Embracing The Inferno (Dragon Within #5)

by Kyra Dune

  "Maybe," I said. "But... I couldn't. Not with how much he hates Zack. I couldn't trust him not to go straight to Megara." And that was a problem right there, me not trusting my own brother. "Zack wasn't responsible for what happened at the bunker, it was all Hannah. But I guess Megara is probably telling people the three of us were in on it together."

  Jonah shook his head. "She's not saying much of anything, which is making people antsy. But for what it's worth, I believe you."

  "You do?" I can't deny I was kind of surprised to hear that. "Why?"

  "I trust you." His gaze was steady on mine. "I know you never would have put all those lives at risk. You're a good person, and I think, under all that anger, so is Zack."

  I laid my hand on his arm. "Thank you for that. It means a lot to me."

  "That's what friends are for." Jonah patted my hand. "Oh, and I have another little something for you." He reached into the backpack again and pulled out Curtis' camcorder.

  I gasped. "Megara will know you took this."

  He shrugged. "I don't plan on being around long enough for it to matter."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Two hours." Jonah slipped the camcorder back into the bag, then stood. "Be ready to leave." He turned toward the stairs.

  I grabbed his arm. "What are you going to do?"

  "Don't worry," Jonah said. "Zack has a plan. I'll get Luka safely away from here. Derek and Stephanie too, if they'll come."

  "That doesn't answer my question." I wasn't worried about Zack, not anymore. If he knew what to watch out for, he could step out of most any situation on top. But Jonah didn't have any active powers and I didn't like the idea of him being involved in anything dangerous. I knew Zack, and as far as he was concerned, Jonah was expendable.

  He smiled, but it was a little too tight around the edges. "I'm only going to make a little distraction so Zack can take care of your guards."

  "I don't want you to get hurt. Or..." But I couldn't say that. I couldn't even bear the thought of losing any more friends. "Be careful."

  "I always am."

  I wasn't entirely sure I believed that. "You're not coming with us, are you?"

  "No. Zack thinks we should split up, and he's right. Giving Megara two targets to chase is better. Besides, the two of you will be in the most danger and you can move faster without the rest of us tagging along."

  Trust Zack to have thought things through so logically. "Fine, but you come find me before it gets too dangerous. I want you guys with me before the trackers can start hunting Luka."

  "How will we explain that to Derek? Or worse, Zack?" he asked.

  "I don't know. We'll think of something. Maybe we'll just have to tell them the truth."

  Jonah made a face. "That sounds like fun."

  Then he was gone and I had nothing to do but wait. And if I thought being stuck down in that cellar trying to kill time before was bad, this was a thousand times worse. How was I supposed to know when two hours had passed? It wasn't like I had a clock down there. One good thing I can say is that the painkillers worked. My arm stopped hurting and so did my head, which made it a little easier to think.

  I put the baggie of pills in with the camcorder and finished off the bottle of water. Not a great idea, considering the cellar didn't have a bathroom and after drinking an entire bottle of water I kind of needed one.

  Two hours is an eternity when you're trying to count every second and constantly stopping to strain your ears in the hopes of hearing something, anything, that will tell you what's happening. When the first heavy thud sounded, I wasn't even sure I really heard it. I stood there at the bottom of the steps, staring up at the door, wondering if I was starting to imagine things.

  The next sound I heard was a sort of a dull thwomp, followed by a strangled cry cut off short. I pulled up an air shield without even thinking about it as the cellar door was yanked open, but I quickly dropped it again when I saw Zack staring down at me.

  "Come on," he shouted. "Hurry."

  I didn't need to be told twice. I grabbed the backpack and ran up the steps to him.

  Flames. That was the first thing I saw. The grass surrounding the cellar was in fire. Little butterflies of panic fluttered in the middle of my chest and then I was back in Oregon. Back in the woods with the fire and the smoke and the screams all around me. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

  "Abigail!" Zack grabbed my uninjured arm and gave me a rough shake. "Don't just stand there, move!" He shoved me, sending me stumbling forward. My foot caught on the leg of a dead body lying on the ground.

  One of my guards, of course. Covered in blood. I couldn't see the other two, but by the smell of burning flesh I could tell they were nearby. My head started to spin. It was like being dropped directly into my worst nightmare.

  I think I might have stood right there and gotten myself burned, if not killed, had Zack not grabbed my wrist and yanked me after him, forcing me to move or else fall flat of my face. By the time we got to the sidewalk my head had cleared enough for me to follow Zack when he started to run. I had no idea where we were going, but I trusted he knew what he was doing. I did wish the others could be with us, though, so I could see with my own eyes they were all right.

  Splitting up did make the most sense, even if I didn't like it. Megara would come after me first, hopefully giving the others a chance to get far away. And it wasn't like they couldn't find us, what with Jonah being able to track any hybrid, any time. I was glad I'd never told Zack that or he surely would have killed him.

  Zack led me to a black van parked on the corner at the end of the street. "Get in," he said, moving to the driver's side.

  Great. He'd stolen a van. How was that a good plan? The last thing we needed was to get tangled up with the cops, and I sure didn't want to see Zack kill one. Which I had no doubt he would do if he felt like it was necessary.

  But I hopped into the passenger side anyway. What else could I do? "Where are we going?" I asked as I pulled the door shut behind me.

  "Away." Zack started the engine and eased the van into the street.

  I don't know about you, but I didn't think this plan was getting off to a very good start. I mean yeah, sure I was out of the cellar, but how far could we really get in a stolen van with a bunch of dragons chasing us? If Jonah had made a distraction, I sure hoped it was a big one.

  The sound of rising sirens had me glancing in the rearview mirror. The hotel was a pillar of fire. Zack didn't do that. Neither did Jonah. No way the fire got that big, that fast unless a fire dragon had some part in it. My heart leapt. If Derek had agreed to help Jonah in my escape, then that meant I hadn't lost him after all. He was still my brother. I just hoped everyone got out of the building all right.

  I let my head drop back against the seat. Being on the run was getting to be a familiar feeling I could have done without. Was it ever going to end? I was beginning to think the answer was no, that I was going to end up just like my parents. Because really, where was I supposed to go? No matter how far I managed to get from Megara, it would never be far enough. She would catch up to me eventually. Then what? I had this feeling deep in my gut that the next time we met, one of us was going to die. And it seemed a pretty sure bet it wasn't going to be her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I sat bolt upright, my breath caught in my lungs, a scream lodged somewhere in the middle of my throat. I gritted my teeth to hold it in. I was not in the bunker. This was not Oregon. The vibration under me was not an earth dragon attack. I was sitting safely on the backseat of the van -which Zack had laid out like a bed for me- rolling down the highway. I had to tell myself that three times before my hands would stop shaking.

  One deep breath. Two. Three. I was okay. Everything was okay. At least for the moment. I looked up and caught Zack staring at me in the rearview mirror. Heat flooded my face. I looked away, hoping he wouldn't ask questions.

  "Do you want to scoot up here?" he asked. "I picked up some food while you were aslee
p."

  I looked up again and now he wasn't watching me, he was staring out through the windshield. I couldn't exactly thank him for not prying without making things weird, so I didn't say anything as I climbed awkwardly into the passenger seat. I did it very carefully, mindful of my broken arm, and so managed to only bump my head and elbow once, respectively.

  My arch was throbbing and by the time I'd managed to wrestle myself into the passenger seat I was covered in sweat and panting like I'd just run a race. If Megara and the others caught up to us I was going to be a real big help.

  "This sucks," I muttered, glaring at my arm.

  "Eat something." Zack nodded at the floorboard. "You'll feel better."

  I stared down at the smallish cardboard box I had nearly stepped on. It held three bottles of water and various junk food. "You robbed a convenience store?" I reached down for a bottle of water, and then braced it between my legs so I could twist off the cap.

  "Shoplifted. There's a difference."

  "If you say so." I took the water bottle and downed about half of it before coming up for air. Then I went for a Snickers bar. And believe me, nothing tastes as good as chocolate when it's been awhile since you've eaten anything. The last meal I had was that burger at the diner. My stomach was feeling as hollow and empty as a deflated balloon.

  I shoveled that Snickers bar down so fast it's a wonder I even tasted it, then leaned over to grab a bag of Doritos.

  "You better slow down," Zack said. "Or else you're just going to throw it all back up."

  My stomach was crying for more food, but I knew he was right. The last thing I wanted right then was to make myself sick. So I let the chips drop into the box and leaned back in my seat. "Do we know where we're going?"

  "Away from here."

  Okay, not exactly helpful. "What are we going to do when we run out of gas?"

  "Steal another car." He said it so easy, like it was an everyday kind of thing and no big deal.

  "And what if we get caught?" I asked. "Like, by the police? What then?"

  "I don't know, okay?" he snapped, fingers tightening around the steering wheel. "It's not like I'm an expert at all this."

  "Well, excuse me for asking questions," I said. "Excuse me for wanting to be reassured that you know what you're doing. I'm not exactly loving the idea of being on the run again. Especially since Megara probably wants to kill me now."

  He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "Does your arm hurt?"

  "Don't change the subject." I scowled at the windshield. "Of course my arm hurts. It's broken. I need another one of those pills."

  "You didn't even sleep for an hour," Zack said. "It's too soon for another pill."

  "How would you know? Are you a doctor?"

  "Do you want to overdose and die on the side of the road?"

  I huffed. "Fine. I'll just sit here, miserable and in pain." My arm really didn't hurt that much, but I was running on almost no food and way too little sleep. Plus, I was terrified of what the future held and worried sick about my friends. Those things combined gave me good reason to be grumpy. Unlike Zack, for whom it seemed to be the default setting.

  I took a sip of water, tapping my foot against the floorboard. "I wish we could call Jonah and find out what's happening with them."

  A muscle jumped in Zack's jaw. Despite my repeated assurances nothing had ever happened between me and Jonah, he still insisted on being jealous. It was kind of cute, really, and usually it made me feel all warm inside. Not right then, though. Right then I just found it annoying.

  "Forget about them. Right now we have to concentrate on us."

  "That's easy for you to say." I turned toward him. "You hate Derek, you can't stand Jonah, and you have no feelings at all for Stephanie or Luka. So what do you care if something happens to them, right? Well I care. I can't stand to lose any more friends." I know I was getting to be kind of a broken record on the losing friends subject, but after all I'd been through can you blame me?

  "People die."

  I shook my head. "You just don't understand. I'm not like you. I can't be okay with people losing their lives because of me. Whether I killed them myself or they were... collateral damage. I love Brandy and Curtis, and they're dead because of me. And all those kids back in Oregon..." My eyes got misty. "All of this is because of me. Because I was born. You have no idea what that feels like. The responsibility.

  "I don't know if I can do anything right anymore." Even though I really didn't want them too, tears started to roll down my cheeks. I was so tired of crying. It felt like every time I turned around I was dissolving into this blubbering mess. "I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't think about anything except that I... I..." I squeezed my eyes shut. "I killed them. Do you get that? I killed the two people I loved most in this whole world."

  "What are you talking about? That was not your fault."

  I swallowed hard, and then I told him the truth I had been holding in my heart ever since Oregon. "Megara was going to hide the kids down in the lower levels of the bunker. Brandy and Curtis would have been with them. But I told her to send them out the secret entrance. And when she asked me if anybody but me and Jonah knew about it, I lied. I lied and now they're dead. How am I supposed to live with that?"

  Have you ever felt like you just want everything to stop? Like life is too big and too heavy, and you can't see how you can do anything but sink underneath the weight of it? It feels like drowning. And maybe you want to reach out and pull yourself from the water, but there's nothing to grab hold of.

  My chest ached with misery. Everything felt so hopeless. So pointless. Who was I to think someone like me could change the world? How was I supposed to save all the hybrids when I couldn't even save my friends? Everybody would have been better off if Zack had let me burn myself out that day in the woods.

  Zack didn't say a word. But then, I really didn't expect him too. He wasn't the kind to hand out false comfort, no matter how nice it would have been for me to hear someone say everything was going to be okay. Sometimes we just need somebody to lie to us.

  He took the next exit off the highway, driving us down a deserted road before pulling off into a patch of gravel that might once have been a parking lot. A slab of concrete suggested a building used to stand nearby.

  I frowned. "What are we doing?"

  "You need to sleep."

  "I already--" He opened his door and hopped out before I could finish my sentence.

  Zack came around the front of the van and opened my door. "Get out."

  Bossy much? Like, seriously. "I just woke up. I'm not some cranky kid who needs a -- hey!" That hey was because he reached into the van and lifted me out of my seat. Which I personally felt was going just a step too far.

  He opened the side door and motioned for me to get in. I was getting seriously irritated, but I didn't feel like standing on the side of the road arguing with him. So I climbed into the backseat. "Fine. If I'm bugging you so much, I'll take a nap like a good little girl."

  I expected to hear him slam the door behind me. Instead, he climbed in too and laid down beside me. And before I could get over my surprise at that, he put his arms around me and pulled me to his chest, resting his chin on top of my head.

  Still, he didn't say anything. Zack wasn't good with words. But everything he couldn't say was right there in the way he held me. I felt safe snuggled up against him. The sound of his heart beating against my ear drained all the tension right out of my body.

  I still had a thousand and one things to worry about. Lying there in his arms didn't change that. I still had the same ghosts in my head. Our lives were still in danger. The future was still uncertain. Zack's touch didn't have the power to chase away all the bad feelings, but he was a lifeline I could cling to so they didn't drown me.

  Everything was not going to be okay. It was going to be a mess. It was going to be chaos. It was probably going to be even worse than I could imagine. But in that moment, we found a little island of peace. Toge
ther. It made me feel like even though all that bad stuff was going to come at me again, it couldn't crush me. Not so long as I had Zack. And that's worth so much more than I can say.

  It didn't take me long to drift off to sleep. And I actually stayed asleep for the first time since Oregon. I slept for ten hours straight without a single nightmare. I might have slept even longer than that if my throbbing arm hadn't woken me.

  I blinked my eyes open and the first thing I noticed was the pain, then how stuffy it was in the van. All my muscles felt kind of achy, but I just chalked that up to sleeping curled up on the backseat. It didn't make for the most comfortable bed even laid out flat.

  Zack's lips brushed the side of my head. "Feel better?"

  "A little." I sat up and for a second the world spun sideways around me. I pressed a hand to my eyes until the feeling passed, and then lowered it to peer out the window at the empty street. The sun was going down and I was kind of surprised no cops had pulled over to see what we were up to.

  "How's your arm?"

  It hurt all the way up into the base of my skull. Not a good sign. "I really do need a pain pill now."

  "I'll get it." He slid past me and pushed the door open.

  "Doritos too," I said. "I'm starving."

  "Okay."

  I used my good arm to push myself to the edge of the seat so I could let my legs dangle outside. A warm puff of air brushed the hair back from my sweaty face. It felt so good after being cooped up in the van, even if it did kind of smell like old tires.

  Zack came back with a bottle of water, the chips, and my pill. He leaned up against the side of the van while I ate. I wanted to thank him for helping me to get the best rest I'd had in weeks, but I knew it would only make him feel weird, so I didn't. It's not easy dealing with someone you have to mind your words around so much, but I thought I was getting the hang of it.

  "I know we should get moving to make up for lost time," I said. "But I really need to find a bathroom."

  Zack nodded, which kind of surprised me. I figured he would at least argue a little. But hey, maybe he needed a pit stop too. Sometimes I forgot that in the basic ways he was a regular person just like everybody else.