by Kyra Dune
“He’s nearly twenty,” she countered. “Which makes any sort of relationship between the two of you not only inappropriate, but also illegal.”
“God, Brandy.” I got up and paced away from her, my hands shoved into my pockets. This
was not a conversation I was comfortable having, even with my best friend. “It was only a kiss. It’s not like we... you know.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you had,” she said. “I’m only warning you to be careful and not let things get out of hand. If you’re falling in love with him then he could use it against you. He’s not a good person, Abigail. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Do you?”
I wanted to say, yes, but I knew it would be a lie. I flopped down on the bed with my arm draped across my eyes. “I don’t know. I’m so confused. You’re the smart one, help me out here. Tell me what I should do.”
A few seconds passed before she answered. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but after what you’ve told me I think I have to. Something happened with Zack after Kyle was... was shot. It wasn’t a good thing. It was... frightening. And I think it proves my point that he’s not a good person.”
Of course I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Curtis showed me the video.”
“And you still kissed Zack after seeing what he did?”
“No.” I sat up. “Curtis showed me at the airport while we were waiting for the plane. But seeing it didn’t change the way I feel. You’re wrong about Zack. He is a good person. He can’t help he was trained to... to do the things he does. And really, how am I any better? I’ve killed too.”
“Entirely different situations,” Brandy said. “You killed that woman at the compound in self defense. She left you with no choice in the matter. Those men on the beach had laid down their weapons and surrendered. They were no longer a threat. Zack killed them anyway. He did it without hesitation. Without guilt. I’ve never seen anything so cold blooded in my life. You are nothing like him.”
“Now who’s being stubborn?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“This isn’t a joke, Abigail. You’re putting your life, and Curtis’, into this man’s hands tonight and you cannot let your feelings for him dictate your actions. You have to look after yourself and your cousin. You can’t trust Zack to do it for you.”
I sighed. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. Anything but Zack. This whole thing is hard enough without you ragging on him.”
“Fine.” Brandy took a moment to consider a different topic of conversation. “What do you propose we do about our parents? They’ll be getting worried soon.”
I didn’t want to talk about that either, even though I knew we really needed to. “How do you think we should handle this? Obviously, you can’t keep telling them you’re at the beach house.”
Curtis poked his head into the room before Brandy could reply. “You finished with the girl talk, or should I take another lap around the hotel?”
“Come on in,” I said. “We were talking about what you guys are going to tell the adults.”
“Did you come up with anything good?” He flopped down on the bed next to me.
“We hadn’t really discussed our options,” Brandy said, “except to agree we can’t say we’re at the beach house. They’ll be expecting us to come home soon and when we don’t they’ll get suspicious.”
“Why don’t we tell them the truth?” Curtis asked.
If his expression hadn’t been so serious I would have thought he was kidding. “Right. We’ll call our parents up and tell them we can’t come home because I’m a hybrid dragon and people are trying to kill me. That’ll go over well.”
“So maybe not the whole truth,” he said. “Just enough for them to know we’re still alive but we can’t come home right now.”
“It makes more sense for us to simply not speak to them at all,” Brandy said. “We’ll turn off our phones so we don’t know when they call.”
“No way.” Curtis shook his head. “It would kill Uncle Frank and Aunt Maureen if I up and disappear without a word.”
“He’s right,” I said. “You saw what my parents went through when they thought I was dead. Do you really want your parents going through the same thing? And what about your brother and sister? It’s not right and you know it.”
“Oh, I see,” Brandy said. “So it’s fine for you to fake your own death but when I suggest something similar, and yet far less traumatic, you look at me as if I were a wad of chewing gum stuck to your shoe.”
I couldn’t believe she would even compare the two. “I’ve told you over and over, I did what I did to protect you. This is totally different. Besides, when you all up and disappear don’t you think your parents might get the cops involved? Or even the FBI? I may not be a genius like some people, but I don’t think that would end too well for us. The FBI can trace credit cards, you know.”
“By the time the FBI becomes involved,” Brandy said, “we will have obtained the information pertaining to Megara’s whereabouts and will be well on our way to finding her. And I certainly have no intention of using the credit card any further once we leave this hotel. It would be foolish.”
“What would we do for money?” I asked.
“Simple.” Brandy crossed her legs and folded her hands neatly on her knees. “When I turned sixteen, my parents added my name to their bank account. I have full access. I can withdraw thirty thousand dollars without raising any alarm bells. We can use the money to purchase a cheap used car and keep ourselves alive until we reach our destination.”
I stared at her in shock. I knew my best friend was a genius, but I never would have believed she could mastermind a plot to rob her own parents. “Okay, who are you and what have done with the real Brandy?”
She pursed her lips. “It isn’t as if I enjoy the idea, but I see no other alternative. Do you?”
A good point. “You’ll never get Steve and Trudy to agree. No way are they going to take off without calling their parents.”
“I’m not agreeing to it either.” Curtis bounced up off the bed. “I won’t do this to them. I can’t. I refuse to disappear.”
“Okay, calm down.” I grabbed hold of his wrist. “Nobody is disappearing. I made this mess and I’ll figure a way out of it.”
Brandy laughed. “Abigail Freeman is going to clean up her own mess all by herself? This I should like to see.”
Maybe I should have been insulted, but she was right. Our whole lives I had leaned on her for everything. Well, no more. It was time I stood on my own two feet and made a decision all my own, even if it was the wrong one.
My gaze fell on Curtis’ camcorder and I had an idea which I knew was probably going to come back to bite me in the end. But at least it was kind of a compromise maybe everybody could live with. And it might give us some breathing room.
“Hey, Curtis,” I looked up at my cousin, “feel like making a little movie?”
CHAPTER SIX
I sat on the edge of the bed with my hands clasped in my lap. I was nervous and not only because of what I was about to do. All my friends were crammed in on the other side of the room, watching me. Nobody was entirely happy with my decision, but I’d put my foot down and nobody could move it. Not even Brandy.
Was my idea crazy? Maybe. Was it stupid? Probably. And I have to admit part of what drove me too it was thinking about my parents believing I was dead. Knowing the kind of pain I was putting them through was killing me. I didn’t want them to believe they’d lost Curtis too.
Curtis stood in front of me with his camcorder. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“No.” I licked my dry lips. “But let’s do this anyway.”
“Okay. Three. Two. One.” The red light came on to stare at me like the eye of a cyclops.
I swallowed hard. Trying to rehearse a speech hadn’t worked at all, so I
figured I’d wing it. If it was terrible we could always scrap it and try again. “Hi, Mom. Dad. Um, as you can see I’m not dead. But, uh, I am really sorry for making you think I was. I had a good reason for doing it, I swear. I just can’t tell you what it is right now.” Super lame, huh? I know. You try explaining to your parents why you faked your own death without actually telling them anything and see how good you’d be at it.
“I also want to say to the other parents,” I continued. “I know I dragged your kids into a mess, but I needed their help and I’m glad they came. Mostly.” It was Kyle’s face flashing through my mind. But I couldn’t tell his parents he was dead. Not over a video.
“I know your first instinct is going to be calling the police or the FBI or something, but please don’t do it,” I said. “They can’t help us, they can only make things worse. We are in a little bit of trouble, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. We aren’t being kidnapped or anything like that, so try not to worry too much.” I stared right at the camcorder and tried not to cry over what I was about to say, even knowing it might be a lie.
“When this is all over,” I said, “we’ll come home and explain everything. Until then, we need you to not try and find us. Trust us, please. We know what we’re doing.” I nodded at Curtis and the light went off.
He lowered the camcorder. “That was good, Abby. Real good.”
“It didn’t feel good.” I ran both hands back through my hair. “I hate this so much.”
“Do you really think this will work?” Derek asked. “Do you think your parents won’t get the authorities involved because you asked them not to?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t go on letting my parents think I’m dead. And I can’t make everybody else’s parents think they up and disappeared either. All I can do is hope they listen. If it’s a mistake...” I shook my head. What else was there to say?
“They’re going to call us after they see the tape,” Trudy said. “You know they will. What are we supposed to say to them?”
“Nothing,” Brandy said. “No one is to answer their cell phones. In fact, it would be wisest to leave them here. If our parents do call the FBI they can use them to track us.”
Trudy’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t like this.”
“I notice you didn’t say anything about Kyle,” Steve said.
“How could she?” Hannah asked. “The point was to calm your parents down, not freak them out. They’d call the feds for sure if they knew one of you guys got shot.”
Steve looked away, his jaw tight. I missed the old Steve, who always had a smart remark or something crazy to say. I hated to think all of this might have killed some part of him. Like I needed anything more on my conscience.
“You meant what you said, right?” Trudy asked. “We are going home eventually. Aren’t we?”
“Of course.” I said the words with an absolute conviction I didn’t feel. One thing I could say about the situation, it had taught me to be a better liar. “Somehow all of this is going to work out. I promise. Megara is going to help us.”
“If she doesn’t kill us first,” Zack said.
I shot him a dirty look. There I was trying to reassure Trudy and he was not helping. “Really, Zack? This was your idea, you know. Looking for Megara. Breaking back into the compound to find out where she is. Are you backing out on me now?”
He fixed me with a level gaze. “No, I’m not backing out. But I don’t think you should be acting like finding her is going to make all the bad stuff go away. Because it isn’t. Even if she does help, she can’t stop them from coming after you.”
“Okay, so maybe I’m being unrealistic,” I said. “But I can hope, can’t I? What’s wrong with a little hope?”
“Everything,” he said. “Thinking that way will only lead to disappointment. Don’t you get it? Me suggesting we go to Megara for help is like a drowning man clinging to the side of a sinking boat. It’s a last desperate grasp to stave off the inevitable. Megara is not going to be our salvation no matter how much you might hope she can be.”
In my heart I knew he was right, but I can’t tell you how bad it hurt to hear him say it. All I was trying to do was maybe help Trudy, and myself, and everybody else, be a little less terrified. Why did he have to interfere?
“Lay off her.” Hannah came to stand next to where I sat on the bed. “We’re all scared. We all know this is a crazy plan. But you don’t have to be such a jerk about it. Especially since, like she said, it’s your plan.”
“I don’t hear anybody coming up with a better one,” he said.
“We could stay here,” Trudy said. “Surely they won’t find us here. It makes no sense for us to come back.”
Derek shook his head. “They found us at the beach house, they’ll find us here. I’m the last person who wants to go running toward Megara for help, but right now we have no other option.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Trudy said. “Maybe they will find us. But it took them weeks to track us to the beach house. They might not even realize we left on an airplane. It could take them time to find us here, right? Time we could maybe use to think up a better plan.”
I glanced at Zack and then down at my hands. I knew I should tell them about the woman at the airport, but I was so scared if I did they would look at me the way they looked at Zack. Like a killer.
“Abigail, is there something you need to tell us?” Brandy asked.
How did she always see right through me? I sucked a breath in through my teeth. “They know we were at the airport.”
“How can you be sure?” Trudy asked.
This was so hard. “When I left you guys to go to the bathroom, a woman came in. She had a gun and she wanted me to go with her.”
For a long moment the room rang with nothing but silence. And then Brandy spoke. “What did you do?”
I could feel them all looking at me. Tears pricked my eyes. “I... I...” Oh god, I didn’t know how I was going to tell them.
“She didn’t do anything,” Zack said. “I came in behind the woman and I killed her. Like I killed those men on the beach. Then I hid her body in a stall so nobody would find it for awhile.”
I lifted my head to stare at him in shock. I couldn’t believe what he’d said. “Zack...”
“It’s fine,” he said, pushing himself off the wall. “I do what I have to do. I don’t care what your friends think about it.”
“You’re sick,” Steve said. “You’re no better than the woman who shot Kyle.”
“Don’t say that.” I stood on trembling legs. “Zack might have saved all your lives by killing those people. He’s only trying to protect us.”
“From what?” Steve asked. “Did you see what he did? He killed two men down on their knees. How were they dangerous to us?”
I shook my head. “You don’t know what those men were thinking. What they might have done.”
“I know they were crying and begging for their lives,” Steve said. “But I guess human lives don’t mean much to you people.”
“Steve, stop.” Trudy touched his arm. “You know that isn’t true. Abby is a good person.”
“Oh, so you’re taking her side now?” Steve moved away from Trudy and got up off the bed.
“Don’t go.” Tears rolled down Trudy’s cheeks. “I’m not taking anybody’s side.”
I hated the look on his face. Hated to think of anything coming between them when it was so obvious they needed each other right now. “There are no sides here. We’re all in on this together.”
“What if I don’t want to be in on this?” Steve backed away from us. “What if I want to walk right out the door right now. What are you going to do about? Are you going to use your power against me, or will you get Zack to kill me for you? Seems like it’s all he’s good for.”
I squeezed my hands into fists. But out of pain, not anger. Steve’s outburst was hurting me a lot more than I would have expected it to. “If you want to go, then go. Nobody is going to
stop you.”
Steve spun on his heel and walked out. Trudy burst into tears, burying her head in the pillow. I sank back onto the bed. Man, I was wiped out. Too tired to even cry. All I wanted was to curl up somewhere and go to sleep, but it was kind of hard with everybody staring at me like they were.
“Brandy, Hannah, can you take Trudy back to her room?” Derek said. “The rest of you leave too, please. Me and Abby need a minute.”
Much to my surprise, everybody did as he asked without a word. Even Zack. I tried to catch his eye before he left but he wouldn’t look at me. He was the one I really wanted to be alone with, not Derek. But it wasn’t like I could say so right out loud.
Once everybody was gone, Derek sat beside me on the bed. “We’re all a little stressed. Steve more than any of us, I think. He’s really taking Kyle’s death hard. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything he said. He’s not going to leave.”
“Maybe he should,” I said. “Maybe they all should. Before I get them killed too.”
Derek shook his head. “You didn’t get Kyle killed. It’s not your fault.”
“I’m glad you can be so sure about that because I’m not. I’m not sure about anything.” I stared down at my hands. “Zack lied. He didn’t kill the woman at the airport. I did. I didn’t mean to. She was there with the gun and I was scared and... I threw her up against the wall without even trying.” My voice cracked. “I killed her without even trying. My grandfather was right. They’re all right. Hybrids are monsters. They have no place in this world. I have no place in this world.”
“That’s not true.” Derek touched my chin and lifted my head so I would meet his gaze. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have been raised as a human and then be dumped into this world you never even imagined existed.
“Whatever you’ve done, whatever happens next, none of this is your fault. It’s theirs. The people who dare to call themselves our family. They drove you to this. They don’t have any idea what kind of person, what kind of dragon, you might have grown up to be if you’d been raised and trained the way you should have been. Fear drives their actions and that makes them wrong. You’re a good person. I may not know you very well, but even I can see it.”
