
you to get back at you!” His voice, loud and angry, echoed through the tunnels. “And I don’t—” He stared at his tennis shoes. “I don’t hate you. I never hated you.”

The silence drew out, awkward and tense, until Honor finally spoke. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

“
You don’t know?” She cast him a dubious look.

“
That’s what I said, isn’t it?
I don’t know.
I was knocked out and woke up down here. I don’t even know where we are. What are you doing down here?”

“
Trying to outrun UDKs. You know; the usual.”

Ryder blinked. “Why?” And then, suddenly, something clicked in his head. He’d thought Honor was dead. August had told him she was dead. She wasn’t dead. August had lied. His hands fisted. “Where have you been the last six months?”

Honor stiffened, her eyes directed away from him, toward the spot she had been looking at when he stumbled upon her. “We have to go. They’re coming.” She looked at him, indecision taking over the determined expression on her face.

“
You don’t trust me,” he concluded.

“
Of
course
I don’t trust you. You shot me. But I can’t just leave you here. Come on.”

Even now, after
everything
, Honor was unable to give up on him. Ryder’s chest tightened. She was moving away, back to the tunnel as she slid down the length of it, toward the way he’d come. He raced after her, stealth not high on his list. Water, and probably sewage, sloshed over his shoes as he hurried. He tried to concentrate on Honor instead of the smells around them.

Glaring back at him, she hissed, “Don’t be so loud.”

Her brows were lowered with a scowl on her face. Ryder grabbed the back of her head and pulled her to him against her objections, slamming his lips to hers. They were cool, unflavored, and unresponsive. It didn’t matter. He’d wanted to kiss her since the first time he’d seen her, and now it was like seeing her for the first time all over again; he wasn’t going to let the chance escape him this time. Life was too short, too full of mistakes and pain, to not kiss Honor Rochester. Her lips melded to his a second before her teeth clamped down on his lower lip. A sharp sting and the taste of blood registered in his head.

They broke away, Ryder fingering his throbbing lip as Honor glowered at him. “Do that again…and I
will
shoot you.”

He grinned, an unbelievable lightness to his step as they trudged through the dark, dank, stinky tunnels. They were being chased, they were lost, he didn’t know whether he would be alive or dead in hours to come. But he had just kissed Honor and for one finite moment, she kissed him back. He hadn’t been this happy since…
ever
.

“
So what happened to you?” He ducked under a low ceiling, blinking as elongated rectangles of light shone down on them from the grate to the outside world above them. They were in a circular opening, doorways to three tunnels surrounding them.

“
Shut up, Ryder.”

The flecks of sunlight made Honor appear to glow. Dirt smudged her cheek and her dark hair was ratted around her face. Her clothes hung on her, masking her slender frame, but still, she was beautiful.

“Honor.” She glanced at him, stilling as their eyes met. “I want you to know…I am
so glad
you’re okay.” Ryder’s voice was rough and his hands clenched at his sides to keep from drawing her into his arms again. She’d fight him; he knew that, maybe even actually shoot him.

“
Why are you acting so weird?”

“
Weird how?”

“
Like you care.”

“
I thought you were dead.”

“
Yeah. You said that. So?”

“
So the fact that you aren’t changes everything.”

Honor glanced behind him, and then met his eyes. “Changes everything how?”

Taking a deep breath, Ryder watched her eyes go to his bare chest, linger there, and move away. “I am not losing you.”

Her brows knitted. “You never had me. I’m not yours and I never will be.”

A smile captured his lips and he closed the distance between them. “You are. You just don’t know it yet. Or you won’t accept it. But you are mine. You’ve been mine since the first time I set eyes on you. I just haven’t claimed you yet.”

“
You are unbelievable,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead with her free hand.

“
I’m right.”

“
Arrogant.”

“
Confident.”

“
Delusional.”

“
Honor.” Her wary gaze met his. “I’ve never been so sure of anything before in my life, I’ve never seen with such clarity as I am now. Believe me.”

Her dark head tilted as she studied him. The heat of her eyes on him was welcome, soothing. “You’re…different.”

“I changed. I grew up.”

“
Yeah, well, I changed too,” she whispered, striding toward the channel on the right.

Ryder went after her, the silence of their surroundings making him uneasy and hurrying his step. Honor was close to noiseless, but not
that
quiet. When he didn’t see her in the passageway before him, he sprinted the rest of the distance, his heart racing.

At the mouth of another spherical space, he stumbled to a stop, his chest clenching painfully. She was surrounded by a dozen or so young men and women circling her, eyeing her up, their expressions hostile. His first thought was that they were UDs, only they couldn’t be. Nothing noteworthy stood out about them.

Honor’s eyes met his, firm resolve in them. That look made him nervous. It said she would do whatever she had to do, whatever she thought was necessary, and screw the repercussions. She was unarmed—Ryder’s eyes briefly closing at the realization.

He moved for her and two men immediately left the group to flank him, rigid with barely controlled injustice and rage. They had to be UDs if he and Honor were the enemies. Only she’d said UDKs were chasing her. Hadn’t she? And why would they be after
her
? She was a UDK, just like him.

“
Ryder.”

The voice was high, faint, but biting. His head swiveled and Ryder took in the petite form huddled near the back of the cluster. Wrists shackled, Natasha kept her head high. She should have looked ridiculous in her position, but somehow she came off as regal. As far as he could tell, she was unharmed. What were they doing with her and how did they get her? Last he’d known she’d transferred to another facility to continue her UDK career.

“Is this the one that attacked you?” someone asked.

The boy Ryder had almost accidentally hit with his car suddenly appeared near the wall beside him, nodding. “That’s him.”

He stared at him in incredulity. “I didn’t
attack
you. I was just trying to talk to you and you know it.”

The boy shrugged almost imperceptibly, slinking away as Ryder snorted in disbelief.
Really?

“
What do we do with them?” one of the men beside Ryder wondered.

A tall, slender young woman with brown hair stepped forward, her gaze divided between Ryder and Honor. “We wait. Christian should be back any minute.”

Honor inhaled sharply, eyes wide. “Did you say Christian? Christian Turner? He’s alive?”

“
Maybe. What’s it to you?”

When Honor looked down, her throat moving as she swallowed, looking unbelievably relieved to know Christian Turner was alive; Ryder felt anger furl up in his veins, like spirals of fire ready to lash out. He stiffened and the two men inched closer, ready to battle if need be. His fingers flexed in longing.

“Are these the ones that were after you, Honor?” Ryder clipped out.

“
No talking.”

He was roughly poked in the back and he slowly turned his head to meet his bully’s gaze. It was gray. He switched the direction of his eyes and noted every pair of eyes that briefly met his was gray, but not glowing, and not silver-hued. UDs then. Unregistered ones, or something else?

“How do you know Christian?” the woman demanded, her face inches from Honor’s.

Honor stared back, not speaking.

When the girl roughly grabbed her arm, Ryder reacted, his body instantly taut and seething with heat. “Back off!” he shouted and shouldered the woman away.

She fell back, caught by one of her cohorts, surprise on her features.

Ryder stood in front of Honor, her front colliding with his back, and moved them toward on unknown corridor, shielding her as best as he could. “No one touches her,” he growled.

“
There are two of you and over a dozen of us,” the woman said, watching him intently. “Who do you think is going to win?”

“
Don’t care. You’re not getting her.”

She straightened her shirt, saying dismissively, “Tie them up for now.”

A mass of UDs swarmed him and hands grabbed at him in an effort to haul him away from Honor. Ryder fought, ducking and weaving, throwing punches when he saw an opening. His training had made him cold, precise, and focused. The pain in his knuckles was fleeting and barely registered in his head before it was gone.

“
Ryder!” Honor’s fingers grazed his arm and his control broke when she was dragged away from behind.

Suddenly, it wasn’t Honor they were taking from him—or it was her, but it was also his dad—it was Ryder’s hope, his happiness, it was anything that made him feel anything good and he couldn’t let them take it away, not again.

Animalistic, angry sounds burst from his throat as he unseeingly pummeled anything and anyone that kept him from Honor. He didn’t feel the hits that landed to his face and back, or the blade that sliced through his shoulder. He didn’t hear any noises but those of Honor as she screamed; he saw only her as she wrestled her way back to him and was captured and pulled away again and again. The distance between them widened, turned insurmountable, the obstacles from him to her never-ending, and still he battled. The only thing he knew was that he had to get to her, that nothing would be okay until he had her, and that he couldn’t lose her.

“
Enough!
”

The roar came from behind Ryder and vibrated through the clearing, halting all movement. He spun around, fists raised, but no one wanted to fight anymore. They shied away from him with averted eyes. He dropped his hands and straightened, his chest heaving with each breath he managed to suck through his mouth. A cut above his left eyebrow stung and sweat and blood mixed, dripping into his eyes. His shoulder was on fire, a steady stream of red flowing from the wound.