“I’m a water draki. For about six months anyway.”
A water draki like Az. A pang strikes near my heart as I think of my friend back home. I remind myself that this isn’t the end, even though in just a short amount of time, this world, my role as a captive, has consumed me. It feels like everything. It feels as though I’ve been stuck down here for days. What must it be like for the others who’ve been trapped so much longer? I remember the gray draki … the hunger for death in his eyes, and I guess I know what it would be like. Then Lia’s last words sink in. Six months?
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Twelve.”
Twelve! Just a baby. “How long have you been here?
“A couple months now.” She says this so matter-of-factly that I shudder. If possible, the walls suddenly seem closer, tighter all around me. I rub hard at my temples. “Sorry I didn’t warn you better about the gray one—”
I shake my head before remembering she can’t see me through the cell walls. “You tried. There wasn’t much time to explain.”
“There never is.”
“What do you mean?”
“The first thing they do when they capture a new draki is throw all of us together in the Wood. That’s where they keep him.” I know who she means now. “They want to see how each new draki acts in the general population. Well, they mostly want to see how a new draki reacts to the gray. You know, if we have a good talent or not.”
“What is he? Where does he come from?”
“He’s not like any of us.”
“Considering his first impulse is to try to annihilate his own kind? Yeah. Kind of figured that.”
The male draki on the other side of me interjects with, “He’s old. Older than all of us.”
“He didn’t look that old,” I say.
“My guess is he’s the oldest of any living draki. More dragon than human.”
I frown. “How do you know this?”
“Roc knows everything. He’s really smart,” Lia pipes in.
“It’s just a theory,” Roc says. “As time passes, we’ve become more and more human. I’m guessing we used to be more like him … more dragon. He’s what we were.” He pauses and I can almost envision the draki shrugging on the other side of the wall. “He’s what we were maybe a couple thousand years ago. Before civilization took hold. Primitive. Savage.”
I bite my lip. Maybe. But I also wondered if he was vicious as a result of what the enkros did to him. Maybe he’s just been driven crazy by captivity. Even now I can feel myself fraying at the edges.
I swallow and shake my head. I’m not here to solve the riddle of the gray draki. I’m here to rescue Miram and hopefully, in the process, bring down this entire operation. End these enkros that may have had something to do with taking Dad from me. Even if they didn’t, they need to be stopped.
Silence descends around me and I know we’re mulling over our own thoughts. Somewhere in the distance, down the row of cells, I hear a voice muttering in the draki tongue. The humans at the observation desk talk in a low dull drone. One of them catches me watching him and I look away, too uncomfortable to hold his gaze, as though he might be able to see inside me to my secrets.
Restless, I pace the short length of floor, wondering how much time has passed since I’ve been in this cell. Already it feels too long. I’m not made for this—to be penned in. Not that anyone is, but I feel especially on edge. Like I might pull out my hair if I don’t escape from this box soon.
“Miram,” I call out after several moments, determined to try again. “Are you there?”
Of course, she’s here. Where would she have gone?
“I know you’re there,” I assert. “And I know you’re mad at me.” Even apart from our mission to rescue her, somehow it’s become important to put things right between us. Ever since I bonded with Cassian, my feelings toward her just aren’t so … hard. I’m certain feeling Cassian’s emotions, his love and affection for his sister, have influenced me.
“Mad?” The familiar voice finally cracks across the air. “Why would I be mad? You only got me captured by hunters and thrown into this hell!”
I suck in a deep breath and resist telling her the fault is as much hers as mine. She shouldn’t have been following me and spying on me in the first place! But I’m not here to argue with her. I have to make her see that—to see that we’re allies.
“Your brother is here, Miram.”
A long pause follows before: “Cassian?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s come for me?”
“Yes. We all have. Tamra too. I got caught so Cassian can find us once they get inside.” I swallow. “We’ve bonded. He’ll know right away where I am. We’re going to break you out.” I don’t mention Will. Considering Miram wouldn’t escape with me the last time because Will was there with me, I think it’s best to leave off mentioning him for now.
All the draki around me are quiet and I know Miram isn’t the only one listening. They’re absorbing my words just as much as she is. I would be doing the same thing—my thoughts would be racing as to whether I could be free as well.
“All of you,” I call out. “We’re all escaping this place.”
“Oh, thank you,” Lia cries excitedly.
Roc just mutters, “We’ll see,” but I can hear a faint thread of hope in his voice.
“What do I need to do to help?” Miram asks.
My shoulders sag, relieved at her words—that she’s on board. “Be ready. Follow my lead no matter what.” Even when you see Will. “It can’t be like last time,” I warn. “No panicking …”
“I’ll be ready.” There’s a whisper of anger in her voice and I figure this is okay. Even a good thing. A little anger is healthy. Maybe it will give her courage when the time to act arrives.
I slide down, the wall at my back.
And then that draki starts up again with her maddening chants. Apparently my promise for escape didn’t register with her. The words run together so quickly now that I can’t even make them out. I press both hands over my ears to try and block out her shrill voice. Impossible.
Roc bellows at her and I jump. She doesn’t let up though. If anything she grows louder. Another sound joins in the cacophony. The sound of someone beating the walls. It almost sounds like a body crashing against a cell. The force sends a vibration through the floor that travels up my legs.
I bury my face in my hands, convinced I’ve just plunged into an asylum. Just one day. Just one day.
Time can’t move fast enough.
4
My gaze grows blurry as I stare too long out the Plexiglas. I blink my aching eyes and look away, trying to focus my thoughts again. Hard. Impossible. My adrenaline gone, I feel almost ill, drained and sickly lethargic. A dull ache throbs at the back of my head, gnawing at me like some kind of beast working on a bone. I rub a hand at the base of my skull. I can’t find myself anywhere amid the whirling buzz of my thoughts. All my confidence eludes me. Yes. We have a plan, but what if it doesn’t work? What if Will, Cassian, and Tamra try to rescue us and fail? What if I’m stuck here? Locked in a cell forever? Panic claws its way up my throat.
Cassian. My mind whispers his name, searching for him, trying to reach him. Can he feel me? Hear me?
Cassian, I don’t know how much longer I can stand this. I think the words, form them in my head like I’m talking to him, like he’s there, inside me.
For the first time I need the bond between us to work. He’s my only connection to the outside. To life away from here. To Will.
A lab coat strolls past and backs up, stopping in front of my cell with a suddenness that makes me recoil.
He holds a clipboard in one hand and a sandwich in the other, an abundance of lettuce sticking out from all sides of the bread. He watches me with a curious fascination—as though I might suddenly do something of interest. Or I already am …
He taps on the Plexiglas with one finger, smudging the surface with a streak o
f mustard.
“Hi, there.” He coos at me like I’m a pet to tame. “Aren’t you a pretty girl?”
I angle my head. My chest expands, swells with heat. Steam puffs from my nose as I watch him. He chuckles.
Another enkros steps up beside him. “She’s something. Think we’ll get to cut this one open? Be interesting to see how the lungs and airways function.”
“I imagine it will come to that eventually.” He takes a bite from his sandwich and talks with his mouth full. “After we’ve run all our evaluations. We’ve never had one like her. Doc will want a look inside.”
I rise to my feet. Their faces sway as I stagger my way toward them. Unable to stop myself, I strike the glass with my fist. It shudders beneath the force but doesn’t give. Not that I expected it to.
They smile, amused by my outburst.
“I think she understands us.” Sandwich Eater nods as though convinced and then sets his sandwich on the bottom half of the clipboard so he can scribble a note of my behavior. “The doctor will be pleased. He always credits them with intelligence.”
The other lab coat snorts and shakes his head. “They’re just animals. Fascinating creatures, sure, but they understand about as much as my Labrador.”
They move away then.
I pace my prison and try to reach Cassian again, desperate, unable to shake off the panic that I’ll never be rescued from this cell.
I drag my hands through my hair and fall against the wall. Hot tears slip down my cheeks. Sliding to the floor, I release a great gust of breath and close my eyes, fighting back the emotion. No tears. I won’t let them see me weep so they can write that down in their reports.
Cassian. Help me. Help Miram.
Dropping my head onto my knees, I sink into the dark shell of myself, not expecting the scene awaiting me there.
A hazy image fills my mind. It’s daylight. Outdoors. I see my sister and Will. He’s pacing near the van.
I open my eyes in a flash and find myself still in my cell. Even hazy, the image had seemed so real.
Lowering my head, I close my eyes again and I’m sucked back into the misty vision. With Will and Tamra. But where’s Cassian?
Will charges toward me, his face tight and anxious, his chest taut beneath the T-shirt that he’d been wearing when we parted. My heart swells, overcome at the sight of him.
“Do you feel her? How is she? Does she want us to come?”
Then I understand. I’ve succeeded in reaching out to Cassian. Beyond my wildest imaginings, I’ve connected to him. So much so that I’m in him right now. I can feel and see everything he’s experiencing.
Cassian’s voice rises up from inside me—or rather inside him. “Yes. I feel her. She’s not … managing it very well.”
“Are they harming her?” Will demands. His skin pales, eyes strained and unblinking as he stares at Cassian.
“I don’t think so,” Cassian answers. “Not now, anyway. I don’t sense any pain. But …”
“Is she scared?” Tamra asks.
My vision bounces as Cassian nods.
Tamra moistens her lips. “Then do something for her. You can reach her. Comfort her …”
Will’s expression is wild. “We need to go in. We can’t wait.” Before anyone can answer, he curses and moves away, prowling out of Cassian’s sight. My sister starts to follow him but pauses and turns back to Cassian.
The connection begins to fade, but I’m comforted. Relieved. It can’t be much longer. They’ll come for us.
Exhausted, I fall asleep again and dream of Will.
It’s not the first time he’s filled my dreams, but it’s the first time he’s flying beside me as a draki. His eyes are the same but for the fully vertical pupils. They glow with delight as we soar and dip, cutting through the wet kiss of clouds. His skin is iridescent, flashing from gold to brown to green—just like his hazel eyes. His wings move fluidly on the air, great sails whooshing beside me. When I wake, I feel the irrational urge to cry as reality slams down on me.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes. Because Will flying—that can never be. The sweetness of those moments found in sleep will never happen. He and I can never have that, be together that way, as two draki. Even if he’s proven to be something else, something more than human, he can never take to the skies with me.
And does he have to? a small voice whispers inside my head. You never cared about that before.
I pull my knees to my chest and chafe my supple skin with both hands. Maybe being here, a prisoner of men, allied only with fellow draki (except the one, of course, that would prefer to kill me) and longing for the sky, I’m feeling the gulf between Will and myself more sharply.
The door of the observation room opens. More lab coats pour inside. They’re pushing a sheet-covered gurney with brown leather straps dangling off the sides. The sight of it starts a slow, nervous fluttering in my stomach.
I rise to my feet, my heart rate increasing. I back against a wall, pressing my palms into the cold concrete. A draki somewhere down the line begins making a racket. Almost like he’s digging at the concrete floor.
“What’s going on?” I call out, hoping one of them will answer me.
Lia obliges—her tone apologetic—as if she were somehow responsible. “They’ve come for you. It’s your turn.”
I gasp. “My turn for what?”
“At the beginning, they take each of us … put something inside of us.”
“What thing?” I shout, pacing rapidly inside my cell, back and forth, back and forth, as if my quick movements can somehow carry me away from all this.
“I don’t know really … some little shiny metal thing. It hurts only for a second.”
Shiny metal thing?
I flatten my palms against the wall again and shake my head from side to side as if I can will it all to stop, will the enkros not to come for me. I hadn’t anticipated this. I didn’t think they would have time to do anything bad to me before I was rescued.
“No point fighting it,” Roc volunteers, his voice grim. “We all have to go through it.”
We all have to go through it.
Somehow that doesn’t hearten me. Terror rises up my throat as I watch the humans stop on the other side of my Plexiglas cell. I’m not supposed to go through this. Just twenty-four hours. That was the plan. Not this. This was never the plan. And now it’s supposed to be sooner. Will said they were coming. Where are they? Did something go wrong?
I might have been the pliable creature before, when I first arrived and was playing a role, but I can’t afford to be that easy victim any longer. I can’t be anything but myself.
I’m ready for them when they crack open the Plexiglas. I blast a path of crackling fire, intent on keeping them from reaching me.
They back away at first, but then come again, crouching low. Several times they try, edging carefully into the cell. Each time I reward them with fire, pushing them back out.
I pant loudly, hot smoky breath falling from my lips. I refuse to wonder how long I can keep this up. I just tell myself I must. I have to last until Will gets here.
Their faces are angry and red as they slide the Plexiglas closed and regroup. They glare at me, their determination to have me, get me, break me, no less bright in their eyes.
“She was easy before,” one says, his voice very close to a whine.
Easy? Right.
One finally orders, “Enough of this. Go suit up.”
My stomach clenches and I know what suits he’s talking about. The fire-resistant ones they wore into the simulated forest to stop the gray one and me from killing each other.
Two suited men return. Apparently they thought two would be enough to handle me. I tense, my thighs quivering in readiness. A low growl swells from my throat.
The others step back as the two suited men square off in front of my cell, each holding the cattle prods I remember so well from when I first arrived.
The Plexiglas slides open again and I blast them wit
h fire, following the trail of flames. I surge between their bodies, intent on escape.
I can’t get past them though. They zing me. My every muscle seizes as the electric current runs through me. A scream strangles and locks in my throat. I can’t move. No matter how my mind commands my body to move, to go—I can’t.
I drop to my knees, the impact jarring me deep to the bones. Someone’s behind me. I hear the loud peeling of tape. A hand grabs a fistful of my hair and forces my head back. My scalp burns.
Spots dance before my eyes.
It’s the duct tape again, flattened over my mouth.
He releases my hair and I drop forward, dead weight. I will myself to move, to rise. Nothing.
They don’t bother to bind my wings. Nor do they tie my wrists. I guess after that electric jolt, they’re not too worried about me lashing out. Two men grab my arms and drag me. My feet twitch, struggling to push flat in order to gain purchase on the slick tiles.
The room spins. Faces fly past. People. Like me. I want to shout, I’m like you! You’re hurting someone who does all the things, big and small, that you do. Someone who thinks and lives and loves and hates. And hates …
Hates all of you.
Fire burns through me like a fast-spreading disease. My lips tingle beneath the smothering tape.
They fling me on the gurney like I’m nothing. Already dead. A corpse. Except if I were a corpse they wouldn’t care to do whatever horrible things they have planned. They wouldn’t need to stick some shiny metallic thing inside me.
My mind whirls, brain racing wildly, trying to think what it could be. What it will do to me.
They strap me in, bear me down with leather straps fastened at my ankles and wrists.
And as if that were not enough, a leather band stretches across my chest and hips. They adjust it, squeeze and pull so tightly I can hardly breathe through my nose. I begin to feel dizzy.
One of the lab coats peers down at me. “She’s strong. Make sure they’re tight.” He frowns and resets his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “You sure she can’t burn through the tape?”
“She didn’t last time.”
Hidden: A Firelight Novel Page 3
