Rock Bottom (Dragon Within #4)

by Dune, Kyra

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A four hour hike led us up the slope of the mountainside and deeper into the forest. No one said a word, which was fine by me. Talking would only deepen the tension. Silence was usually how we handled it when things got real dicey. I guess we were all kind of caught up in our own thoughts.

  I was worried about Derek and Zack. Yeah, I know, I had more important things going on that should have come out on top of my list of things to worry over, but I’ve never been the big picture kind of girl. In that moment I was less concerned about the danger of following Megara than I was about my brother and the guy I was in love with getting into a serious fight.

  Sure, they’d argued before. Lots. Once they even got in a fistfight and I had to use my power over air to separate them. But I’d hoped things between them would get better as time passed. They hadn’t.

  I wouldn’t have believed it possible before, but I was starting to think they were actually getting worse. And if it came down to a real fight, water versus fire, I knew how it would end. And then what? My brother would be dead and I would never be able to look at Zack the same way. I’d lose them both and I couldn’t stand the thought.

  We stepped out of the trees and into a narrow clearing facing a sheer rock wall. Megara turned and waved at a tree. Before I could ask her what she was doing, a section of the wall slid away with a hiss like in one of those science fiction movies. Not that I’m into that kind of stuff, but I’d watched a few of them with Curtis and it was the kind of noise those doors on spaceships always make.

  “Awesome,” Curtis said, training his camcorder on the door.

  Megara stepped into the tunnel beyond. I started to follow. Zack grabbed my wrist and pulled me back. “I’ll go first. You stay with Derek.”

  I started to say something sharp, but caught myself at the last moment. He made a good point even if he was being really annoying. If trouble lay ahead, Zack was way better equipped to deal with it than I was.

  The tunnel was lit with lights set way up near the ceiling behind metal grating. I expected the walls to be stone. Instead, I found them to be solid concrete. How had Megara managed to set this up?

  When we left the tunnel, we entered a circular room which was empty except for a blonde guy sitting behind a desk staring at an outdated computer. He looked at us with a frown. “Who are these other people?”

  “Never you mind about that,” Megara said. “Just open the door, Tim.”

  He scowled, adjusted his wire rim glasses, and punched a few letters on his keyboard. The door beside the desk slid open with that same hissing sound. I don’t know about you, but I was finding all this to be way weirder than I was comfortable with.

  “Are there other people here?” I asked. The tunnel beyond the door sloped downward. “Are we going underground?”

  “Yes, to both,” Megara replied.

  “The other people,” Hannah said, “are they dragons?”

  “They are. Renegades.”

  “And how are they going to feel about Abby?” Derek asked.

  Megara glanced at us over her shoulder. “These people are here because they sympathize with our cause. Some of them are even hybrids. Young ones, though, not into their powers yet. Their families brought them here to keep them safe.”

  I stumbled over my own feet and it’s a good thing Derek caught hold of my arm or I’d have done a face plant onto the concrete.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. But I wasn’t. Not completely. The thought of young hybrids here, with their families, made me feel... I don’t know. Too much. If only my parents had a place like this to go to, maybe they would still be alive. It was so unfair these kids I didn’t even know got to keep their families while mine was torn apart. A terrible, selfish thought, I know, but I couldn’t help it.

  At the end of the hall was yet another door. This one opened onto a ledge with a railing around it which looked out over a cafeteria style room filled with people. A panicky feeling fluttered in the center of my chest. I tried to back up, but Brandy and Curtis were right behind me.

  “Don’t be shy girl.” Megara grasped my wrist and pulled me forward. “Everybody is waiting to meet you.”

  “What? No.” Pulling out of her viselike grip proved impossible. “This is not... I don’t want...”

  “Attention, everyone, please,” Megara called out, raising her free hand. The crowd below fell silent as forty some odd pair of eyes looked up at us. I swear my stomach dropped clear to my feet.

  “Here she is, Abigail Freeman. Just like I promised.” Megara gestured to me like we were on one of those TV game shows and I was the prize.

  I won’t lie, I kind of felt like throwing up. Or else pushing Megara over the railing. She might have warned me she was going to do this, but then I might not have come so easily if she had.

  Someone started to clap and the rest of the room joined in. The sound was like muted thunder. I cast a panicked look at Megara. “What did you tell these people about me?”

  “Only the truth.” She started toward the stairs, her fingers still wrapped around my wrist. “It’s time to address your adoring public.”

  I planted my feet and grasped the railing. “No. Please, I don’t want to do this right now.”

  “Don’t be a child,” she said, “these people need to meet you.”

  “She said no.” Zack laid his hand on Megara’s arm. “Let her go.”

  Their gazes locked. I didn’t think for one minute she was afraid of him, even though the tension in his body fairly radiated threat. But trouble right then wasn’t what she wanted and I guess she could see if she refused, trouble was exactly what she was going to get.

  Megara released her hold on me. She even smiled, though it was a tight thing that never touched her eyes. “Fine. If all this is a little much for Abigail at the moment, I suppose it can wait a bit. I’ll take you to my office so we can talk in private. Then you’ll understand.”

  Zack stayed close to my side as we followed Megara down the stairs. I was a little scared that, as we crossed the far side of the room, all those people might crowd in trying to get close to me like I was some kind of celebrity, or something. The thought made the panic butterflies flutter harder.

  But they didn’t come anywhere near us. They just kept clapping, and I really wished they would stop because it made me think whatever Megara had told them was most certainly not the truth. Otherwise they wouldn’t be reacting to me this way.

  I didn’t breathe easy until we’d left the cafeteria room behind. This new hall was much larger than the others. Two good sized trucks could have easily driven through it side by side. Zack, who’d been so close to my side we were almost touching, moved away from me. I immediately missed the comfort of his nearness.

  “What is this place?” Derek asked.

  “It’s appears to be governmental,” Brandy said. “Some sort of military base?”

  “Smart girl,” Megara said. “It’s been abandoned a good long while, judging by the state it was in when I came here, but I managed to get a couple of the generators running and it makes a right nice little hideaway.”

  “You aren’t concerned someone from the government might discover you’ve taken over one of their installations?” Brandy asked.

  Megara shrugged. “I’ve been here going on six years and nobody has come snooping around yet.”

  “So you set this place up as a kind of safe house for renegades,” Hannah said. “That’s cool.”

  “It wasn’t my plan,” Megara said. “When I left Ireland, I was like Abigail. Young. Scared. On the run. I spent a lot of years looking over my shoulder. Seemed like every time I tried to settle in one place, something would spook me and I’d be gone again.

  “Then I stumbled across this rundown hotel owned by a man named Malcolm Bryce. A water dragon of Scottish stock raised up in Ireland. Not a renegade either, but one who had been allowed to break with his clan and go off on his own. But the man has a renegade heart. H
e was the one who put me on to this place.”

  “How did you find Abigail?” Zack asked.

  In case you’re wondering about my silence, truth is I was more than happy to let anybody but me be the one to ask the questions right then.

  “Malcolm has kept in touch with certain people back home who are sympathetic to our cause. About six months after I got settled in here, they caught wind of a certain young spirit dragon who can sense any hybrid from any clan in the world coming into their powers. You can imagine how dangerous that would be in the wrong hands. His folks were worried for him, so it was arranged to send him here to me. He’s how I found Abigail.”

  We entered a small office crowded with a desk and a row of filing cabinets. It was empty of anything personal expect for a picture of a smiling, redheaded woman hanging on the wall. She looked enough like Megara that I could guess it was her mother. It was weird to see it there because it forced me, for the first time, to realize Megara was an actual person. I’d been thinking about her the way most dragons would think about me, as a hybrid and nothing more. But she had a family and a life that had probably been harder than mine since she’d been running from trackers for almost as long as I’d been alive.

  Sitting on the edge of the desk was a man about Derek’s age. He smiled when we came into the room, but it seemed to be a smile directed solely at me. “Is this her?”

  “Yes, it is,” Megara said. “Abigail, I’d like you to meet Jonah Hennessy, the spirit dragon I was telling you about.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand.

  I shook it, smiling uneasily back at him. He was cute in a way totally different from Zack. More boy-next-door kind of cute, if you know what I mean. Dark red hair, soft brown eyes, and this little sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of his nose. But the biggest difference between them was his smile. It lit up his entire face.

  What? Don’t look at me like that. Just because I was in love with Zack doesn’t mean I stopped noticing cute guys. But the way he was looking at me made me feel that same flutter of nerves as the clapping had.

  “Did you tell her why she’s here?” Jonah asked.

  Something less than the absolute certainty she’d shown so far flickered across Megara’s face. “I thought I’d let her settle in a bit before I weighed her down with the details.”

  “No,” I said. And then of course everyone was staring at me. I guess because I’d been quiet for so long. “I said I’d let you tell me what you wanted in your own time, but I changed my mind. Those people,” I gestured vaguely at the door, “changed it for me. I want to know what it is you told them. What it is they’re expecting from me. I think I deserve that.”

  Megara eyed me silently a moment. “Fair enough.” She moved around to take a seat behind her desk. “I’m not the hiding under a rock sort. As I’m sure you’ve noticed. These people aren’t here solely to be protected. I plan on making a protest against the laws that call for people like us to be killed at birth and I’ll need help to do it. That’s where you come in. Another hybrid at the helm alongside me can only increase our chance of success.”

  “Protest?” Brandy raised a brow. “Don’t you mean rebel? Or isn’t it an army you’re building here?”

  “Like I said,” Megara smiled thinly, “a smart girl.”

  “I simply believe in calling a thing out for what it is,” Brandy replied, meeting Megara’s hard gaze without flinching. “No point in trying to sugar coat the situation.”

  “Don’t we have a right to rebel?” Megara asked. “Don’t we deserve a future? Abigail, wouldn’t you like a family some day? No matter how far you run or how deep you go, a child would be your undoing. They’d find you. Hunt you. Kill you, if they could manage it.

  “And if you escaped, then what? Raise a child on the run, always looking over your shoulder, waiting to make that one fatal mistake, the way your parents did? Because if you have any future ahead, that’s all there is for you. That or being alone. And that’s no way to be. Trust me.

  “So long as the law remains as it is, there’s no safe place for the likes of us. Not even here. Not forever. There will be no end of it. Not for you. Not for me. Not for any hybrid. Not unless we make an end.”

  Her words hit me hard. How could they not? They were my worst and darkest fears exposed to the light. “But what do you expect me to do? I can’t fight. I don’t know how.”

  “You need training is all.”

  Zack stiffened. “She’s had training.”

  “From you?” Megara laughed. “Please. You’re nothing but a killer playing at being a hero. I’m the only one who can train her the way she needs to be trained.”

  “I don’t want to fight,” I said, verbally stepping between them before she and Zack could start up an argument. “I didn’t come here to get in the middle of a rebellion.”

  “Then why did you come?” Megara asked. “Why bother seeking me out in the first place, if all you want is a rock to put your head under?”

  “Because I... I do want training. I do want to learn how to control my powers. How to...” I shifted my feet. “How to suppress them. I want my old life back.” There, I’d said it. Something I’d barely let myself even think about. I wanted out. Out of this whole business of being a dragon. I wanted all of it to go away like a bad dream. And I wanted her to make it happen.

  “You mean your human life.” Megara shook her head. “Can’t be done. You’re not a human, girl. You’re a dragon. A hybrid. You can’t change that. You can learn to control your powers for certain, but you can’t make them disappear.

  “Every dragon’s powers are tied into their emotions to an extent, but not like with us. With hybrids, emotion and power are so tightly wound you can’t separate one from the other. That’s what makes us so dangerous. So feared. No other kind of dragon can ever be as powerful as a hybrid can.”

  Jonah slid off the edge of the desk. “Don’t you think you might be pushing her a little hard? Every word you’re saying might be true, but she’s only a kid. Maybe you could give her a bit of room to breathe. It’s a big thing you’re asking of her, after all. And she hasn’t even agreed as to whether or not she’ll stay. Might want to ask her.”

  A nerve twitched in Megara’s jaw. She rubbed the spot between her eyes. “Are you of a mind to stay?”

  It was such an important question I didn’t think it would be right of me to answer for all of us. I know, I was all set to do things my way and only my way just a little while ago back at the cabin, but I was feeling unsure of myself again. I wanted someone I trusted to tell me what to do.

  I turned to my friends. “What do you guys think?”

  “I don’t like this situation in the least,” Brandy said. “But you do need training. And though Zack has been doing a fairly adequate job, I expect Megara has a better understanding of your... powers. It may be she can help you.”

  Derek nodded. “I agree. Besides this is a safe place for all of us. At least for the time being.”

  “I’m all for not going back to the cabin,” Hannah said. “A girl could go crazy in a place like that.”

  Curtis shrugged. “You know it makes no difference to me. Wherever you go, I go.”

  I glanced at Zack. “What about you?”

  “Does it matter what I think? Sounds to me like you’ve had your mind made up for you.”

  Wow. Kind of harsh, huh? So Zack was mad again. Nothing new about that. “I make up my own mind,” I said, “but after everything we’ve been through together I guess we’re kind of like a family. And that means everybody gets a say. Even you.”

  Something flashed through his eyes, but it was there and gone before I could figure out what it might be. “What do I care? I was getting tired of trying to train you anyway.”

  I turned away so he wouldn’t see how his words hurt me. “So it’s settled. We stay.”

  “Good,” Megara said, “Jonah will show you to your room. It’ll be a bit crowded, I imagine. I was o
nly planning on Abigail. But after living in that cabin you’ll likely settle in all right. I’ll give you some time to think over what I’ve said. I need you to have control of your powers before you’ll be of any use to me anyway.”

  I couldn’t decide whether I should be glad she was giving me time to think, or insulted that she considered me to be useless.

  We all filed out of the office after Jonah, who led us through the bunker to a room that in a way kind of reminded me of the cabin. It had better, and more, furniture, but it was still only two rooms. No kitchen, so I supposed we were expected to eat in the cafeteria. But it did have running water in the bathroom and after having spent so much time taking cold baths, I was looking forward to a hot shower. You don’t know how important a thing like that is until you have to live without it.

  “I’ll see about getting you some more cots.” Jonah eyeballed the bedroom. “I’d bet we can fit six of them in fine.”

  “Five,” Zack said. “I’m not staying here.”

  I tried to catch his eye, but he cut his gaze away from mine. “What are you talking about? Are you... are you going to leave?” That little flutter of panic got ten times stronger. It was like my chest was full of birds trying to break out of their cage.

  “I want a different room,” he said, still not looking at me. “That’s all. Something private.”

  Jonah shrugged. “There are some barracks on the other side of the bunker. Tiny, but they’d do for a single person. Most of the people here are families.”

  It was right on the tip of my tongue to ask him why he didn’t want to stay with us. I could hear in my head the needy tone that would be in my voice if I let myself ask him that question. I didn’t want him to hear it too. So I pressed my mouth shut to stop the words. And when he left with Jonah, I pretended not to care.