Caught Between Dragons

by Meg Ripley

  After her routine wore on, Becca decided that it had to have been over a week and began to comfort herself with the idea that maybe Jeremy and Jadon had listened to her after all: perhaps they had gone into hiding from the Order of Saint George. Not only was it a comfort, but it made her vaguely proud to think that they had actually listened to her for once.

  A contentment settled over Becca as she began to imagine that she could be released if they didn’t see any sign of the Ladon brothers coming to her rescue any time soon. The thought kept her morale and her sanity as she continued to draw, the elaborate mural taking shape in the otherwise empty room.

  Finally, there was a knock at the door. Becca turned towards the noise, almost forgetting where she was for a moment. There was a long moment of silence, and then she called out, “Hello?”

  Another long moment stretched and she hesitantly got up from the bed to investigate. She thought she heard other muffled sounds outside the door as she approached but was unsure. Briefly, she thought that she might have actually started to lose her mind.

  She halted with her hand hovering above the handle of the door and told herself that if she saw the bathroom beyond this then she was definitely crazy. Becca inhaled deeply as her hand rested on the cool metal of the doorknob. As she exhaled, she gripped the knob and turned it.

  Standing in the doorway was Jeremy, dressed sloppily in a disguise of army fatigues, hand poised in the air, ready to turn the doorknob. His blue eyes sparkled brighter than she remembered as he stood there with an awkward grin on his face.

  “Becca…” He held out his arms as he searched for the words he had rehearsed saying to her ever since she’d been taken from him.

  Becca’s heart constricted with joy and horror. She froze for a second and immediately slammed the door shut in his face. Staring at the white painted wood, Becca told herself that she was crazy and that it was just a hallucination on the other side of the door.

  Taking another deep breath, she flung the door open again and to her dismay she saw Jeremy standing there still, although this time he looked much more confused.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Rescuing you?” He seemed unsure of his mission after witnessing her reaction to his presence. “Didn’t you want me to?”

  “No,” she said bluntly. “You were supposed to go somewhere safe and not fall into this trap!”

  “But I love you,” he said, grabbing hold of her as he stepped into the room, kissing her deeply.

  Becca melted at his touch and kissed him back, her arms wrapping around his neck as the pain of her separation from him flooded her nerves and she was overcome with the urgency to be with him.

  From outside the room, orange and red lights began to flash. She heard Jadon curse as the sound of steel doors slamming shut and locking into place echoed all around her.

  Becca ran out of her prison and stared in wonder at where she was being held: it was a small, empty warehouse and the room had been constructed on a moveable stage. The same was true of the bathroom. The plumbing fed into a drain in the floor of the warehouse, but the unit itself was moveable and could be locked to the floor through a series of anchoring latches.

  Turning around, she planted her hands on her hips as she looked at Jeremy and said, “I told you so.”

  “Did you really think I was going to leave you locked up here?”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Two weeks,” he said as he came forward and took her hands in his. “I’m so sorry I overreacted about Alex. When you left, I tried to follow you, but you were gone… and then, the next morning, all of these emails started flooding my inbox. One of them had a link to a live video feed with the address; Becca, I couldn’t not come for you.”

  “I told you not to,” she said. “They couldn’t have kept me here forever once they realized you weren’t coming for me. You knew it was going to be a trap.”

  “I couldn’t leave you here thinking that I was upset with you or that I didn’t love you. Becca, I can’t live without you.”

  A sound system in the warehouse crackled as it turned on and they heard the familiar voice of Nate Stanley as he greeted them and congratulated the Ladon brothers on finding their manhood and turning themselves over to the Order.

  “We need to stall for two more minutes,” Jeremy whispered in Becca’s ear as Jadon shouted a reply to Nate that involved more expletives than she knew could be included in a single statement.

  “Let Becca out of this,” Jadon insisted.

  “When he offers you an out, you have to take it,” Jeremy told her.

  “Of course I’ll let her out,” Nate’s voice crackled from of the speakers, echoing through the empty building. “But we’re going to have to work on that biting issue of hers.”

  Becca opened her mouth to shout something obscene, but Jeremy’s hand stopped her, despite the glare that she gave him.

  “She’ll behave,” he promised for her. “We just want your word that the Order of Saint George will never interfere with her life again.”

  There was a pause while the static of the speakers crackled before Nate’s voice came back. “I can give you that. Send her over to the east door of the building and I want the two of you to get inside the room she was in.”

  Becca looked up at Jeremy and shook her head, mouthing no.

  Jeremy gently brushed a strand of hair back from her face, his fingers as soft as she remembered. She closed her eyes and leaned into the touch as he answered, “Deal.”

  He caught her up in a tight hug and instructed her in a harsh whisper, “When all hell breaks loose, run to the left and keep running straight until you get to a black Range Rover. The keys are in the ignition; just drive.”

  Turning around, Jadon held her shoulders tightly and gave his own instruction. “Run fast, little Bunny.”

  Her footsteps echoed in the warehouse as she walked towards the designated door. Glancing over her shoulder she watched as Jeremy and Jadon entered the room. She turned back around, squared her shoulders and leveled her gaze at the door to keep herself from turning and running back to the room.

  When she reached the door, Becca stopped and stared haughtily up at the security camera, crossing her arms over her chest. After a moment, there was a loud click as the lock was drawn back; the metal shuddered as the door creaked open on its hinges, letting in the bright afternoon sunlight.

  Nate stood on the other side with smug satisfaction written across his face in a twisted smirk. Behind him were half a dozen men in army fatigues with automatic weapons in hand. A couple of them she recognized as the men who had restrained and sedated her at the beginning of her captivity.

  “At least it’s nice to know they were capable of one act of decency before they died,” he mocked.

  Becca dropped her arms and glared at Nate, willing the hatred that radiated from her to burn his flesh.

  “Going to actually do what you’re told for once? Anything your beastly boyfriend tells you to do?”

  Her utter disgust for the man was too much for her to control; she hauled off and slapped him with all the force her body could muster, sending him stumbling back into his men who caught him and stared in stunned silence. Their gazes shifted back and forth between their shocked leader and Becca.

  Just as Nate recovered, a deafening roar tore through the air as a silver flash struck like lightning, hitting the ground and sending men flying as it retreated back up the sky. The soldiers began to open fire as two shadows streaked past Becca and moved amongst the men.

  Just as she had been instructed, Becca turned and ran down the gravel road that led past another warehouse and into a tree line. A hundred yards past the building, she spotted the Range Rover.

  She jumped in, turning the key as the engine roared to life. Her foot was already on the gas as she slammed it into gear and took off down the road, spinning a shower of gravel in her wake. For two solid minutes, she drove down
the winding road, skidding through turns and kicking up an impossible amount of dust before a solid thud hit the roof of the car and Becca slammed on the brakes. As a cloud of dust billowed past her, she saw a figure approach the passenger door and lift the handle.

  “Damn,” she heard Jeremy’s voice as he appeared through the dust, climbing into the car. “If we ever rob a bank, I’m gonna have you be our getaway driver.”

  Becca exhaled the breath she had been holding and fell back against the seat. The two back doors opened and Jadon climbed in along with Victoria Drake.

  “Hi, Sweetie,” she greeted with her usual amount of excitement.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The four of them rode in the car silently except for the directions that Jeremy gave her to find the highway. Becca was intrigued to discover that they’d been holding her captive in Pennsylvania. Three hours passed before they agreed to stop and check into a cheap rundown motel off the highway.

  They sat in the double room, Becca and Jeremy on one bed and Jadon and Victoria on the other. The silence stretched on for an awkward minute as they all looked at one another. Victoria finally spoke up.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re okay, Becca.”

  “Thanks. So... you’re a dragon, too...?”

  “Yeah,” she smiled with that mouth full of too many teeth as she nudged Jeremy with her foot.

  “I suppose you’ve guessed we can’t go back to New York,” Jeremy told her.

  “I figured...so what are we going to do?”

  “Well, for now, we’re going to have to stay on the move,” Jadon said. “But that doesn’t seem fair for us to keep uprooting your life like this.”

  “I made my choice when I moved to New York,” Becca declared. “I think it’s a little late for me to turn back now.”

  Jeremy squeezed her hand. “Well, then I guess we’d better figure out where we’re going to go next.”

  “You can always head out west,” Victoria suggested. “You know Seattle is a safe haven.”

  Beside her, Becca notice Jeremy tense up at the mention of the city. She glanced at Jadon to see if he had reacted similarly, but he was unreadable as he watched his brother.

  “That’s just my two cents on the matter,” she declared. “They don’t know my identity yet, so I’m going to get out of here before they have any reason to suspect me.”

  As she opened the door, she turned back to give Becca a rueful smile. “Take care, sweetie. I hope I get to run into you again.”

  Soon after Victoria left, Jadon excused himself to find dinner. As the door shut behind him, the tension in the room rose exponentially.

  Becca stood and began to pace the room, glancing at Jeremy with each turn. After a minute, she couldn’t stand the quiet and turned to face him as he turned to look up at her.

  “I’m sorry,” they both said in unison.

  Becca sighed and smiled and began to cry all at once. Jeremy was instantly on his feet, holding her in his arms as the tidal waves of emotions crashed over Becca, making her quake uncontrollably. She was both angry and scared, happy and relieved—yet, so terribly lonely that she didn’t know how to cope.

  “I’m here,” Jeremy repeatedly reassured her as he held her close and stroked her hair, kissing the top of her head. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I was sure I’d never see you again,” she told him. “I was convinced you’d leave and they’d have to let me go and I’d never see you again.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “I wrote you letters,” she sobbed. “In my sketchbook.”

  “I saw them,” he said as he pulled the book out from his back pocket. “I haven’t read them all yet, but I have a general idea of what they say.”

  Becca smiled through her tears as he placed the book in her hands. The binding was worn and the pages more ragged than she remembered.

  Jeremy kissed her forehead and wiped the tears away as he sat her down on the bed. “I still love you, Becca. I always will.”

  Becca glanced around the room. The quilts on the bed were handmade and the wallpaper had begun to curl at the corners of the room where water stains had started to form on the ceiling tiles.

  “I guess I should call Alex and let him know I’m not coming back to work,” she said.

  Jeremy laughed, “I think he knows.”

  She looked up into his face; those impossibly blue sapphires stared back at her. “Where will we go?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he told her. “We have the whole world to choose from.”

  Becca smiled and leaned against Jeremy. He laid back on the bed and pulled her on top of him. The minutes seemed to last forever as they laid like that, and Becca wished that she could just live in this moment for the rest of her life.

  Outside, they heard the crickets take up their evening symphony. Becca rolled over to adjust her arm to keep it from falling asleep. Looking back over at Jeremy, she asked, “What’s in Seattle?”

  Jeremy was silent for a long moment before letting out a long sigh. He looked over and met Becca’s eyes. “My father.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ONE MONTH LATER

  Becca stared up at the sky, watching as the sunlight glinted off of the obsidian fragments that made up the dragons’ scales. Above her, Jeremy and Jadon wheeled and whirled as they chased crows. The birds shrieked and squawked until they had had enough of the game and hid in the green and gold autumn treetops to escape the strange creatures.

  Next to her head, tiny blue wildflowers were still in bloom. They waved in the gentle breeze that crawled across the field from the east. Breathing in deeply, Becca closed her eyes and soaked in the warm afternoon sunlight.

  She still felt like she couldn’t get enough of the sunlight even though it had been a whole month since she’d been rescued from the Order of St. George. Though they were still on the run, things had relaxed since they’d gotten away from New York. After Becca's rescue, they had headed straight south to Virginia and from there they had started to make their way gradually west.

  Their winding journey alternated between crowded cities—where they could get lost in the crowds—and secluded areas such as this, where they could be physically lost. Becca enjoyed being out of the cities and in places like this field in the middle-of-nowhere-Missouri because Jadon and Jeremy could freely alternate between their human and dragon forms.

  Since her rescue, Becca no longer shied away from the dragons’ scales when they could be seen rippling underneath skin or surfacing beneath her hands. She had no more nightmares about the great scaly serpents, either.

  Her sketchbook had also evolved. At first, the dragons she drew had hid in dark shadows, but over time, she began to portray them in an almost angelic light. Spots of color had even started to creep into the pages, brightening them even more.

  Briefly, she closed her eyes as shadows passed over her, giving her momentary relief from the warmth of the sun. When she opened them again, Jeremy was lying on the ground next to her. Half of his face was framed by the green grass and clover, with a couple of the wildflower blooms pressing against his cheek.

  His hair had gotten longer in their weeks of travel; it was casually swept back from his face and spilled into the grass. Small worry lines had also begun to form around the edges of his brilliant blue eyes—apparently, Becca was not the only one who had changed after her kidnapping.

  Both of the Ladon brothers were still playful creatures, but there were subtle changes in their demeanors. They certainly never left Becca alone for long, and they were constantly looking over their shoulders. She could tell that the stress was wearing on them.

  Jeremy had turned over all of the moving company’s day-to-day business to two of his best employees who were glad to be off the road for a while, and Jadon had taken a temporary leave of absence from Maltech.

  The brothers had been very careful to avoid the subject of Becca’s kidnapping. She herself did not
talk about it, just as they never talked about the fate of the men who had held her captive. She took their silence as confirmation that those men would not be of further concern to her, and that was all she needed to know.

  “It’s too bad we can’t stay out here,” Becca said, her eyes squinting at Jeremy. He was backlit by the golden afternoon sun and it gave him a lopsided halo, like a rebellious angel.

  “If only.” His hand reached out and clasped her own.

  The crows continued to call out at Jadon as he circled around them in his continued harassment.

  “Where are we going next?”

  “We’ll probably make it to Kansas City, but we’ll need to switch cars again before we get there…just to make sure no one is still following us.”

  “Why don’t we—”

  “No,” he cut her off before she could ask for the millionth time if they would head up to Seattle, where there was supposedly a safe haven for dragons.

  “Why? Jeremy, wouldn’t it be nice to stay somewhere for longer than forty-eight hours and not have to constantly look over our shoulders?”

  “We will get to that point,” he promised as he squeezed her hand, “eventually.”

  Becca nodded. In her mind, she tried to imagine why Jeremy would have a problem with a dragon sanctuary. She’d come up with numerous theories, but the only hint she had been given was that their father lived there.

  Her imagination had twisted the unknown image of their father into a cruel man, a giant scaly beast that reared its head and spat fire at the brothers. Becca knew this picture was in no way accurate, but without any true knowledge of the man—aside from the brothers’ aversion to him—she had no other images to conjure up.

  “Come here,” Jeremy said suddenly. He pulled her to her feet and began to sprint through the field with a bewildered Becca in tow, stumbling behind him.

  Once in they reached the tree line, he slowed down minutely, but this didn’t help Becca; she continued to trip over roots of cedars and other obstructions on the forest floor as she followed along.