Going Down in Flames (Entangled Teen)

by Chris Cannon

  Bryn’s mom paled. “You’re the Speaker?”

  “I am.” Ferrin brushed off his coat like he’d come into contact with something dirty. “It was lovely seeing you again, Sara.” And with that creepy compliment, Ferrin left.

  Both of her parents looked like they’d been sucker punched.

  “What’s a Speaker?” Bryn asked.

  “The Speaker is the elected head of the Directorate,” her mom said in a quiet voice. “And he’s the most powerful man in dragon society.”

  The fear in her mom’s eyes scared Bryn more than anything Ferrin had said. “It’s not like he’s the king, right?”

  “No,” her mom said. “The other Directorate members have a vote in most decisions.”

  “Most?” Bryn’s stomach churned. She couldn’t go to a school controlled by the man her mom had dumped. There had to be another option.

  “We should run,” her dad said, “and start over someplace else.”

  “Ferrin’s family is powerful and well connected.” Her mom sighed. “With the entire Directorate at his disposal, he’d find us wherever we went.”

  “You escaped before,” Bryn said.

  “Then, we weren’t a threat,” her mom said. “You heard Ferrin. The Directorate thinks you’re a risk to the dragon population. If we run, they’ll treat it as an act of aggression.”

  Good God, this was really happening. They were shipping her off to some boarding school. Both of her parents looked miserable. Should she say it wasn’t their fault? But it was. They’d run away from the Directorate, and now she was paying the price.

  With nothing to lose, Bryn let loose with a string of curse words she reserved for special occasions.

  “You shouldn’t use that kind of language at school.” Her dad smirked. “But for the next week, feel free to cuss like a sailor.”

  It wasn’t enough. There had to be something she could do. She didn’t want people to think she shoplifted. She grabbed her cell phone from the charger on the kitchen counter.

  “Who are you calling?” her dad asked.

  “I may have to go to their stupid school, but I won’t let my friends think I’m a thief. I’m going to call everyone I know and tell them some guy has been stalking me. If I make the guy sound crazy enough, they should believe you’re sending me to private school for my own protection.”

  An hour later, she slammed her phone down and gave a tight smile. “The fifth person I called already heard the story.” So that was that. There was nothing left she could do. Damn it. “I’m going to bed.” Bryn stalked into her bedroom and slammed the door. When that didn’t make her feel better, she threw herself onto the bed, screamed into the pillow, and kicked her legs like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

  “That’s very mature,” a masculine voice said.

  Sitting up so quickly she gave herself a head rush, Bryn spotted someone in the doorway of her closet. She recognized him from the bookstore.

  “You,” she bit out. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t talked to me, Ferrin never would’ve found me.” Her argument was flawed, but right now she needed to vent her frustration on someone, and he was the prime candidate.

  “We both know that’s not true.” He leaned against the wall. “I’m Zavien, by the way.”

  Bryn studied him. His spiked hair, black muscle shirt, ripped jeans, and motorcycle boots gave him the appearance of a rock star or a biker. He was younger than she’d first thought. His dark brown eyes held more compassion than she remembered. Now that she knew he wasn’t exactly a stalker, she could see he was hot. Though, she’d die before admitting that.

  “What do you want?”

  “The same thing I wanted before…to talk to you.”

  “Did you ever think of knocking on my front door like a normal person?”

  He pushed away from the wall and sat on her nightstand. “How was I to know you’d be so skittish?”

  “Have you watched the news lately? Teenage girls go missing all the time.”

  Leaning closer, he said, “You’re not a teenage girl. You’re a dragon.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that until after you stalked me.”

  “Sorry. I thought your parents would’ve told you.”

  Smoke shot from her nostrils. “They didn’t tell me anything.”

  “It wouldn’t have changed the situation. Ferrin has been furious since your mom ran out on him.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  “No. But others will. That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

  She might as well listen. Maybe he could help. “Fine. Talk.”

  “The Directorate controls everything from employment opportunities to arranged marriages and even what classes you’re allowed to take at school. For decades, everyone has done what the Directorate decreed. No one questioned them. You’re proof that the Directorate can be wrong.”

  Great. “Can you get me out of dragon school?”

  “No. We all have to go. But I can offer support while you’re there. I supervise a student club for Wilderness and Survival Training. It’s an excuse to go camping and discuss opinions the Directorate may not like. We write petitions and encourage dragons to question the status quo.”

  Like she needed to stir up more trouble. “What if I want to go with the flow?”

  He snorted. “I don’t believe that’s in your nature.”

  Bryn opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “I don’t expect you to give speeches. Come camp with us and listen to the others. If you have an opinion, voice it.”

  It might be a good way to make friends. “Fine. I’ll go camping.” Her life was going to hell, so she might as well add sleeping on the ground and catching poison ivy to the list. “Anything else? I’m exhausted.”

  He held a shiny object out to her. “Take this. Keep it with you at all times. It’s spelled to act like a transmitter.”

  It was a silver pen. Hadn’t he said something about how she smelled earlier today? “Couldn’t you follow my scent?”

  He gave a slow grin. “Individual scents can’t be tracked…unless you know someone intimately.”

  Oh God. Her face heated, and her pulse went into overdrive. She ducked her head and pretended to examine the pen. It was a nice gesture, but did she want him to know her every move? “Why would you need to track me?”

  “You’re going to a new place. You might get lost.”

  There was something he wasn’t telling her. “I’m tired of people lying to me. Tell me the reason you want me to take it, or I’ll throw it in the trash.”

  “That would be a shame. It’s a nice pen.” He stood and walked past her. “Leave your window open at school, and I’ll visit you.”

  What did that mean?

  He walked to her window. After pushing it open, he climbed out onto the ledge. Before she could ask what he was doing, he threw his body into the night sky.

  She ran to the window, hoping not to see him splattered on the pavement below. Whoosh. A dark shape flew down the street and into the darkness.

  “Way to make an exit.” She closed the window and took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. Her room smelled like a summer rainstorm. Closing her eyes, she inhaled again and detected a warm, masculine scent. Her stomach flipped. She glanced at the pen in her hand. Maybe having Zavien keep track of her wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

  Chapter Four

  Bryn woke to find her father standing next to her bed, scowling.

  “What?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this question, but I’m going to give you the opportunity to confess. Why does your room smell like a Black dragon?”

  “The guy from the bookstore dropped by last night. It’s not like I invited him.”

  Her dad growled. He’d never done that before, so he was pretty hacked off. Time for damage control.

  “I planned to tell you at breakfast. After everything else yesterday, it wasn’t a big
deal. Compared to Ferrin, he seemed warm and fuzzy.”

  “Compared to Ferrin, Jack the Ripper seems warm and fuzzy. That guy is trouble. You need to stay away from him. Got it?”

  Even though she thought he was overreacting, she nodded in agreement. The silver pen on the nightstand caught her eye. Should she tell him about it? Maybe. Then again, he’d kept plenty of secrets from her.

  Her dad’s posture relaxed. “Time for breakfast. Your mom made pancakes.”

  The smell of warm maple syrup floated down the hallway, making her mouth water. In the kitchen, a plate of pancakes swimming in golden syrup waited on her placemat.

  Her mom poured two glasses of juice and joined her at the table. “Here’s my advice for the day: there are few problems in the world sugar and fat can’t solve. Now that you’ve shifted, you can eat as much as you want and not gain weight.”

  “Really?”

  Her mom nodded. “Your metabolism runs at a much higher rate.”

  Good to know while she was at school she could drown her frustrations in pizza and chocolate and still fit into her clothes.

  After breakfast, she returned to her room and did her best to contemplate the situation head-on. She was going away to dragon school. On top of the whole “I’m a dragon” scenario, she’d be living away from home for the first time.

  She needed more information. Time to read the stupid Welcome to School packet. She sat cross-legged on the bed and investigated her soon-to-be new life.

  The first page congratulated her on being accepted to such an esteemed institution. Right. She crushed it into a ball and threw it at the trash can. The second page touched on where the Institute was located. “The campus is surrounded by forests and bluffs.” It should’ve said the school is located in a secluded place so no one knows we’re dragons.

  The rest of the page discussed the ban on student cell phones. Fan-freaking-tastic. She flipped the paper over and read the list of classes she’d take first semester. Elemental Science and Algebra sounded self-explanatory. History of Dragon Culture would be interesting. She assumed Basic Movement meant physical education. The title of the last class confused her. What was Proper Decorum? Didn’t decorum have something to do with manners?

  The paragraph underneath her schedule had her growling in frustration. Formal dress code? According to school policy, she’d have to wear skirts, button-down blouses, and panty hose. What kind of time warp was this stupid school stuck in? Panty hose? No one wore panty hose anymore.

  “Bryn, come out here,” her dad yelled from the other room.

  She stomped into the kitchen, ready to gripe about the stupid dress code. The sight of Zavien, tied to the kitchen chair with his lip swollen and bloodied, brought her up short. She decided to play it cool. Sitting across from him, she said, “What’s going on?”

  “I found Zavien lurking by the fire escape.” Her dad said this like he’d caught a terrorist.

  “I wasn’t lurking. I was standing in plain sight.” Zavien gave her father a withering look. “These ropes are a joke.”

  “Consider them symbolic.”

  “Ian,” Bryn’s mom said. “You’ve made your point. Let’s hear what he came to say.”

  “It’s not like I gagged him,” her dad said.

  Zavien glanced at her mom. “With your permission?”

  “Break free, but don’t damage the chair.”

  The air around Zavien shimmered as he grew larger. His summer rainstorm scent filled the air. The rope frayed and with a ripping sound, burst apart and landed in shreds on the table and floor. The shimmering stopped, and he returned to normal size.

  Cool trick. “How’d you do that?”

  “I started to shift and then stopped. The bindings couldn’t take the stress, so they unraveled.”

  Impressive. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to discuss where you’ll live on campus.”

  That seemed easy enough. “I’ll live in a dorm like everyone else.”

  “Dragons live in dorms with their Clans,” he said. “You are a dragon without a Clan.”

  “I thought I had two Clans.” Bryn noticed her dad’s face. “Why are you frowning?”

  “I’d like to see you live with the Reds, but I don’t know if they’d take you.”

  “Great.” She sighed and slouched in her seat. “I can feel the love already.”

  “The Directorate insists you attend, so they have to house you somewhere,” Zavien said. “I’d rather it be a place we picked rather than something they forced on you. The Blues will resent you enough as it is, due to your background.”

  “If Ferrin is an example of what most of them are like, I’d rather sleep in a Dumpster.”

  “Ferrin is twisted enough to place you with the Blues so they can torment you,” Zavien said, “which is why we need to come up with our own plan.”

  So far, the only good part of dragon school was Zavien. Maybe she should focus on that for a minute so she wouldn’t freak out. “How old are you?” No way was he still in high school.

  “I’m nineteen.” He chuckled. “I’m not slow. I’m working on my bachelor’s degree.”

  Bachelor’s degree? That meant college. So not only was she sentenced to dragon school for her junior and senior years of high school, she was stuck there for college, too? Giving up, she laid her head on the table.

  “Please tell me I don’t have to stay at dragon school for six years.”

  “Associate degrees take two years,” Zavien said. “You’d be out in four.”

  She lifted her head. “If you’re lying to make me feel better, I will hurt you.”

  Hand over his heart, he said, “I only lie on three occasions, and this isn’t one of them. Back to the housing issue. I think the Green dragons are our best bet, because they’ll want to study you.”

  “I’m not a freaking science experiment.” Should she feel bad about snapping at him? Maybe, but she didn’t.

  “My apologies. I meant they’re naturally curious and would want to ask you questions, since you’re the only known crossbred dragon.”

  She glowered at him.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up. “You do have a Red’s temper.”

  His lopsided grin did the trick. Her scowl started to slip, so she slumped in her seat. “Talk to the Green dragons. See if they’ll take me.”

  “I’ll make a few calls. There’s something else we need to discuss. You should keep a low profile on campus. Blue dragons are notoriously proud. You don’t want to show off.”

  “I’m a solid B student. I doubt I’ll threaten anyone.”

  “Your existence is a threat to everything the Directorate stands for.”

  Her father growled.

  “She has a right to know,” Zavien said.

  Bryn raised her hand. “How am I a threat?”

  “Your mother and I planned to discuss this with you at dinner tonight. I guess we can talk about it now. Dragon society is different than human society. It’s organized into a caste system, and according to the Directorate, every Clan has a specific role to play and that is the only role they are allowed to play. The Reds are the middle class. We are the worker bees, the middle managers, but you’ll never find a Red who is a CEO or owns any business larger than a family bar or restaurant. If a business becomes too successful, a Blue is chosen to oversee the company for the good of the Clans. Like a Red isn’t smart enough to manage the business he created.”

  “Seriously? They can just take something over?”

  “Yes. And they can shut a business down if they think a dragon from one of the lower Clans has gained too much power.”

  “Why do the other dragons put up with that crap?”

  Her dad shrugged. “The Blues have always been in charge of the Clans. They are the ruling class, literally. They are the politicians and the lawyers who make the laws and order them enforced. They run the Directorate and, while there are a few token members from the other Clans, they are not allowed f
ull voting privileges.”

  “Has the word revolution ever been thrown around?” Bryn asked. “They sound like a bunch of power-hungry dictators.”

  Zavien gave a bitter laugh. “No one questions them. We petition them to try and gain more rights for the other Clans, but so far, we’ve achieved little. That doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying.”

  “Like we told you before,” her mom said, “we were taught that dragons physically couldn’t crossbreed. Now I wonder if it’s because they were worried about the unpredictability of dragons with unknown powers. All marriages are arranged within Clans according to lineage by the Directorate. Families request permission for their sons or daughters to marry, and the Directorate has the power to deny any union they see as unfit.”

  “Based on what?” Bryn asked.

  “They are the Directorate,” her mom said. “They aren’t required to give a reason.”

  “They should’ve declared Ferrin unfit to marry,” Bryn muttered.

  “My parents arranged my marriage to Ferrin because his family was second to mine in prestige and wealth.”

  “Your family was one of the top dragon families?”

  Her mom nodded. “When I left with your father, it was a huge scandal.”

  “Is that why Ferrin is such a jerk?”

  “He’s always been a jerk,” her dad said. “Now he’s a mean, vindictive jerk.”

  “Didn’t your parents know what he was like? How could they expect you to spend your life with him?”

  “As their only daughter, they wanted to secure my financial future. My mother told me loving or even liking the person you marry wasn’t important.” She reached over and grabbed Bryn’s father’s hand. “But once I knew what true love felt like, I couldn’t sit back and play the dutiful daughter, so we ran.”

  “I’m surprised Ferrin didn’t have you assassinated,” Zavien said.

  Her father let out a low growl. “He tried. Our first two apartments mysteriously burned to the ground. We moved here, and things were quiet for a while. When we found out your mother was pregnant, I was terrified he’d try again.”