Rock Bottom (Dragon Within #4)

by Dune, Kyra

  The water moved into the correct form, but try as I might I couldn’t convince it to turn to ice. My face scrunched as I pushed harder, insisting the water do what I wanted it to do. And just like that I lost it. The drops fell to the earth. I sighed.

  “You’re doing well.” Jonah said, sliding down from the boulder. “Don’t be discouraged.”

  “I can’t help it. All this training and Megara is still wiping the floor with me. Literally. I would like to be able to hit her back once in awhile instead of defending until she breaks through.” The stream churned in response to my agitation.

  “So why don’t you?”

  I scoffed. “How? I can’t even make an icicle.”

  “All this time running, and you haven’t once had to fight to protect yourself?”

  “I have. I just...” I shifted my gaze from his. “It’s not something I like to think about.”

  “You need to think about it,” Jonah said. “Whatever is holding you back in your training with Megara, it’s not your powers. It something else.” His voice turned soft. “Tell me what happened.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can.” He rested his hands on my shoulders. “Are we not friends? Did I not tell you my deepest, most dangerous secret? You’re afraid. I can see it your eyes. And fear is the surest thing for holding you down. Whatever you got locked up inside your head, you need to let it out.”

  “You don’t understand.” I somehow found a way to meet his gaze. “I... I killed people. I didn’t mean to. But I did. My emotions took over and I reacted and two people died. I can’t... What if I try to fight back and I hurt Megara? What if I kill her? Or someone else?” I shrugged out from under his hands and paced away to face across the stream.

  “I could do it.” I crossed my arms. “I could kill someone.” The thought sent a shiver through me. “You’re right. I am afraid. I’ve been afraid ever since this thing started. And it doesn’t get any better.”

  “These two people you killed, were they threatening you?” Jonah asked.

  “Well, yeah, but--”

  “Have you ever hurt anyone who wasn’t threatening you?”

  “No, but --”

  “Stop with the buts,” Jonah said. “I can’t say as I know how it feels to take a life. I’ve never done it. But I think I’ve gotten to know you well enough to understand why you’re having so much trouble.”

  Jonah wrapped his arms around me from behind, which surprised and unnerved me a little, but was kind of nice too. Comforting. “You listen to me now,” he said. “What you did was what you had to do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel bad about it. You’d be a different kind of person if you could kill without it getting to you.

  “What I am saying is that you did nothing wrong. This is not a game we’re playing. Someone tries to kill you, then you have a right to try and kill them first. You don’t have to let Megara knock you around. Your gut knows she’s not trying to kill you. You’re not going to kill her either. I promise you that. Knocking her on her arse a time or too, that you might do. Might even do her some good.”

  I laughed. “Yeah? I’d like to see you say that to her face.”

  “Not me. I don’t fancy being thrown through a wall. But you,” he took my arms and gently turned me to face him, “could be a match for her. If you let go of the fear.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “I know. But I believe you can do it. Now if you would only believe in yourself.”

  I almost told him then, about giving his secret away to Zack. Only I didn’t. Because looking into his eyes I knew he meant what he said. I can’t imagine why, but he really did have faith in me. And I didn’t want to change that by revealing my betrayal. Besides, it was only Zack. He wasn’t going to tell Megara anything. I was sure of that.

  “I’m trying,” I said. “I really am. Megara’s stronger than me. I probably couldn’t kill her even if I wanted to, let alone by accident.”

  “That’s not exactly having faith in yourself,” Jonah said with a hint of amusement. “But if it’ll get you to where you can push back, then hold on to that thought. It’s a start.”

  After I left Jonah, I headed to the cafeteria to meet with my friends. I had a lot sitting on my mind. It’s funny how sometimes a person can say something to you that gets you to thinking in a way you haven’t done before.

  “Hey, guys,” I said as I sat at the table. A tray was already waiting there for me thanks to Brandy. Something I really appreciated, even though she always piled on way more food than I could actually eat.

  Everyone said hi back, but in this weirdly awkward kind of way that involved not looking directly at me. Everyone except for Brandy, that is. She looked at me all right, with her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. No hello from her, just this sort of noncommital noise in the back of her throat.

  I paused with a french fry already halfway to my mouth. “What’s wrong?”

  Brandy looked around the table. Nobody would look back at her. I slowly lowered my fry back to my plate. I hadn’t paid any attention to it at first, but they had gone silent when I arrived, as if my friends were talking about something they didn’t want me to hear. Or maybe they were talking about me. Uh oh.

  “No one is going to say anything?” Brandy asked.

  “Why don’t you chill and let the girl eat.” Hannah replied.

  “Okay, something is obviously wrong,” I said. “Someone tell me.” I looked at Hannah, since she was so quick to speak up. She picked at the bun of her burger. “Brandy?”

  “It comes as no surprise I should be the one to have to say this.” She wiped her mouth primly with her napkin, then placed it on the table next to her tray. “We’re concerned about your recent behavior.”

  “What?” My lips did one of those half smile things. “What are you talking about?”

  “This whole business of training,” Brandy said. “We understand your need to come under control of your... powers,” she always said the word like it left a bad taste in her mouth, “but this is getting a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?

  “We hardly ever see you anymore, save to watch you pick at your food. When you aren’t training, you’re sleeping. We fear this is becoming an unhealthy obsession. And we don’t much care to think of the influence Megara may be exerting over you.”

  “So, this is what you all think?” I looked around the table. “That I’m obsessed? Is this an intervention?”

  Derek cleared his throat. “I think obsessed might be too strong of a word, but yes, we are worried. Megara has an agenda. She wants to turn you into some kind of soldier. If she’s the only person you’re spending time with then she could be using that to influence you. Besides, all this training can’t be healthy for your body. We think you need to take a break before you make yourself sick.”

  “Hey, quit it with this ‘we’ stuff, all right?” Hannah twisted in her seat to face me. “I think it’s awesome you’re so into training. There are people out there right now who seriously want to kill you. If that’s not worth a little obsession, then I don’t know what is.”

  “Will you please stay out of this?” Brandy glared at her. “You don’t know Abigail like I do. You can’t see how she’s changed.”

  “I think I know her pretty well,” Hannah shot back. “I bet I even know a thing or two that you don’t.”

  My first thought was, god, Hannah was going to say something about the first time Zack kissed me. And that was something I did not need happening right then. “What do you mean I’ve changed?” I asked before Hannah could have a chance to say anything else.

  “You don’t talk to anyone anymore,” Brandy said. “Not even me. You sit here, you barely touch your food, you don’t string more than a handful of words together, and then you’re gone again. It’s not like you to ignore your friends. Have you even had a single conversation with your brother’s fiancé?”

  Stephanie, who was sitting at the far end of the table,
made a face like she really didn’t want to be dragged into the middle of this. Not that I can blame her. She didn’t even know me.

  “What do you want me to talk about?” I asked. “Shoes? Clothes? In case you hadn’t noticed, my life has gotten a little more complicated than it used to be. I would talk, sure, but nobody at this table wants to hear it. Especially you.

  “I mean seriously, Brandy, you want to sit over there and complain about how I don’t talk to you? Where’s the girl of a million questions? The girl I used to barely be able to have a conversation with without it turning into an interrogation? Not once have you asked me about training. Not once. Maybe I have changed, but I’m not the only one. I don’t talk to you anymore, because I can’t.”

  Brandy’s lips were pressed so tightly together they’d nearly disappeared. “If I’ve become such a terrible friend, then perhaps it’s time I left.”

  I almost said something terrible. Something I never could have taken back. I don’t know if Derek could see that and jumped in to stop me, or if it was just luck.

  “Nobody is leaving,” he said. “That kind of talk is not helpful. In fact, it’s downright dangerous considering the situation.”

  “I am human,” Brandy said. “I don’t have to worry about being murdered for a dissension in opinion. It might be for the best if Curtis and I went home. This is not our fight.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Curtis spoke softly, his gaze fixed on his plate. “I’m staying with Abby.”

  “Good for you, kid,” Hannah said. “As for Miss Brainiac over there, I say if she wants to leave, let her go. Wouldn’t nobody shed a tear for the loss.”

  “Do you ever stop talking?” Brandy asked. “This concerns Abigail and I, not you.”

  “Please. You’re sitting over there playing like you're all concerned. But everybody here knows the truth.” Hannah planted her elbows on the table. “Abby is stepping out of your shadow for the first time in her life and you can't handle it. That’s what this is really about. You’re afraid she’ll stop coming to you for every little thing and then you’ll have nobody to follow you around like a lost puppy.”

  Brandy laughed, but the lines around her eyes had pulled tight. “You are hardly the one to be trying to psychoanalyze me. There are four legged beasts with higher intellect than you possess.”

  “Was that supposed to be an insult?” Hannah asked. “Why don’t you try talking like a human being instead of a dictionary?”

  “As if you’ve ever read a dictionary.”

  “Enough!” I shouted the word, but that really wasn’t what caught everyone’s attention. No, what had people gasping and looking around uneasily was the fact that the floor was shaking so hard every dish in the room was rattling.

  I grasped the edged of the table and it vibrated between my fingers. One breath in. One breath out. The shaking stopped, but more than one person was now staring at me. “I have to meet with Megara.” I got up from my seat without looking at my friends. Then I walked out of the cafeteria.

  Once I was alone in the hall my hands started to tremble. Tears burned hot behind my eyes. This was not the best mood for me to take into my training session. “Not going to cry,” I muttered as I walked. “Crying helps nothing.”

  By the time I got to the training room, I’d managed to bring myself under control, but I still had this hard knot sitting right in the middle of my chest. I really didn’t want to train, but I knew Megara wouldn’t let me beg off. She wouldn’t even go easy on me. In fact, I suspected if I let her know I was upset she’d go at me even harder.

  She was waiting for me like always. I stepped in front of her and pulled up an air shield, again, like always. Even this had fallen into a kind of routine. Only my routine had been shaken up over and over that day, hadn’t it?

  Part of my brain was thinking about that when she threw the first fireball. It bounced harmlessly off my shield. The floor shook, so I gathered the air under my feet and lifted myself up, pulling my shield around me to form a bubble of protection as I did.

  Maybe what Jonah said was part of it, but I think it was mostly the stress I’d been through. I felt as if I’d done nothing all day but be emotionally pummeled. It made me want to do a little pummeling of my own. So when Megara threw the second fireball, I caught it with the air and twisted it around, sending it back at her.

  Surprise crossed her face about half a second before a section of the floor rose up in front of her. Fire crashed into cement and puffed out. “Well now,” she lowered the shield enough so I could see her face. “Feel like fighting today, do we? Good. Thrashing you is amusing, but it was getting a bit boring.”

  I’ll admit to letting my guard down. It was pride, you know. It made me feel good to see that look on her face. Made me feel like maybe I was getting better at controlling my powers than I’d realized. And you know what they say about pride, right?

  Chunks of stone pelted the bottom of my bubble, where the air was thinnest. One particularly large chunk busted through and struck my left ankle. Hard. I fell with a yelp, losing my shield as I did. But I’d barely hit the floor before I was pulling it back over me like an invisible blanket. I knew Megara wouldn’t give me the space to breathe.

  A third fireball slammed into my shield. But this one clung to the air, spreading out until I could feel the heat of the flames sinking through. Rain fell to douse the fire and it actually took me a confused minute to realize I had done that. I had pulled moisture directly out of the air and turned it into rain for the first time.

  I stood and the floor beneath me swirled into quicksand, swallowing my feet to the ankles before I could blink. Sharp pain raced up my left leg. I stared at Megara standing there smiling smugly at me and felt a flash of anger. I dropped my shield and pushed. With all my energy, all my will over the air, I pushed. My hair flew wildly around my head as a gust of wind rushed past me to slam into Megara. The push sent her flying back into the darkness on the far side of the room.

  A moment of worry tried to creep in, but I forced it down and focused on getting myself free instead. I wrapped a band of air around my waist and used it to yank myself up and out of the quicksand.

  Three feet above the floor, the band of air tightened painfully around my ribs. I tried to loosen it, only to find I no longer had it under my control. I lifted my head to see Megara striding out of the darkness. She smiled up at me. “I don’t know what brought all this on, but I must say I’m impressed. This is the way I expect a hybrid to behave.”

  I kicked my feet. “Let me go.”

  “Make me.”

  I grasped the wet earth of the quicksand, rolled into a half dozen balls, and solidified them. Then I lobbed these rounded missiles at Megara. She brought up an air shield without missing a beat. The balls slammed into it with a sound like rocks hitting glass, but they didn’t break through.

  “If I was wanting to, I could have crushed your ribs by now,” Megara said. “Your reactions are getting better, but you’re still too slow. A battle is a constant flow of back and forth. The first one to miss a beat is the first one to die.”

  The air released and I fell to the floor. My injured ankle screamed in protest. I pushed myself halfway up and glared at Megara. “Why can’t you take it a little easier on me? You’ve had your whole life to train for being a dragon. You can’t expect me to learn everything I need to know in a few weeks.”

  Megara’s smile faded. “You are a foolish child raised up in a world that’s made you useless. Someday, there won’t be anyone to swoop in and save you. You’ll be all alone with no one around you but people who want you dead. Do you think they’ll take it easy on you because you’re young and you don’t know what you’re doing?”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. Not for me.” I got to my feet, careful not to lay too much weight on my injured ankle. “I have a family. I have people who care about me. People who will stand by my side no matter what. It’s not me against the world. It’s us.” I only wished I reall
y still felt as sure of that as I tried to sound like I was.

  “What pretty words,” Megara said. “Naive and foolish, but pretty. Wait until the world falls down around your head. You think it has already? Ha! You don’t even know how bad it can get. You will. Such is the fate of a hybrid.” She turned toward the door. “Take some time off from training to let your ankle heal. You’re of no use to me if you’re crippled.”

  Her words rang inside my head long after she was gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Between my throbbing ankle, guilt over my imminent betrayal of Jonah’s trust, and the haunted echo of Megara’s parting words dancing up and down the halls of my mind, I didn’t get any sleep at all that night.

  I’d planned to nap for a bit before it was time to meet up with Zack. Instead, I lay there in the dark listening to the sound of my friends breathing and wondering how much more I could take without totally losing my mind.

  Once I was as certain as I could be that everyone except me was sound asleep, I threw back the covers and swung my legs over the edge of the cot. I’d kept my clothes on so I wouldn’t have to try dressing without any light. But my sneakers I had taken off and tucked up under the cot.

  I reached for them and for a panicked moment my fingers met nothing but air. I could have gone barefoot, but the idea never occurred to me. I guess sometimes a person can get so used to doing something, like wearing her shoes when she goes out, that she can’t even imagine not doing it.

  My sneakers were there, a little further to the right than I had thought. I pulled them out and then promptly put the first one on the wrong foot. If this was an indication as to how the rest of this thing was going to go, it was going to be a long night.