Quicksilver Dragon

by Chant, Zoe

  “But you hate talking about it,” Lindsay said.

  “It shows, huh?”

  He wrapped his arms around her, now just holding her. She wanted her body to be a comfort to him, so she nuzzled up against him. She felt him petting her shoulder.

  “That wasn’t the war, really,” Boone said. “That was my ex. Talia. We can table this for another time, for the record—it’s not the best pillow-talk to get into ex-girlfriends.”

  It wouldn’t have been under any other circumstances. But their circumstances were so unique and so bizarre that Lindsay thought they should do whatever seemed best for them, and this was a weight she had seen on Boone’s shoulders whenever the subject had come up. She wanted to know.

  And to her surprise, she felt no jealousy towards this Talia, even though she could feel how easy it would be to be pettily envious of this woman who had obviously occupied a lot of Boone’s time and a lot of his heart. Talia. A pretty name for a no-doubt pretty woman. Once upon a time, Lindsay wouldn’t have been able to have this conversation without a quaver of insecurity.

  With Boone, she somehow felt perfectly confident, perfectly comfortable.

  He was hers. He’d said so. And he wouldn’t lie to her.

  “This is important to you,” Lindsay said. “If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”

  “And you need me running at a hundred percent,” Boone said wryly. “And I won’t be doing that if I’m hung up on my past. I know that.” He took a deep breath. “Talia and I dated for a long time—we met when I was still in basic training. I was surrounded by a bunch of guys who wouldn’t stop complaining about their wives and girlfriends and how they didn’t understand what an Army life was like, but Talia... Talia understood completely. She didn’t have any reservations at all. Her dad had been military, her older brothers were military. I was surprised she wasn’t, but that was just because what she wanted, what she liked being, was the person at home, the person who welcomed everyone back. She was good at it. So it was never a problem for her when I had to go overseas or when I couldn’t easily call or email. It wasn’t a problem when the mail was held up for weeks. She understood everything.”

  “That must have been relaxing,” Lindsay said, though privately she thought there was a difference between understanding and not caring, and she was leaning towards the idea that Talia simply hadn’t cared.

  “It was. It seemed like it was. But—” Boone scrubbed a hand over his face. “It was weird. It was like I never had to think about her at all. It felt like she didn’t want me to think about her, except to brag to everybody about how amazing she was, how she was the model girlfriend. Sometimes when I was overseas I’d feel so far away from her that I’d come close to realizing that there was something wrong... but then I’d come home again and she’d make everything easy and perfect. And she loved me, I think. She loved spending time with me when I was home. But everything she loved...”

  He’d trailed off.

  “What?” Lindsay said.

  “She loved the buzz-cut. She loved that I was in shape.”

  “You’re still in shape,” Lindsay pointed out wholeheartedly.

  “She loved hearing war stories—and she wanted me to tell them even when it was hard for me to figure out how. Everything she loved about me, she loved because it was about being a soldier. And when she realized that I’d meant it when I’d said I didn’t want to be a soldier forever, she freaked.”

  “Because you’d been a dream,” Lindsay said quietly. “And then you turned out to be a real person.”

  Boone nodded. “And it was especially hard on her because I wanted to go to art school, and she thought it was weak. It was like I’d completely betrayed her, like I was turning my back on everything we’d had together and everything I’d been before. She kept saying I had to wake up and realize that this was just a little kid’s dream. That just because I could doodle a little didn’t make me Van Gogh, and even if it did, who’d want to date Van Gogh?”

  Her heart broke for him. She could just see a younger, softer-faced Boone standing there, his hair cut so short it only made his eyes look bigger and more vulnerable, listening as the woman he loved—or thought he loved—tore his dream to shreds. It sounded like Talia had never valued him—she’d valued Generic Soldier #2, the person she had wanted him to be. She’d loved one part of him, and it hadn’t even been the part of himself that he’d loved the most.

  “She tried,” Boone concluded. “She definitely thought she loved me, even if she really didn’t. She stuck around for a while, but it was all... It was awful. She’d do this gritted-teeth smile whenever I showed her anything I was working on. What we had just limped along for forever until it finally died, and I guess after that—I felt like she’d taught me that there was no way to be an artist and a soldier both. And she’d seemed to think there wasn’t anything of the Army left in me, to the point where it seemed like false advertising to even talk about it to anyone, like it would be giving them the wrong expectations of me. So I just stopped.”

  “Oh, Boone.” Lindsay tightened her hold on him, like that would prove that she, at least, wouldn’t let go. “Being half a person isn’t any way to live. But I can see how you got there.”

  “So can I. But I don’t want to be there anymore.”

  “You thought I’d see your sketches and act like she did.”

  “A little,” he admitted. “I’m still not used to the idea that this is something women like.”

  “Seriously? Haven’t you seen Titanic?”

  “Um, once, maybe, with my older sister.”

  “And you don’t remember anything about it?”

  “I remember the boat sank,” Boone said.

  “Okay, when we get through all this, we need to watch Titanic, and you can see exactly how, well, panty-melting an artist can be under the right circumstances. I think you were just too young to realize it at the time. Boone, artists are hot. You’re hot. You’re hot as an artist and you’re hot as a soldier and you’d be hot as a Wal-Mart greeter. And I love you and I’d love you even as a Wal-Mart greeter.”

  She stopped. She hadn’t meant to say that.

  But he caught her mouth with his immediately, before she could even have a split second’s regret, and he kissed her.

  “I love you too,” Boone said. “Okay. Let’s make a plan to get through all this so we can see Titanic together.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  First things first: they had to get out of Lindsay’s apartment.

  Boone tried to tap into the reconnaissance part of his brain while he got dressed. It was hard, considering his mind still felt so blown from the quick one-two punch of the sex and the “I love you” exchange. It felt like all he could do to get his belt buckled again.

  But eventually, slowly, his brain agreed to kick into gear.

  They had to assume Mullen was watching the building. Lindsay told him that there were two entrances to the apartment block, the one they’d come in through and a back way that led into an alley full of dumpsters. Going out the front was too obvious. Scurrying out the back was, if possible, even more obvious.

  They didn’t have much in the way of disguises.

  “Sorry,” Lindsay said when he asked. “I didn’t know to hang onto all my past Halloween costumes.”

  “I was hoping more for something along the lines of those Mission: Impossible masks,” Boone said, miming like he was about to peel off his face for a dramatic reveal.

  Lindsay’s mouth quirked. “Were you secretly Tom Cruise all along?”

  “Oh, come on. I’m taller.”

  “I do like how tall you are,” she admitted. “It’s a definite plus. I like standing on my toes to kiss you.”

  “I like the idea of picking you up,” he said, thinking about what it would be like to have her legs wrapped around his waist.

  None of which was getting them anywhere closer to an exit strategy. He rubbed his hands back through his hair, pushing it up o
n end, trying to think. Once in Baghdad he had bailed out of a window when a firebomb had erupted—

  Boone snapped his fingers. “Fire alarm. Do you have a fire alarm?”

  “Not in here,” Lindsay said. “There’s one in each stairwell.”

  And for all they knew, Mullen might be lurking in one of those.

  “What happens if your smoke alarm goes off?”

  “Usually I stand on a chair and bang at it with a broom until it stops screaming at me,” Lindsay said, “but I’m guessing that’s not what you mean. I’ve never let it just squawk forever, but I’m guessing...”

  He could see her realize exactly what he had in mind, and an enormous smile spread across her face, toothy and undignified. He wanted to memorize it: it was a look of pure delight.

  “I’m guessing,” Lindsay continued, “that it eventually triggers an alarm for the whole building. Which houses, oh, roughly three hundred people, most of whom will be home by now. We can get lost in the crowd. Are you going to breathe fire at the alarm?”

  She sounded hopeful, and he hated to disappoint her, but there was no way he was going to risk releasing dragonfire—if he even had that option—in close quarters with her. No way in hell.

  “I was going to use a match or a lighter. Or channel my college-aged self and burn the hell out of a grilled cheese.”

  “Spoilsport,” Lindsay said. “I’ve got a lighter and a candle.”

  She retrieved both and brought them back to him. Thankfully, they looked like they’d come through Mullen’s raid unscathed, as if even she hadn’t been able to figure out what use they could be; Boone felt like they were pulling ahead of her at least by a nose. The candle was one of those round jars, the scented ones: it smelled like warm vanilla and sugar cookies. Boone lit it and held it up towards the smoke alarm, feeling like he was attending the world’s strangest, most fragrant concert.

  The smell of cookies and vanilla suited Lindsay, though. It intertwined with her natural scent, coiling up with the smoke until it felt like she was what was threatening to burn the place down. Looking at her, at the fine little tendrils of dark hair snaking around her ears, he had to think that was an accurate assessment.

  And she loved him. She loved all of him.

  The smoke alarm went off in blistering peals above his head. He couldn’t cover his ears and hold the candle up at the same time, so he just winced and tried to bear it. Lindsay, her hands flattened against her own ears, shook her head adamantly and raised her hands to cover his ears; she hunched her shoulders up against her own ears to try to block out some of the sound.

  “I’m fine!” Boone yelled.

  “You’ll go deaf!”

  “You’ll go deaf if you keep trying to do that!”

  “I can’t hear you!”

  “That’s my point!”

  “What?”

  Thank God they were spared from more of that by the building alarm starting its own shrieking whistle. Time to get out.

  Boone inventoried their condition quickly. Lindsay wasn’t taking an overnight bag now—too many of her belongings had been trashed—so they wouldn’t stand out from the crowd. And they were both wearing different clothes than the ones Mullen had last seen them in. Boone had borrowed one of Lindsay’s oversized pajama shirts, a baggy college T-shirt that he was lucky she’d wanted to fit her about as closely as a potato sack, and she had changed into workout clothes. Without asking, Boone knew that she’d intentionally chosen something she would easily be able to run in, if it came to that. He hoped it wouldn’t.

  Though he was still grateful she’d thought of it. Firstly and most importantly, because he’d rather have her needlessly over-prepared than tragically unprepared, and secondly because his life was better off for knowing she owned a T-shirt that said CITY PLANNERS DO IT ALL OVER TOWN.

  “Ready?” He didn’t know why he was asking when he knew she couldn’t hear him.

  But she must have read his lips, because she nodded. She looked like all the soldiers he remembered, ready to go into war.

  Maybe that was what he’d always needed. It had never occurred to him until now that it was nice to have someone to fight by your side—to share your life with you—as opposed to just having someone to come home to. Maybe someday Talia would really be some guy’s perfect match, but she wasn’t his. He needed more than that. He needed Lindsay.

  All along, he’d needed Lindsay.

  Boone seized her hand. He didn’t want to get separated from her in the throng of people outside, but it was more than that. He just wanted to hold onto her. So much more was going up in smoke than just that candle. He wasn’t going to let go of the one good thing these last few days had thrown his way.

  Lindsay held him back just as tightly.

  They funneled out into the hallway.

  No Mullen, not that he could see. Good. That meant that she was probably outside, and by the time they made it out, they would just be two more faces in the crowd. Lindsay might have known most of these people, but Mullen didn’t.

  They’d have to catch a bus to his place. Or an Uber. There was no way it would be a good idea to take Lindsay’s car, which Mullen had already identified, and his own was parked too far away; he could go back for it later, alone, but it was too risky to make a run for it now. It would put them too far away from the crowd. Boone pulled Lindsay to the side and showed her his phone, where he was quickly summoning a car for them. The app said it would only be a two-minute wait.

  “Dude,” an obviously stoned college kid said, boggling at them, “why are you just standing there? Don’t you know there’s a fire? Wait, are you deaf? I know some ASL.” He made a couple floaty hand signals that Boone was ninety percent sure weren’t anywhere close to being actual sign language.

  “We’re fine!” Lindsay yelled. “We can hear it. It’s complicated!”

  The kid looked at them doubtfully. “Well, you gotta live your truth.” He ambled out.

  After another tense minute, they followed him. Their ride had gotten a last minute burst of speed and was now only thirty seconds out.

  Boone showed Lindsay his phone again, pointing to where it listed the make and model of the car. They’d want to get in and get going as quickly as possible. She nodded.

  He mouthed another, “Ready?” at her.

  She tugged him towards the door. A woman of action.

  “Ready to live our truth!” she shouted.

  They weren’t the last ones leaving the building, not by a long shot. And it looked like it wouldn’t have been too conspicuous for Lindsay to have dragged along an overnight bag, either—though Boone was still glad they didn’t have the weight of it slowing them down. Plenty of people were lugging out suitcases and TVs and laptops. They’d taken the time to grab up their valuables.

  Boone wished he could apologize for scaring them. He hadn’t wanted to send anybody on a mad hunt through their apartment, looking for family keepsakes that couldn’t be replaced. They just hadn’t had another choice.

  No way to explain it.

  He spotted their car coming to an idling stop at the curb. He and Lindsay sprinted towards it.

  He looked around as much as he thought he could afford to without the movement slowing him down, and at the last minute, as they threw themselves into the backseat of the Uber, he saw her.

  Before, Boone had only seen her through the crack in the door. Lindsay had described her to him—“You wouldn’t ever get her mixed up with anybody else,” she’d said, shuddering—and this was... not exactly like what she had said. This woman seemed shorter than the one he’d had a partial glimpse of. And her hair was a carroty orange-red. Her suit was navy blue instead of black.

  It couldn’t be the same woman. No way could it be the same woman. She could have maybe found some way to change suits while they’d been upstairs—though why would she have?—but she wouldn’t have ducked away somewhere to dye her hair. And she definitely wouldn’t have lopped an inch or two off her height.

>   But all the same, he knew her. Even as a blur. Even from a distance.

  That slack, dead-looking face was exactly the same. So were the eyes, burning away angrily. She hadn’t picked them out of the crowd. She knew she was losing them, at least for the moment. She didn’t have to see their escape to know they were slipping out of her grasp.

  But another thing he recognized in her was a horrible kind of confidence.

  Run all you want, this other Mullen’s look seemed to say. I’ll still catch you in the end.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lindsay sat in the back of the Uber, gripping her knees hard. She knew the danger was temporarily gone, even if it unfortunately wasn’t gone for good.

  The second they’d been shut into the air-freshened car with its soft rock playlist, they’d been safe. The second they had gotten on the road and left the non-burning building behind them, they’d been even safer. There was almost no way for Mullen to catch up with them or tail them. And Boone, who ought to know safe from unsafe, seemed calmer. He was chatting with their driver, trying to make it seem a little more normal that they’d gotten picked up from a horde of swarming apartment residents.

  He was fine. The situation was fine.

  So she should be fine, right? Admittedly, she didn’t have Boone’s training, and she wasn’t used to life-and-death threats. It would make sense if she had a little more trouble calming down.

  But this had to be more than that, didn’t it? She almost felt nauseated. She hadn’t felt like that even when they’d been in the hallway, waiting with bated breath for their ride to creep closer.

  This couldn’t just be the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. Maybe she hadn’t been in this exact situation before—who had?—but she’d had rushes of excitement and fear before. She knew what it could feel like to bottom out after that. And it shouldn’t have felt like this. It shouldn’t have made her want to roll down the window and stick her head out like a sick dog.

  She wasn’t willing to sink to that level just yet. Right now she was going to stick to just holding onto her knees and hoping for the best.