“Shit!” Zeke stared at the tree.
“I won’t miss next time.” Drake flew past the crow, and without a way to get Talon out of the air, dropped to the ground opposite Preston. The rest of his group landed behind him. They faced the numerous fliers waiting behind Preston.
“I wondered if he’d rat us out.” Preston looked at Sonar, then back to Drake.
“Wasn’t that the plan? Leave little clues? Why follow the plan you had with Sonar if you didn’t want to be found? Didn’t you think he’d figure it out?” Unable to stay still, Drake paced.
“You’re early.”
Early?
Drake suppressed a grin. Preston had planned for Drake to find him. He just hadn’t thought Drake would get here first.
Drake had the upper hand. Almost.
He looked up to the cage. “Let her go, and we’ll leave. No one has to get hurt.”
“If anyone’s gonna get hurt, it’s her. You won’t try anything with her up there.”
“Have you kept her in the cage the whole time?” Drake didn’t want to know the details of how Preston had treated Talon, but he needed to stall while he figured out how to get her. The fire built in his chest again, as if it knew he would need it on the surface.
“Stand still already. Your pacing is making me dizzy.” Preston adjusted a few feathers on his chest. “When did you start breathing fire?”
Drake stopped pacing, but not because Preston told him to. He stopped from shock. “You knew about that.”
“Seems like something I would remember.” He looked at the fully engulfed tree. “It’s a shame you have no use for it.”
Drake ran full speed towards his friend, knocking the red bird onto his back and pinning him down. “No use for it? I can end you right now, you cocky bastard.” The fire made its way to his throat.
“No, you can’t. You don’t have it in you.”
Drake stared into Preston’s eyes. They dared him to try.
Wings wrapped around Drake’s body and pulled him off Preston. He nearly released the fire accidentally.
Preston took off and hovered near the cage, and the rest in his group joined him, including the two that had held Drake. The entire group turned and flew in the direction they’d come from.
They were flying away? Without a fight?
Terry and Scopes flew over the top of Preston’s group to face it on the other side, stopping them from flying. Drake caught up and flew below the pair, forming a small triangle in the sky.
Screech and Sonar stayed on the ground. After they exchanged a few words, Sonar shifted, but they didn’t take off. They positioned themselves under the cage.
Sonar gave Drake a subtle nod.
They planned to catch her.
Drake dropped a few feet. “Remember the dog?”
Preston glared down at him. “The dog? What does that have to do with anything?”
“You did everything to save that dog. You said you made the nets for all the animals, but I think it was just about that beagle.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’re full of crap, Preston. You talk about how great animals are, how they don’t hurt anyone, blah blah blah. But the truth is, you wanted that dog for yourself. You didn’t care about the others.”
Preston flew a foot closer to Drake. “So why did I save the zoo animals, huh? How does that play into your little theory?”
“Maybe you wanted to watch them eat each other. All I know is the guy who almost flew into me back in Denver, who went with me to find other survivors, who cared for Sonar, and who did damn near everything to save that dog isn’t the guy I’m talking to now.”
Drake watched, waiting for the opportunity to make his next move. He needed Preston to drop a little more.
“I told you. That guy is gone. We’re animals now.”
“We can’t continue that way, and you know it.”
“Continue?”
“Yeah. Like as a species.”
Preston huffed and flew to Drake, stopping inches from his face. “Stop this. You can’t win.”
“I’m not leaving without her.”
Preston tilted his head, leaned close to Drake, and whispered, “She lost the baby. How’s that for continuing the species?”
Drake stopped moving his wings and dropped before he remembered to beat them again, lifting enough to glare into Preston’s eyes. “You’re lying.” His voice cracked.
“Why would I make that up? It happened a few days after we got her, but she hasn’t shifted.”
Drake’s mind wouldn’t land on a single thought, but then he realized something: his situation hadn’t changed. He still loved her, and he wasn’t leaving without her.
He dropped a couple more feet. “So why do you still care? If she can’t shift anymore, she doesn’t fit into your animal scenario.”
Preston dropped to meet him. He now hovered a body length lower than his group members and more importantly, Talon.
Drake inhaled and released the fireball, aiming for Preston’s chest. Preston lifted and avoided the shot.
Now even with the cage, he looked to those holding it and said, “Drop her.”
Talon screamed, and panic seized Drake’s heart as he watched her cage fall to the earth. “No!”
Screech and Sonar stretched out their wings, creating a kind of net, but the momentum was too great. It slipped through their grasp and hit the ground with a sickening crash.
Drake’s gut knotted, and he flew towards the ground. Zeke got in the way, and Drake plowed into him.
Two other birds and a winged lizard jumped onto Drake before he and Zeke hit the ground. They landed in a heap, where they pinned Drake on his back.
Zeke put his claw over Drake’s mouth and squeezed. “No more fire today.”
A hawk held up a claw. While keeping his eyes on Drake’s, the bird dug the nail into Drake’s flesh, piercing his scales and cutting him across his chest.
Drake screamed through his closed mouth.
The bird repeated the procedure again and again, each time moving lower on Drake’s body.
Drake couldn’t differentiate between the pain of the injuries and the pain of the fire building in his chest. He tried to force his jaw open enough to blast Zeke’s claw with a fireball.
But the pressure released on its own as Zeke yelled. Drake, still pinned down by the other three fliers, lifted his head.
Talon stood behind Zeke. She held a handful of plucked black feathers. A trail of blood ran from her hairline to the collar of her shirt.
Zeke leapt but before he could reach her, Terry swooped down, grabbed him, and carried him off.
Something in the sky above Drake caught his eye – the robot. It quickly grew in size as it fell towards the earth. The lizard holding down Drake’s shoulder looked up a second before the machine landed on its head with a thud. The pressure on Drake’s shoulder released, and the lizard collapsed onto Drake’s chest. Sonar hovered over the now unconscious reptile.
Seeing his chance to escape, Drake shot the fire at the bird that cut him. Its chest feathers ignited.
The other bird let go before Drake had to light it up. Drake heaved the unconscious lizard to the side as another lizard wrapped a wing around Talon and launched an acid ball.
Drake rolled out of the way and onto his feet. The acid burned the grass, releasing thick smoke and a putrid smell.
“Don’t do that again.” Preston’s voice made everyone freeze. His cronies that weren’t busy attacking Drake’s group surrounded him.
Drake scanned the area for his friends. A dinosaur-looking thing pinned down Scopes. Gray had taken refuge in a tree. Screech was nowhere to be seen. Terry still hadn’t returned from wherever he’d taken Zeke, and Sonar was…
Where was Sonar?
Talon struggled against the lizard’s wing, her eyes begging Drake to do something.
The bird Drake had set aflame rolled on the ground near the water as the fire consumed him. Drake
winced when the bird shrieked.
“Can’t you tell that you’ve lost?” Preston said.
Drake didn’t answer.
The bird by the lake became still as the fire finished its work.
Preston glanced at the burning body. “Is this how you plan to use your gift? For torture?”
“Is this how you plan to use yours?”
Preston tilted his head. “What?”
“You’re a leader. So why are you manipulating people and kicking them out if they don’t agree with you one hundred percent?”
“Staying animals is the whole point. If someone doesn’t like it, they can leave.”
“You kick people out, Preston! Just like your parents did to you.”
Preston sighed, shook his head, and faced the lizard holding Talon. “Take her up.”
The lizard unwrapped Talon from his wing and grabbed her around the waist with his front legs. He ascended until he was at least a hundred feet in the air.
“Drake!” she yelled.
Drake followed, trying to figure out what to do. She’d been lucky to escape the cage mostly uninjured, but this was much higher, and if the lizard dropped her, she only had her body to break the fall.
She wouldn’t survive.
Preston flew up to their level. “You want her? Figure out how to get her.”
The fire burned in Drake’s chest, and he knew exactly what he needed to do.
He focused on the lizard and inhaled, then turned to Preston and released the flame.
It hit most of Preston’s upper body and spread to his other feathers. He yelled and flew to the lake, as the other bird had done. Drake watched him until Talon screamed.
She was falling to the ground.
He pulled his wings in and pointed his nose to the earth. He snatched her in his front claws and opened his wings, straining to keep them from crashing. She clutched his ankle. He landed hard on his back legs, jolting them both.
Preston’s fliers made their way to the lake, where a plume of steam rose into the air. Drake couldn’t tell if Preston had put out the flames in time to survive.
Drake had given the Phoenix his fire. And it likely killed him.
Drake gently set Talon on the ground, where she curled into a ball.
He sat next to her and gazed into her eyes. Overwhelmed, he nearly shifted. Then he remembered the cuts across his body.
If he shifted, he wouldn’t be able to shift back to his dragon form. He’d have to stay this way until his injuries healed.
He shut his eyes as pain coursed through his torso, then focused on Talon.
Gazing at her, and without anything better to say, he asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded and stood, glancing at Drake’s bleeding chest. She inhaled a shaking breath as her hand went to her lower abdomen.
All of Drake’s emotions from the past two weeks – the worry, the anger, the despair – rushed to the front of his mind. Hot tears ran across his scales, landing on the ground with a sizzle.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I know about the baby. Preston told me.”
It would be easier for her if she didn’t have to say the words herself.
She wiped her face. “What about the baby?”
He blinked and wished he had a way to wipe his face. “It’s…you lost it.”
She sighed and…grinned? Leaning towards him, she put her hand on his face, behind the lines of acid tears. “I didn’t lose it. I’m fine. The baby’s fine.”
He glanced back at the cage, then to her. “Are you sure?”
She laughed and stroked the back of his head.
Terry landed next to Drake, followed by Scopes, Screech, and Gray.
Drake leaned to look around Terry. “What’d you do with Zeke?”
“Put him on the roof and told him he’d be the next barbecued bird if he tried anything. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
Drake scanned the rooftops as a giant black crow soared over them, heading west. Preston’s fliers followed, leaving whatever was left of Preston behind.
Sonar stood near the burning tree, watching the water.
Drake started to fly to Sonar when a dizzy spell stopped him. He lay down, and in spite of his effort not to, he passed out.
Chapter Twenty
Drake lifted his head and looked at his chest. A fiery pain radiated from the skin covering his torso. He ran his hand across his T-shirt.
His hand?
He stared at his fingers, then sat up.
He was in a dark office, alone, sitting on the floor next to a desk. He stood and looked out the window. The moonlight shone on the remains of the city and into the office enough for him to see the furniture.
“You’re up,” Talon said from behind him.
He twisted around. She held a towel in both hands.
“Where are we?”
“Boston. I need to change your bandage.” She walked to him. “Take off your shirt.”
He did, groaning as he lifted his arms. The pain across the top of his chest intensified. He analyzed the bandages that circled his body from his armpits to his hips. “When did I shift?”
“I couldn’t take care of you as a dragon.” She removed a piece of tape from his side and unrolled the gauze. “When you stirred in the park, I told you to shift back. I think you were in such a stupor you just did it. Sonar and Terry carried you up here. That was yesterday. You’ve been asleep since then.”
Drake’s frustration reached his throat, and his voice cracked. How was he supposed to get Talon back to Oregon? “I can’t shift, though.”
She stopped unwrapping and gazed into his eyes. “That makes two of us.”
He brought his hand to her cheek and kissed her for the first time in more than two weeks, something he wouldn’t have been able to do as a dragon. His heart raced at the feel of her warm lips on his, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. Her body pressing into his irritated his wounds, but he didn’t care. He had to experience her skin, her breath, the smell of her hair.
Being stuck as a human didn’t seem so bad now.
She pulled back and started crying.
He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up. “Come on. It wasn’t that bad. I’m out of practice, but…”
She laughed and wiped her face. “I didn’t think you’d find me.”
“No?” He kissed her again, then sighed. “I wasn’t going to stop searching until I did. But Sonar knew where Phoenix would go. He’s the reason we found you.”
She nodded, picked up the gauze hanging on Drake’s side, and continued unwrapping his torso.
“Do you know how we’ll get back to Oregon?” If he’d been unconscious for two days, maybe she’d had time to work out a plan.
“We wait for you to heal.”
“That could take weeks. And are we sure I’ll be able to shift again after that?”
She nodded. “One of Phoenix’s guys quit shifting after he was hurt. Phoenix and Zeke left him in Houston when they…” She cleared her throat. “When they came for me. By the time we made it back to the dome, he’d healed enough to shift.”
Hope filled him as she pulled the last of the gauze away. All they had to do was wait out the healing process.
Drake turned to the window, allowing the moon to light his injuries.
Six horizontal and nearly parallel cuts ran across his body. He touched the skin surrounding the one above his belly button, held closed by butterfly bandages. It felt hot.
“You’ll need to start taking antibiotics, now that you’re awake.” Talon reached for a plastic bottle on the desk, which held the other medical supplies she’d apparently been using on him. She put a pill in his mouth and gave him a bottle of water.
He swallowed the pill. “Where did you get these?”
“Scopes found them.”
He scanned the office. “Where’s everyone else?”
She used the wet towel, which smelled like soap, to clean his cuts. “
Most went back to Oregon. Zeke’s group won’t come back, and we haven’t seen any other fliers. It didn’t make sense for so many of us to go without electricity and water.”
“What do you mean most went back? Who stayed?”
She tilted her head towards the door.
He left her, wondering why she wouldn’t tell him.
He walked into a dark corridor lined with doors on both sides. The second door on the right was open.
A long conference table filled most of the room, but there wasn’t anyone inside. He turned to try a different room when a cough stopped him.
He walked around the table, towards the noise. Sonar lay on a comforter set on the floor, asleep, next to a tall, skinny guy wrapped in bandages from the waist up. A tuft of black hair stuck out through a gap in the bandages on the top of his head.
Preston.
Sonar must have sensed Drake’s presence. He stirred and sat up, squinting at Drake. “How long you been standing there?”
He stared at Preston’s body. “Why is he here?”
“His guys flew off and left him. He was in human form by then.” His voice shook. “I flew to the water and got him.”
Drake knelt next to Preston, whose chest rose and fell slowly with each breath.
Sonar settled back onto the floor.
“Why are you doing this?” Drake asked.
Sonar put a hand behind his head. “I couldn’t leave him to die.”
“You could have bandaged him up and let him heal by himself. But you’re sleeping next to him.”
Sonar looked at Preston and sighed. “I’m not sure. I guess since he’s stuck as a human again, maybe he’ll regret what he’s done.”
“He abandoned you. And tried to kill Talon. What’s wrong with you?”
Sonar stood and faced Drake. “I loved him. I still do. Okay?” He looked out the window and clenched his jaw, and tears welled in his eyes. “He was awful. To all of us. But right now, he’s helpless. Maybe if we stick by him after all that, he’ll come around.”
“Do you really want that?” Drake couldn’t stomach the thought of Preston living at the ranch, one of them again, as if nothing had happened. “He can’t stay with us. Not after what he did.”
Drake and the Fliers Page 15
