Ride On (sample chapters)

1. Seph

In a place with no sun, it's easy to remember things that would rather be forgotten.

And this is the worst of them.

The day was cold and gray, like any other. Dad always said the earth was so sick of us humans, it decided to start over. Too many natural disasters to count, and eventually sickness set in, plaguing every country who thought themselves lucky. It only left those strong enough to survive and start new. But we're still waiting for that chance, waiting for the sun to reappear.

We celebrated my ninth birthday with a box of stale cookies. One for each year. Dad let me have every last one of them, even when I offered half. When you're nine and starved, you can't deny food, no matter how hard you try.

We were on a road heading west, toward the rumors of warm weather and the promised glimpse of the sun, when it happened. People rushed out from the cover of rusted cars, brandishing weapons and running toward us, giving us nowhere to escape.

They surrounded us within seconds and pulled our only belongings off our backs, throwing us to the ground in movements too fast to fight. While they went through our things, others searched us. A man patted me down, touching me in places that made me flinch and kicking me in the ribs once he was done.

Not once did I cry.

Dad had taught me to be strong, but he never told me not to be scared. He said everyone should feel fear—it's how we survive and how we grow stronger.

"Without fear we are not people," he'd said to me. "Don't let yourself be without it. Use it to survive, but don't let it control you."

I did feel fear that day. More than I'd ever felt.

They pulled my dad to his feet and a man pointed a gun at his head. The man was bald with a scar making a line down the left side of his head and had a roughly shaven jawline.

He questioned Dad about unimportant things. Where we had gotten our food. Our water. I wished knowing those things weren't the price for someone's life. He wouldn't tell them—not wanting the people who gave us aid to also be killed. He was saving them. The people who would never know his name and how he died.

How he died for them.

Someone pulled me to my feet too fast for me to hold my balance, holding my small arms behind my back like I was made from twigs. I saw tears well in my dad's eyes when he looked at me, for what he knew was to come. The bald man shifted his anger, pointing his gun at me from two feet away, black against the sky.

"Please," Dad said, dropping to his knees. "I'll tell you. Just don't kill him . . . please."

The man smiled, keeping the gun pointed at my head. "Then tell me, and pray I don't shoot him anyway."

Dad rambled out what he knew, giving them exact directions and an estimate of how long it would take for them to get there. While he did so, the bald man stared at me instead of him for any flicker of confusion or doubt, waiting for me to give Dad away and reveal his lies—which they were.

I stared back, expressionless—that dead stare so many have acquired. Maybe staring into the eyes of a scared child in the past would expose their lying parent. But he should've known that growing up with gray skies, and watching people die before I could walk, made me who I'd become.

Even at nine years old, I'd learned not to show my fear.

Use it, but not show it.

The man finally turned away from me and returned his focus to my dad, allowing me to breathe once more while the hands of a stranger held me in place. That's when it happened.

No warning and no time to react.

The gun exploded into the cold air.

Echoing death across the barren land.

The bald man stepped over his dying body, looking down at him like something to be squashed.

"Maybe watching you die will give your son the strength he needs to survive this world," he said, turning, a wicked grin across his face. "You'll thank me one day," he told me. "We aren't those whacked cannibals you only see from a distance or hear stories about." He came closer, putting his mouth to my ear, his breath as rancid as his voice.

"They aren't stories, little one. If you survive this, you'll thank me. That," he said, straightening, "I can promise you."

He turned without another word. They packed into a beaten truck with everything we owned and left me with nothing but a dying father.

With shaking legs and weakening courage, I knelt next to him as he bled out onto the road. The man had made sure I could watch him die by shooting him in the stomach—the slowest death he could give. I moved to put my hands over his wound, but he stopped me before I felt his blood, instead bringing them to his chest and covering them with his own. His skin was too cold.

"No boy should feel their father's blood," he said.

Thunder growled on the horizon, warning me of a coming storm. One that I was only beginning to feel within me.

With his life finally giving way, Dad spoke through cracked lips, his voice weak. "You did well, Seph. Just remember the things I taught you and trust only yourself. Do you hear?"

I nodded, everything inside me growing numb. "Please don't leave me here," I whispered. It was my last attempt to make things right. Something I should have known I couldn't do. Nobody was around for miles.

I had never known the world without my father, and I wasn't sure if I could survive without him. That's all I could think about while watching him become more still.

"Ride on," he said, squeezing my hand with the last of his strength. "Ride on."

The wind cut through me as he took his last breath.

"Dad?"

His eyes stayed half closed and I pulled my hands from his before they became stiff.

I didn't stay there for long. I knew he wouldn't have wanted me to, so I forced myself to move, not thinking, and repeating his lessons in my head. The outlaws would come back once they figured out he'd lied to them, and I needed to be far away from there when they did. I took his jacket and his boots, telling myself the whole time that it was the right thing to do. I could trade them for food and supplies, or whatever I could get. I untied the red cloth around his wrist and tied it around my own, promising him I would do things right. The way he had taught me. And the way the world had taught him.

Leaving him there was the hardest thing I ever had to do. 

They left me with nothing. Just memories of their faces.

Vengeance isn't something to live for, but that man's face is one I'll remember forever. Maybe I'll see him again and maybe I won't.

I try not to think of it much.

It makes my heart feel wrong when I do.

It was nine years ago now. Every year growing harder than the last. That day tore something from my heart. Something I don't think can ever be replaced. Like a chunk of me is missing that I keep trying to find.

I'm not seeking revenge, but if I ever see that man again, I wouldn't feel bad about killing him.