by Angela Foxxe
The last bit was said loudly as the last of Kaden’s human form fell away and was replaced by a dragon. Kaden turned so fast that his tail swung and cut a tree in half mid-swoop. This time, Senora knew that he’d heard them. She turned, shoving Emma toward the door and calling out to the children in the cave.
“Run!” she said, looking over her shoulder and pulling the gun out as the dragon advanced on them at frightening speed. “Run and don’t look back.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Emma said. She clawed at Senora, trying to pull her away from the window as Senora put the gun in the opening and aimed. “I can’t leave you here.”
“Go!” she yelled, ignoring the stricken look on Emma’s face. “You’re what we need to protect. You and the other children. Do what I say, now!”
Emma turned, her face angry as she yelled to a straggling child to hurry up. Senora watched her until she was at the door, then she turned back, and her heart dropped when she saw how close Kaden was to the hut. He knew they were there, and if Ethan wasn’t going to come willingly, then Kaden was going to hit him where it hurt.
Senora opened fire, but the small space and the running dragon made it nearly impossible to hit her target. When he opened his mouth and let the flames fly, she ducked and rolled onto the stone floor. The top of the hut was immediately engulfed in flames, and she knew she was in trouble.
A large piece of roof on fire fell into the hut just a few inches from her head. She rolled, then got onto her hands and knees and felt her way around in the dark smoke. Where was the door? When she’d rolled, she had lost track of where she was. With the roof on fire and the smoke already filling the small space, she couldn’t find her way out. She knew Kaden was still coming. She had to find her way out.
She crawled around on her belly, sliding her hand on the rock face and screaming out in frustration. It was there somewhere. It had to be there. But she was turned around and didn’t know which wall she was on. The door could be under her hand, or it could be across the room; she couldn’t know for sure. What she did know was that she was going to die in this hut, probably inches from the exit. She didn’t want to die this way.
She didn’t want to die.
*
Senora felt a hand around her ankle and kicked out instinctively. The dragon Kaden might be bigger than her, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. If he wanted to drag her out of that hut and through the fiery roof, he was going to have to try harder than that.
The hand grabbed her again, but this time, a second hand wrapped around her before she could react, holding on as Senora bucked and coughed.
“Senora!” a familiar voice called out through the already thickening smoke that clung to her nose and mouth.
Emma? Senora was shocked to hear the young teen’s voice, but she knew it was her. She stopped mid-kick and turned toward Emma, grabbing the girl’s ankle as they army crawled along the floor beneath the smoke and letting Emma lead her away from the spot she’d been in.
The stone floor was cold against her belly, a stark contrast to the heat of the flames that licked and danced along the wood beams of what was left of the ceiling.
She could hear Kaden roaring behind them, but she didn’t look over her shoulder. It would only slow her down, and seconds counted.
There was another roar so close that Senora’s body all but shook from the power of it. Leathery, scaly bodies slammed into each other and fell to the ground. The hut shook, and part of the roof collapsed in front of them. Emma froze, her body rigid as she scanned the room for another way out. Senora coughed and choked, still holding onto Emma and sending up a silent prayer that Emma could see better than Senora could through the dark smoke and the eerie glow of the flames above them.
The fight continued as they worked their way around this new obstacle. The tiny hut was getting hotter by the second, and Senora was starting to really panic. Would the kids get out of the caves safely? Did Kaden know that they would be forced to flee the caves and out into the open? Was flushing them out of their hiding place his plan all along?
There was an inhuman shriek that made Senora’s heart stop, then she felt a cold, scaly hand around her ankle. When she was yanked backward painfully, she cried out, then immediately regretted it. Now, Emma knew she wasn’t right behind her, and the girl wouldn’t just walk away without trying to help. If Senora had remained silent, Emma would have been too far away to react by the time she realized that Senora was gone.
“Senora!” Emma shouted, turning in the darkness and coming for Senora.
“Run, Emma! Don’t look back.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Run!” she yelled again.
Her bare stomach scraped against the concrete floor, the rough action pulling her shirt up. She grabbed at the floor, the wall, anything to slow the dragon down, but she knew it was hopeless. The dragon had her, and she knew in her heart that there was no chance it was Ethan just trying to save them.
Emma’s hands were on her now, trying to pull her out of the dragon’s grasp. Claws dug into the skin around her ankles. She felt her skin break and the blood dripping down her leg. The pain was intense, but the fear overrode that. She tried to push Emma away, but Emma wouldn’t let go.
“Let me go.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Run!”
“Never.”
Before she knew what Emma had planned, the girl launched herself over Senora, climbing up Senora and grabbing onto the dragon’s clawed foot. Emma clamored up the length of Kaden’s leg and up his body until she was near the base of his wing. The dragon tried to shake her off, inadvertently shaking Senora and slapping her against the wall of the hut right before he pulled her out of the ground and into the sky. Her head ached, and the ground beneath her spun and tilted. She could hear Emma screaming, not out of fear but anger. Still suspended upside down, Senora looked up, trying to wrap her head around what was happening, but the hit she’d taken was too hard, and her mind struggled to understand.
Emma’s legs were wrapped around Kaden’s arm now, and she was pummeling him with her fists, yelling in anger and pulling at the wing joint. Senora watched with eyes wide as the girl sprouted her own wings, but much of the rest of her remained human. Emma spread her wings and took off, going at the head of the dragon without fear. Kaden was soaring through the air now, and when Senora looked at the ground below, the children that were piling out of the cave’s opening looked like tiny bugs huddled together. Senora’s stomach twisted, and she fought the panic that welled up.
She was going to die.
Senora tried to pull herself up, to grab onto anything that she could hold onto when the dragon inevitably let her go, but she couldn’t. He was holding her with his clawed foot by one ankle like a child holding a ragdoll, and she couldn’t fight gravity and the force of the wind against her as Kaden flew on. She watched helplessly as Emma fought with every ounce of her strength. She was flying behind him now, kicking the back of his head and dancing out of range when he turned to spray fire on her, then going back in and leveling another shot at his head. She looked like a contemporary artist’s idea of an angel, her body still the thin, graceful portrait of youth, the dark leathery wings a stark contrast to Emma’s soft beauty. The child was doing everything she could to take Kaden down, but it was useless. Minutes passed, and Senora found herself scanning the air and what she could see of the ground for Ethan and Ty.
Where were they?
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she gave up looking around and let her eyes settle on the sky behind her. They were there, just a few feet away and beneath them, taking advantage of Emma’s distraction. Ethan was almost to her, and Ty was riding on his back, arms outstretched, an enormous hunting knife in his hand.
I’m going to die, she thought, bracing herself for whatever they had in mind.
Ty’s eyes were focused, his body rigid and ready to strike. As they got closer, he stood up and balanced o
n Ethan’s back as if they weren’t hundreds of feet in the air. Did he think wolves could fly? Or could a shifter just turn into anything they wanted to?
She didn’t have to wait long for her answer.
Ethan was directly beneath her now, and Ty’s hand was on her arm.
“We’ve got you,” he said over Kaden roaring in frustration at Emma.
“Emma?”
“She saw us. She knows what she’s doing. I need you to wrap your arms around Ethan’s neck and hold on, got it?”
She nodded, doing as she was told. She had to arch her back to get her arms around him, her face pressed against the back of his head and her arms around the narrowest part of his neck. She didn’t know what Ty had planned, but she was scared.
In one smooth move, Ty jumped onto the other leg and stabbed upward, catching Kaden in his soft underbelly. The dragon shrieked and let go of Senora’s leg. She hung suspended in the air for one terrifying second before her body started falling. She held onto Ethan’s neck, and her legs fell hard onto the back of his neck. The force of it almost threw her beneath him, but she managed to wrap her legs around him in time to keep herself righted. She slowly worked her way down toward his back as the air filled with the deafening roars of an injured dragon, and Ethan began making his descent.
Senora watched in horror as the dragon bucked and twisted, trying to take out Ty. Ty held onto his back, not even a hint of fear on his face. Senora cried out to Ethan to help Ty, but Ethan ignored her and headed for the ground. She held on, closing her eyes against it all, her arms and legs still wrapped tightly around his neck.
Their descent only took a few seconds, and Senora knew the instant they were on the ground. Ethan lowered himself quickly so that Senora was touching the ground, and she rolled off, too weak to do much more than that. Ethan leapt into the air and went back to Ty and Emma, joining the fight that still raged above her.
A man came out of nowhere and raced to her, his face covered with concern.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“You must be one of them,” she said, struggling to stay conscious.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” the man said, ignoring her.
“Why are you in the middle of the forest?”
“I’m looking for a missing park ranger,” the man said. She felt his hands go to her ankle and squeeze hard. “I have to stop the bleeding, then I’ll wrap you up.”
“Are you one of them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said a little too calmly.
“I know,” she said. “I know everything.”
He stopped, looking at her with an expression that was bemused.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said.
He went to work on her ankle, bandaging it up after washing and dressing it with some things out of his backpack. The instant it was wrapped and the blood stopped flowing, Senora felt a little better, and a lot less woozy. She was about to ask him again if he was one of them when she heard two dragons collide in the air above them.
There was another roar and a sound Senora couldn’t quite place. She followed the sound and watched in horror at the tangle of bodies falling toward the ground. The ranger grabbed her, pulling her onto her feet, then into his arms as he ran from the clearing and into the trees just before something hit the ground. The earth beneath them shook, the trees swayed in response, and then, there was silence.
Senora pulled away from the ranger, but he held fast and shook his head.
“He’s not dead.”
“Ethan?”
“That’s not Ethan.”
“Then it’s Kaden. Let me go.”
“You shouldn’t walk on that leg,” the ranger called out, but Senora was already hobbling toward Kaden.
His body seemed to be melting, his human features returning in smooth transitions as the last of his dragon features slipped away for the last time. The pained look on his face said everything Senora needed to know. Kaden was dying, and nothing any of them could do would save him.
She went to his side, sitting down just out of his reach. He looked at her, his eyes sad rather than angry.
“Why did you do it?” she asked. “Why are you trying to hurt your own kind?”
“I have to find Ava. Is she here?”
His voice was weak, and Senora could tell he was struggling.
“There’s no one here by that name,” Ethan said from behind her.
“Ava is here,” Kaden ground out. “They took her, before the change. They were bringing her here.”
Senora’s heart sank.
“Who is Ava?” Ethan asked.
Senora felt Ty’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her back, but she didn’t move. She knew that look, and suddenly, everything made sense.
“Ava is his daughter,” Senora said.
Kaden nodded.
“Who took your daughter?” Ethan asked, his previous anger turning to concern as they gathered around the dying dragon.
The ranger was there too, and Emma stood a short distance away, her wings hanging from her sides.
Senora shook her head. This was all too much, and the ranger didn’t seem to be even slightly shocked by it all. He had to be a shifter, but he still hadn’t said as much.
“They didn’t give their names. They’re not supposed to give their names. They had the right papers, so we assumed that they were the right people. We didn’t know it was the wrong people until the real Guardians showed up to get Ava the next week. By then, it was too late.”
“Why go after dragons?” Ethan asked. “If it wasn’t Guardians, then why not focus your efforts elsewhere? Someone is taking our children. That’s not our fault, right?”
Kaden looked at Ethan and opened his mouth, but only blood bubbled out. He spat and turned his head then tried again, but he began coughing, and Senora was afraid that he would never get the answer out. The ranger, Ty, and Ethan sat around him, intently waiting for his answer. So little was known about the people behind the kidnapping of the dragon changelings that any new information could be the key to unlocking the case. But he was choking now, and Senora knew that it was hopeless. He was dying, and there was nothing they could do.
His eyes closed, and his head drooped to the side, though he was still breathing. Ethan shook him, his face frantic, but it was no use.
“He’s gone,” Ty said.
“He’s not dead, and he knows something,” Ethan said. “What if he knows the one thing that will blow this wide open? We can’t let him take this to his grave. He knows something, and he’s spent his life secretly destroying his own kind for what? There has to be a reason.”
“…the flu,” Kaden croaked out without opening his eyes.
“What?” Senora said, looking down and realizing that at some point, she’d taken his hand in hers and squeezed him reassuringly by instinct as he lay dying.
She squeezed him again, and he squeezed back. He opened his eyes then, holding her gaze and smiling softly at her. He licked his lips and took a deep breath through his nose. She leaned forward and put her ear close to his mouth so that she could hear him better as the rest of the group stood there waiting.
“The password is ‘Lilith’,” he said weakly.
“What about the ones who came to get Ava?” she asked, filing away the password for when they might need it.
He obviously figured that they would encounter something of his with a password, and Lilith was easy enough to remember.
“They flew,” he said, just a little louder this time, but clear as day.
She gasped and sat up, certain of what she’d heard but shocked none the less. He groaned, and his head fell back. Eyes wide open, his head tilted, and the rest of the blood drained from his mouth and splashed loudly on the hard ground.
His hand went limp in hers, and she knew that he was gone. She stared down at him, her emotions raw and so mixed up that she didn’t know how to feel. Here was a man who had spent his life’s
work hunting dragons, but in the end, he’d only being trying to find his own daughter. Could she blame him for the things he’d done to accomplish that? Would anyone really blame him?
A look around the circle that surrounded him said what she believed. They all hurt for him and his fight, even though he’d hurt so many in his bid to find his daughter. Maybe they wouldn’t do the same thing, but they could understand his pain and how it drove him to do things he might not normally do.
All eyes were on her as she reached out and gently closed his eyes with her fingertips.
“What did he say?” Ethan pressed, and she realized that no one had heard him except her.
“He said when they left with his child, they flew.”
The others sucked in a quick breath as one, and she knew that they all had the same thought. Whoever had taken Ava was a dragon, which meant that whatever was going on went deep. It still didn’t explain how Emma ended up in the hands of human men working for the Gate Keeper, but Senora knew that each piece of the puzzle would bring them closer to the full picture. For now, she was more confused than ever, but at least Kaden’s part in all this was solved. He was a victim who had let his anger drive him to do horrible things. Senora wouldn’t go so far as to say he was innocent, but she had seen parents do things they would never consider when the life of their child was involved.
Senora stood, then grimaced as her leg twisted beneath her and the pain shot through her body. Before she could sit back down, Ty was at her side, his arm around her to steady her.
“You need to stay off that leg,” Ty said, but Senora shook her head.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” she lied.
“Please,” Ty scoffed. “You looked like you were going to pass out when you put weight on it. How bad is it?”
“She’s not going to need stitches, but you’ll have to keep it bandaged for a while,” the ranger offered.
“We need to leave,” Ty said. “Maybe we can have one of the dragons fly us out after dark.”
“I’ll take you,” Ethan said.
“We can’t leave yet,” Senora said.
