Rock Bottom (Dragon Within #4)

by Dune, Kyra

  A few seconds passed in silence. “What about the rest of your friends?”

  I silently debated whether it would be better to lie or tell the truth. I really wished somebody smarter than me was around to tell me what to do. “They’re not here. They went into town. It’s only me and Zack.”

  “Fine.” I thought I heard a hint of hesitation in his voice, but I wasn’t sure. “You come out then. But don’t try anything.”

  I stepped out through the hole in the wall. A half dozen people were spread out behind the cabin. Five men and one woman. I knew who had done the talking the moment I saw him. “Rick.” He looked exactly as I remembered. Movie star good looks. Built like one of those guys in a bodybuilder magazine. But the friendly light that used to shine in his eyes was gone.

  I paused, eyeing the rather large handgun he was pointing at me. He wasn’t a dragon, so he had no powers to confront me with. But a gun did a fine job of evening things up between us.

  “Surprised to see me?” he asked.

  “Yeah." I was in trouble and I knew it. The others were dragons, I had no doubt about that. Maybe they were battle trained trackers and maybe they weren’t, but either way I was outnumbered and outmatched. My control over my powers was improving. But not enough for me to take on so many of them by myself.

  He glanced past me. “Zack, if you can hear me you better come out or I’m going to put a bullet in your girl. I can’t kill her, but I can hurt her.”

  “I told you, he’s...” If I said dead one more time I was going to burst into tears. “He was knocked out. He can’t hear you.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Rick said. “Bret, you go in there and check.”

  One of the guys took a step forward, then stopped. He looked a little older than Zack, maybe twenty one or so. He glanced at Rick. He glanced at me. Then he squared his shoulders and walked toward the cabin, taking a wide track around me. The whole time he kept watching me out of the corner of his eye. Sweat beaded his upper lip. And that was when I realized something amazing. He was afraid of me. Of me, not Zack, though he probably wasn’t too happy about dealing with him either if he knew about all the dead bodies back in California.

  I looked at the other dragons. None of them would meet my eye. Only Rick, who knew me as Abigail Freeman, the sixteen year old girl who was way out of her depth. The others only saw a hybrid. To them I was the boogeyman come to life.

  Bret was gone all of two minute before coming back out. “She was telling the truth. Zack’s down. The cabin is empty.”

  “Is Zack dead?” Rick asked.

  My breath caught in my chest as I waited on the answer.

  “No,” Bret said. “Do we want to take him back with us?”

  I let my breath out in a whoosh. Even with the danger we were still in, I felt immense relief knowing Zack was alive. I only hoped he wasn’t hurt too badly.

  Rick stared at me for a long moment, before answering Bret without taking his eyes off mine. “Kill him.”

  No thought whatsoever crossed my mind. Which was a good thing, because thoughts brought hesitation and doubt. My powers worked better without those. I spun toward Bret, wrapped a band of air around his waist, and lifted him off his feet. He had time for one short shout before I flung him away from the cabin. He hit the ground and rolled into the trunk of a nearby tree.

  A gunshot rocked the silence. I tensed, expecting to feel some kind of terrible pain. When nothing happened I slowly turned to see Rick pointing the gun straight up into the air. He lowered the barrel at me.

  “That was a warning shot. It’s the only one you’re going to get. The next bullet that comes out of this gun is going in your leg.”

  I was scared. I want you to understand that. And I’m not talking about horror movie or nightmare scared, no I’m talking about the kind of scared that makes all your guts go loose and your legs start to shaking. I’d only felt scared like that once before in my life. When Alice had me pinned under a shield of air and I knew I was going to die.

  “You better put that bullet in my head instead, because you are not killing Zack.” I really have no idea how I managed to stand there sounding so sure and firm when it felt like all my insides were nothing but jelly.

  “Nothing would make me happier than to do exactly that,” Rick said. “But I have my orders. So don’t be stupid. Zack is going to die whether you come along easy or not. We’ll call it justice. You killed my wife, I kill your boyfriend. It all evens out.”

  “That was self defense,” I said. “Alice attacked me. She was going to kill me. I had a right to fight back. Zack is defenseless right now. Killing him would be murder. There’s a big difference.”

  “Don’t argue semantics with me,” Rick said. “I’m done talking. Are you going to come along peacefully, or do I shoot you?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not moving.” I could have hit him with a blast of air, but I didn’t know if the gun might go off. Besides, I was hoping if I didn’t make any aggressive moves the other dragons wouldn’t attack me.

  “Fine. Have it your way.” He took aim at my left leg.

  A fireball slammed into the ground between us, knocking everybody off their feet. I thought it must be Derek and I couldn’t have been happier to see him. But when I pushed myself up to my knees, it wasn’t my brother I was looking at.

  “All this time and you’re still helpless as a newborn kitten,” Megara said in her faintly lilting accent.

  I struggled to my feet. “I am not helpless. I... I was outnumbered is all.”

  She snorted, looking through the flames at our enemies. “Pitiful group that. They didn’t even bother to send veteran trackers. And a human leading them? Tsk. You clearly aren’t doing much for our image girl. We’re supposed to be fearsome monsters, or didn’t you know?”

  “I know.” I dusted myself off. Beyond the fire, Rick and the others were also recovering. “You aren’t going to kill them. Are you?”

  “Why not?” she asked. “They’d as soon kill us.”

  “Killing them proves their point,” I said. “Are we monsters?”

  Megara laughed. “Oh, you’re such a young thing.” She leaned toward the flames. “Boo!” Adding a little gust of wind to the word was all that was needed to get the enemy running.

  Rick paused to look back at me with such an expression of hatred on his face it made me shiver, before he too was gone.

  “They’ll tell Alastair where we are.” Megara turned around. “So, I guess we better leave right now.” The air stirred around us. Last time we met, she whirled off on a tornado, so I thought that was probably what she had in mind for us.

  “Wait a minute.” I backed up. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I have– Oh! Zack.” I spun around and raced back into the cabin.

  I stumbled across the debris at the hole in the wall, but managed to keep my footing. Glass littered the floor and I crunched my way through it, confident my sneakers would protect my feet. I crouched down beside Zack and carefully rolled him over onto his back. He had a cut on his cheek that had already stopped bleeding, but other than that he looked okay. I figured he must have hit his head and that’s what knocked him out.

  Nothing is more frightening than to realize someone you love, someone you thought of as this indestructible force, is as vulnerable as anybody else. I brushed the hair back from his forehead. “Please wake up.”

  “Worrying over a tracker?” Megara stepped up behind me. “You’re wasting your time on him, girl. They’re all the same. Killers. We’re going now.”

  “No.” I looked up at her. “I’m not leaving here without Zack and the rest of my friends.”

  Megara smiled in an unpleasant kind of way. “I could make you.”

  “I guess you could.” I stood. “But if you wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead and I don’t think you’re here because you care what happens to me. So that only leaves you wanting something from me. Whatever it is, you’re not going to get it by force. So you c
an agree to wait for my friends or you can leave.”

  “Well, now, there’s a spark of spunk I like to see,” Megara said. “Fine. We’ll wait. But I can’t carry so many. I hope your friends won’t mind a long hike.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I sat beside Zack on a sleeping bag, waiting for him to open his eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever been so worried about anyone in my life. My stomach was all queasy like I needed to throw up and I had this little knot of pain sitting right between my eyes.

  If you’re wondering how we got from the living room to the bedroom, it went like this: Derek and the others got back to the cabin maybe forty minutes after the attack. It might have been a little longer, I’m not sure. Anyway, he was not at all happy to see the blasted wall nor to hear about Rick and the gun. But he was even less happy to see Megara. Which I thought was weird seeing as how we’d come all the way to Oregon specifically to find her.

  Megara wanted to leave as soon as they got there. I had the feeling she really didn’t want to take Zack with us even though she didn’t say as much. Derek didn’t want to go at all and I wasn’t too surprised when Brandy backed him up. Hannah let them know how stupid they were being, in not so nice words, while Curtis hung back videotaping the whole thing.

  As for me, I’d already decided Megara was my best chance at not getting killed. I surprised everyone, including myself, when I put down my foot and told them in no uncertain terms we were going with Megara but not until Zack was well enough to walk. Then I roped my brother into helping me move Zack into the bedroom, after which I shooed him away and shut the door.

  I was terrified something might be seriously wrong with Zack. Like maybe something in his brain was hurt and he was in a coma. It made me feel like screaming and crying all at the same time. I already knew I was in love with him, but it wasn’t until he got hurt I really understood what that meant.

  He could have died when he hit the wall. Or Bret could have killed him without bothering to come out and ask Rick first. Those things hadn’t happened, but the possibility of them weighed on me.

  Death used to be this distant thing. Something that only happened to really old people, or sick people, or people I didn’t know. Then I had to kill Alice, who I thought was my friend, and everything changed in ways I couldn’t have imagined. The way I viewed the world changed. Finding out I was a dragon was huge, but realizing I was capable of killing someone was so much bigger.

  I had thought nothing could be bigger than that. Then Kyle got shot. He wasn’t my friend, really, I only hung out with him because of Brandy. But I liked him okay and more, I knew him. And he died. He was killed. For no reason at all. Those people were after me and he just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  After that, anyone I knew could die. That should have been firmly embedded in my brain, right? No. Not Zack. Not until I saw him lying on the floor and I couldn’t tell whether or not he was breathing. I had to think he might be dead before my brain could even imagine the possibility.

  Zack’s eyelids fluttered and I had to bite my lower lip hard to stop all the things I was feeling from spilling out. I dug my fingernails into my palms and fought to hold myself right where I was.

  I wanted nothing more than to throw myself at Zack and wrap my arms around him, but I knew I couldn’t do that. For one thing, I might hurt him, and for another he might not even want me to do something like that. I hadn’t forgotten how he said our kiss was a mistake.

  “What...” He moaned. “What happened?”

  My fingers twitched. “We were ambushed. It was Rick and some dragons. Trackers I think. They blew a hole in the wall and you were in the way. Does your head hurt?”

  “Yeah.” He slowly sat up. “But I’ll live.” He looked me over. “You okay?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Oh.” Zack pressed his hand to the side of his head. “Derek swoop in to save the day?”

  How do you like that? He hadn’t been awake ten seconds and he was already insulting me. I guess everything in his head was working all right. “Maybe I took care of them myself.” Have you ever noticed how sometimes relief can come out of you like anger? “You don’t know. You were unconscious.”

  He gave me this ‘come on tell me the truth’ kind of look and I felt my face start to heat up. “It was Megara,” I said. “She showed up just in time to stop Rick from shooting me. Satisfied?”

  “Megara is here?” Zack jumped to his feet, only to sway a little like maybe he was about to fall back down.

  I started to reach out to steady him, but he stepped away from me before I could. “She’s in the other room," I said. "Maybe you should rest awhile longer. You hit your head pretty hard.”

  “I’m fine.” He marched to the door and threw it open. What else could I do but follow him?

  Derek and Megara stood face to face like a couple of boxers about to go at it. “We have absolutely no reason to trust you,” Derek said.

  “So what are you doing here then? With all the places you could have gone in the whole wide world, you can’t expect me to believe you came to these mountains by chance.” Megara smirked. “You were looking for me, but I knew you were here already. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. Good thing I was, or you’d have lost your sister today.”

  “What is it you want from Abigail?” Zack asked. This earned him a sarcastic smile from Megara and a glare from Derek.

  “We’re the same, she and I,” Megara said. “Our kind must stick together.”

  “She was meant to kill you,” Zack said. A fact which I did not believe needed pointing out.

  “And you were meant to kill her,” Megara countered. Another little something which would have been better left out of the conversation. “And yet here you are. So what’s your point?”

  “Wait a minute,” Derek said. “Zack was meant to do what?”

  I stared hard at Megara. “How did you know that?”

  “I know a great many things, girl. How do you think I managed to live so long when every clan in the world would like nothing better than to see me dead?” She glanced at Zack. “Why else would Alastair send a tracker after you? Killing is all they’re good for.”

  “What is she talking about?” Derek asked. The look he gave me clearly demanded an answer.

  I sighed. As if Derek needed another reason not to trust Zack. “If I managed to do what my grandfather wanted and kill Megara, then Zack was supposed to kill me.”

  “And you don’t think that’s something you should have shared with the rest of us?”

  “Why? Zack helped us out of the compound. He saved your life and went against his own father to do it. Or did that slip your mind? It doesn’t matter what he was supposed to do.”

  Derek’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Of course it matters. How do you know this wasn’t all part of the plan? Maybe he was supposed to bring us here all along. Maybe the escape from the compound was all an act. He knew how to find Megara’s general location, didn’t he?”

  “Whoa, dude,” Hannah said, “paranoid much? Did you forget the beach house? If Alastair wanted us here, then why send guys to kidnap Abby?”

  If I had been closer to Hannah I would have hugged her. It was so nice to have someone on my side for a change. “She’s right. You’re not making any sense.”

  “Those people could have been sent by our mother’s clan. We don’t know they’re working with Alastair. We don’t know anything. Except that he,” Derek jabbed a finger at Zack, “has no good reason to be helping us. Think about it. He saved the life of the man who killed his mother. That is what makes no sense.”

  “Derek makes a good point,” Brandy said. “At the very least you should be willing to consider that perhaps Zack aided you in rescuing your brother simply to ingratiate himself with you.”

  “Well, I’m not,” I snapped. But in the back of my mind I was wondering why Zack was standing there saying nothing to defend himself. “I don’t want to hear any more of this. Do you
understand me?”

  Brandy shook her head. “You are being unreasonable.”

  “Maybe I am. But it doesn’t change a thing.” I squared my shoulders. “I trust Zack. As long as he wants to stay with us, he can. If anybody doesn’t like it, they can leave.”

  Stunned silence filled the room. My heart was thudding against my chest so hard I was sure everybody could hear it. Time was I wouldn’t have stood up to anybody like that. Especially Brandy. But times had changed and so had I.

  “And what about Megara?” Zack’s voice was soft. “Do you trust her?”

  I forced myself to meet Megara’s gaze as I spoke. She knew I was afraid of her, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t act like I wasn’t. “I’m desperate enough that it doesn’t matter. This place you want to take us, is it safe?”

  “No safer place for you and your friends in this world,” she said.

  I nodded. “Then it’s settled. We’ll come. And whatever it is you expect to get out of me... I guess you’ll tell me what it is when you’re ready.”

  Megara smiled. “That I will.”

  “Abby, I don’t think...”

  “I don’t care.” It was a hard thing for me to say to my brother. Harder still, was seeing the hurt look on his face. But what had happened with Rick was a near thing. They didn’t know. They weren’t there when it happened. They couldn’t understand how I felt when I thought Zack was dead.

  Megara had stepped in to keep me from being captured, but she’d saved Zack’s life in the process. I firmly believed that. If Rick had shot me, I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing to stop him from sending Bret back into the cabin. I wanted Zack safe. I wanted them all safe. And if I had to take a risk on Megara for that to happen, than I was willing to do so. No matter what it might cost me.