Riding The Wave: (Dragon Within Book Three)

by Kyra Dune

  I thought when the plane touched down in Los Angeles I would feel better. Safer. The people chasing me had no reason to think I’d go back to the place I’d once been so desperate to escape. It made no sense. They would expect me to be running away from the compound, not toward it.

  Only I didn’t feel better at all. I felt worse. I was terrified. Can you blame me? I was about to break back into the place where I was chained to a bed. Where they tried to starve my brother to death. Where they thought murdering newborn children was completely justified. And I was taking my cousin there. The second most important person in my life. If something happened to him I didn’t know how I could ever live with myself.

  We got off the plane and gathered together in a tight little group there in the terminal. Nobody said anything. We might as well have been strangers, except for Trudy and Steve who were practically glued together at the hand. Was I jealous of them? Maybe, a little. It would have been nice if I could have had Zack to cling to but I couldn’t even catch his eye. He was too busy sizing up everyone in sight like he was trying to figure out what kind of threat they might be.

  I cleared my throat. Someone had to say something even if it was only to state the obvious. “We should see about finding a hotel,” I said. “It would be better if we wait until dark to sneak into the compound. I think.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Hannah said. “But I still say you should let me come with.”

  “Three of us going is enough,” Zack said. “More than enough, actually.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as we wove our way across the airport.

  Zack barely glanced at me. “I see no reason you need to come.”

  “What?” I came to a complete stop. “You don’t think I should come? Are you serious?”

  The rest of our group had to stop as well, or leave me behind. Zack turned to face me. “I need Curtis to break into the encrypted file, but I’m not sure what you’ll be doing.”

  Wow, that hurt. How would you feel if the person you were in love with basically said you were completely useless? “I’m not letting my cousin go there with you alone.”

  “You don’t trust me?” If I didn’t know better, I might have thought his feelings were hurt.

  “Why don’t you want me to go?” I asked.

  “It’s dangerous,” he said. “And the fewer of us who go in, the more likely we are to come back out alive.”

  “What if you get in trouble?” I crossed my arms. “If you’re caught you can’t possibly get Curtis out of there by yourself. You’ll need my help.”

  “Help?” He snorted. “You can’t even control your own powers. How could you possibly help?”

  I could not believe he would say such a thing to me. Especially after what happened with that woman in the bathroom. How could he be so cruel? He couldn’t have hurt me worse if he’d slapped me in the face.

  “In case you forgot,” I said through clenched teeth, “I’m the reason we got out of the compound in the first place.”

  “With my help,” he countered. “I had to use my powers on you before you could do anything. Like at the beach. Every time you do something it’s a defensive reaction. You can’t control it. You’re of no use to me the way you are.”

  Wind stirred my hair off my shoulders. “You know what, Zack? You can be a real--”

  “Hey,” Derek broke in. “Both of you need to take it down a notch or two right now. We are in an airport full of people and you are drawing way too much attention to us.”

  I looked around to find a dozen curious stares turned in our direction. My cheeks heated, but I wasn’t done yet. I did lower my voice though. “I’m going and that’s final. You don’t like it? Fine. Stay behind with the others. I’ll take Hannah instead.”

  Hannah grinned. “Cool with me.”

  “Not cool,” Zack snapped. “What good is an earth dragon going to do if you get caught in Alastair’s study? I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn.”

  “To annoy you.” We glared at each other and I swear I did not like him so much right then.

  “You two want to cut it out or what?” Steve gave us both dirty looks. “Trudy is exhausted, in case anybody cares. I’d like to get her to a hotel so she can lie down.”

  Like I needed the guilt trip. It did take all the wind, both figuratively and literally, out of my anger. I looked over at Trudy. She was so drawn and pale she hardly looked like herself. In all my life I’d never met anyone with a sunnier disposition and now it was like storm clouds had settled in her eyes. And it was my fault. She was scarred for life, they all were, because of me.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, looking at the floor.

  “It’s okay.” Trudy lightly touched my arm. “We all need a good rest to make us feel better.”

  I couldn’t argue with her there. I felt as if I’d been running for days instead of hours.

  “I’ll go to the courtesy desk and see about getting a van to take us to the nearest hotel,” Brandy said. Curtis trailed along after her.

  Zack moved away from me and I pretended not to care. Meanwhile, Steve was holding on to Trudy like he wanted to protect her from the world. All I’d ever known of him was this big goof ball who never took anything seriously. But like Trudy, he’d changed. And so fast. Seeing somebody die right in front of you does that to some people, I guess.

  I felt guilty all over again. And... wrong, somehow. I’d seen people killed. I’d killed people. And yet I didn’t feel like a whole different person because of it. What did it all mean? Were the stories about hybrids true, after all? Were we born with something different inside of us? Something evil? I didn’t want to believe it, but it seemed to me like the evidence was stacking up, and not in my favor.

  Brandy and Curtis came back and we all walked outside together. A yellow minivan pulled up out front to carry us to the hotel. And then it was silence again. The air felt, I don’t know, tight, I guess. It was really uncomfortable.

  “Okay, seriously guys,” Hannah looked around at all of us, “how long is this going to go on?”

  “To what are you referring?” Brandy asked.

  “To all this,” Hannah waved her hands around, “is what I’m referring. The silence. The dirty looks. The fighting. Are we friends here or what? Because I’ll tell you I’m not loving the hostility.”

  “Our friend was shot right in front of us,” Steve said. “You didn’t see it and you don’t know what it’s like. So don’t you dare try and tell us how we should act. You aren’t even human. You’re some kind of freak.”

  “Steve,” Trudy squeezed his arm, “please, don’t say such things. You aren’t helping.”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, it’s okay. He saw somebody he cared about die and it freaked him out. I get where he’s coming from. I’ve been there myself.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” I said, knowing how difficult the subject was for her.

  “I think I do,” she said. “Maybe I’m not human, exactly, but I am a person. I have feelings. And once, I had a brother. But he was born a hybrid, like Abby, so the spirit dragon drowned him in the bathroom sink right in front of my eyes. I was eight.”

  “Oh my god.” Trudy pressed her hand to her mouth. “Hannah... I’m so sorry.” She reached across to squeeze Hannah’s hand. “I don’t think you’re a freak.”

  Hannah almost smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Was the same thing supposed to happen to you when you were born?” Steve asked, looking at me.

  I nodded. “My parents went renegade to protect me. But the hunters tracked them down and killed them. They thought I was dead too. It’s the only reason it took them so long to find me again. The only reason they didn’t kill me once they did was because they’re afraid of Megara and they want me to get rid of her for them.”

  “And if you had gone along and done what they wanted instead of running away,” Curtis said, “what would have happened to you then?”

  I glanced at Zack. “They wo
uld have killed me anyway.”

  “What is it with you people?” Steve asked. “Does killing come so easy to all of you?”

  “Hey,” Hannah said. “I’ve never killed anybody.”

  “But Zack has,” Steve said. “ And Abigail too. So how about you, Derek? Have you crossed that rite of passage yet?”

  Derek pressed his lips into a thin line and stared out the window.

  “Stop it, Steve,” I said, coming to my brother’s defense. “You’re upset, okay, we get it. Leave Derek alone. He’s never done anything to you.”

  “I think it’s a legitimate question.” Steve said. “I deserve to know if I’m running around with a bunch of murd--”

  “Shut up!” Brandy slammed her hand down on the armrest. We all stared at her in shock. She took a breath in through her nose and continued more calmly. “Kyle is dead and keeping everyone at each other’s throat won’t change it. You’re only making a difficult situation worse. And you’re upsetting your girlfriend.”

  Steve glanced over at Trudy, who looked as if she were on the verge of tears again. He slumped back in his seat and put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, baby.” He kissed her cheek. She laid her head on his chest.

  We rode the rest of the way to the hotel in silence. Once we were in the lobby, Brandy went to take care of the room arrangements. Which was fine with me. I was happy to have someone else dealing with everything . All I wanted was a bed to crawl into and a few hours to pretend like this day never happened.

  Brandy returned from the front desk with only three key cards. She handed one to Steve, one to Zack, and kept the last for herself. “Here’s how it’s going to be,” she said. “Steve and Trudy get the king. Derek, Zack, and Hannah will share one double, while myself, Abby, and Curtis share the other.”

  “Hold up,” Hannah said. “I have to bunk with the boys? Why can’t Curtis share with them?”

  “Because we’re family,” Brandy said in her ‘I’ve put my foot down and you can’t move it’ tone which always made her sound so much older than her sixteen years.

  Hearing her call me and Curtis family seriously rivaled the kiss for the best moment of the day. After the way she’d been acting, I was sure I was losing her. But if she still felt as if I was family, then our friendship wasn’t completely ruined after all.

  “I will not share a room with Derek.” Zack was squeezing the keycard so tightly it’s amazing it hadn’t cut into his skin.

  “My parent’s money. My decision.” Brandy brushed passed him and headed for the elevators. “Anyone who doesn’t like the arrangements can find their own place to spend the night.”

  Hannah chuckled. “I think I’m starting to like that girl.”

  Zack threw his keycard to the floor and stormed out of the hotel. It crossed my mind to go after him, but I didn’t want to be that kind of girl, if you know what I mean. Besides, when he was angry he was impossible to talk to and I was way too tired to have to deal with it right then.

  Curtis picked up the keycard. He glanced over at me, no doubt noticing how I was staring at the door. “He’ll come back.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t care. I meant what I said before. I can take Hannah to the compound instead, if I have to. I don’t need him.” I joined Brandy in the elevator, pretending not to notice the look Derek was giving me. I think he was starting to suspect something was up between me and Zack. But if he was suspecting it, then I’d wished he’d tell me what it was, because I wasn’t so clear on it myself.

  When we reached the fourth floor, I let Brandy go into our room first and held Curtis back. “Do you think you could go check out the pool, or something? I need to talk to Brandy.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  He smiled. “No problem.”

  I shut the door and took a moment to gather my thoughts before turning around. Brandy was perched on the window seat built above the air conditioner, staring out the window. I sat on the edge of the bed furthest from her.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?” she asked without looking at me.

  “For calling me family,” I said. “After the way things have been between us... I was starting to worry you didn’t think of me that way anymore.”

  “I’ve known you since I was five years old. You’re my best friend. Of course I still consider you family.”

  I plucked at the comforter. “So you don’t hate me?”

  “Hate you?” She finally did look at me then. “I’m angry at you. More angry than I have ever been in my life. But I don’t hate you. I’ve been trying to think of a way to forgive you for what you’ve done. That’s why I’ve been so cold. So distant. It’s hard enough for me to wrap my head around this whole business of you being a dragon, but to have you betray me the way you have makes it all so much worse.

  “I don’t care if you did think you were protecting me, you had no right to leave me the way you did. To have me believing for months you were dead. Do you have any idea how I felt, thinking if I’d only gone with you the way you wanted me to you might still be alive? Then you call me up in the middle of the night asking for my help as if I hadn’t spent months with a hole punched in my heart.” She shook her head. “I would never do such a thing to you.”

  Tears spilled from my eyes before I even realized how close I was to crying. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I can’t even...” I swallowed a thick feeling in my throat. “I don’t blame you if you never can forgive me. Especially now, after what happened with Kyle. But please, please tell me we can still be friends somehow. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

  Brandy’s expression softened. “You could never lose me. Though I should think after my confession at the beach house you might want to.”

  “No way.” I got up and went over to sit beside her. “You didn’t mean the things you said. You were upset.”

  She shook her head. “I meant every word.”

  “I don’t believe it. I know you better,” I said. More because I didn’t want to believe it than anything else. “You think you’re responsible somehow for what happened to Kyle, but you’re not.”

  “He wouldn’t have been there if not for me,” she said, “so don’t you tell me I’m not responsible.”

  “None of you would have been there if not for me,” I said. “And I wouldn’t have been there if not for Alastair. We can go around and around playing the blame game and nobody will win. It’s pointless.”

  “You don’t understand,” Brandy said. “He wasn’t in love with me, I don’t think, but he did care. I didn’t. I thought he was beneath me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Brandy rolled her eyes. “You really are the most infuriatingly stubborn person, do you know that?”

  I grinned. “Isn’t that one of the things you like best about me?”

  “No, it is not.” She leaned back against the wall. “It’s one of the things I tolerate because I love you.”

  “Ah, I see.” I leaned back on my hands. “Like I tolerate your bookish snobbery?”

  A smile twitched at the corner of her lips. “Exactly. Now,” she crossed her legs and folded her hands neatly on her knees, “what’s going on between you and Zack?”

  A warm flush crept up my neck. “Wow, you changed the topic of conversation so fast I think I got whiplash. I mean, here we are talking about our friendship and all of a sudden, zip right on over to Zack.” My god, I was babbling like an idiot. I knew it too, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What do we want to talk about Zack for? Nothing is going on between us. What would be going on with us?”

  “You know you can’t hide things from me,” Brandy said. “I may have had a lot on my mind, but it doesn’t mean I’m blind. I can see something has changed between the two of you. I want to know what it is.”

  I had wanted so badly to tell her, but now she’d brought it up I found myself hesitating. I knew she wasn’t going to approve. She didn’t like Zack any more than Derek did. But
this was Brandy, so lying or even trying to hedge around the question was impossible. She could always see right through me.

  “Um, well...” I fiddled with my shoelace. “We might have kissed, a little.”

  “What?” She sat forward so suddenly we came within inches of knocking heads. “You kissed him or he kissed you? When? Why? What we’re you thinking? Are in you love with him?”

  I had expected the barrage of questions and wasn’t bothered by it. It was nice to hear Brandy sounding more like her old self. “It happened at the beach house, while everybody was packing up and getting ready to go. One minute we were standing there talking, and the next he was kissing me.”

  “Did you want him to kiss you?”

  “He didn’t force himself on me if that’s what you’re asking. I was surprised, but I did kiss him back. I... I think...” Cue the goofy smile. Remembering the kiss made me all warm and tingly inside. “I think I’m in love with him.”

  “Abby.” Brandy shook her head. “Do you really think he feels the same about you? Because I certainly haven’t seen him acting like a man in love.”

  Talk about a buzz kill. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind before, but did she really have to ask? Of course she did. She wouldn’t be Brandy if she hadn’t. “He kissed me.”

  She gave me one of those ‘I know you’re not that stupid’ kind of looks. “You may not have any experience when it comes to boys, but I’m certain even you know a kiss is not a declaration of love. Boys kiss girls all the time without it having to mean anything. They’ll kiss any willing girl, any time, regardless of their feelings for them.”

  I don’t know about you, but I found her words kind of harsh. Boys aren’t really like that, right? At least not all of them, surely. Besides, I resented her implying Zack only kissed me because I happened to be handy.

  “Well Zack isn’t a boy. He’s a man.” It was a stupid argument to make and I should have known it wouldn’t do anything but fuel Brandy’s fire.

  “Which perfectly raises my next concern,” she said. “He’s much too old for you.”

  “A few years is not so big a difference.”