Roaring

by Lindsey Duga

  I took up my post in the passenger seat while Colt steered the car to the end of the gates. The sound of the tires over pebbles echoed across the empty church grounds and I watched the chapel as we drove slowly by. The stained-glass angels seemed to glow, and I wondered if candles had been lit within the sanctuary.

  Folding my hands in my lap, I closed my eyes and sent a silent prayer. Lord, please forgive me for what I’ve done. I never meant to manipulate Sister Adaline. And please protect Marion, Kenneth, and Eugene.

  A hand closed around mine on my lap, and I opened my eyes. Colt glanced at me and gave me a small smile. I twisted my fingers into his and felt the tempest inside me quell a little.

  At least he was here with me. And yet it felt like another thing I had to pray for. I’m sorry, Lord, that I’m not strong enough to do this on my own.

  Perhaps God had sent me the man in the fedora yesterday as a warning. To tell me that if I continued along this path with Colt then he would meet the same end as that man’s son.

  I was still staring at our entwined hands when Colt stopped at the end of the church driveway. I looked up, expecting to see oncoming traffic from the road, but instead found Sister Adaline striding toward us, clutching an envelope.

  Colt shifted into park and rolled down the window as the abbess approached the car.

  She handed Colt the envelope, her eyes focused on him and avoiding mine. My heart sank even lower. “I have a contact up in New York. A chemist. His name is Dr. Durwich. He might be able to spin up a vaccine, or maybe even an antidote, for Gin’s new chimera agent using the samples I collected. I’ve included a small vial and the blood smears in here. Be careful with them.”

  Colt took the envelope, opened his jacket, and slipped it into his inside pocket. “Thank you, Sister.”

  She turned to leave when I spoke up, not wanting to leave her like this. “I’m sorry, Sister. Please, forgive me, I—”

  “God forgives you, Eris, and so does his Son,” she said stiffly, her gaze finally meeting mine, “but I am having trouble.”

  She turned and walked back toward the church. Numb, I pressed myself into the passenger seat as Colt turned onto the main road.

  Colt followed the directions that Father Clarence had written down for him, while I just sat there, wallowing in self-hatred and disgust.

  All my life, I tried so hard, so hard, to not take away people’s free will because of that exact look I’d gotten from Sister Adaline. Revulsion.

  “You made a mistake.”

  I glanced at Colt, feeling the red heat of shame tinge my cheeks and neck.

  “But you learn from it,” he said, his voice clear and sure in the silence of the cab, “and get stronger because of it.”

  My laugh was dry and harsh. “Isn’t that my problem? I don’t want to be strong or powerful. I want to be normal. That’s why it was easier to not talk. Not talking would prevent me from slipping and from hurting the people I cared about.”

  And protecting myself.

  “It might’ve been easier, but not better, Eris,” Colt said, spinning the wheel left, and turning the car down a road that led toward the docks. The waters of Lake Michigan rippled in liquid gold patches from the streetlights. “Protecting others from yourself is the same as cutting yourself off from others. It hurts everyone. You’re good and strong and the world deserves to hear you.”

  Just like that, the heat of shame turned to the heat of unbelievable happiness.

  Cupping my hands over my mouth and nose, I squeezed my eyes shut as the sweet praise washed over me.

  I would be better. I would learn how to control this power and speak without hurting anyone.

  He swung the car into an eastside parking lot next to the piers. Our ticket out of Chicago had to be one of those tall dark ships silhouetted against the beginnings of sunrise.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, cutting the engine and turning in his seat toward me.

  “What did Sister Adaline give you? What does she mean by ‘Gin’s chimera agent’?”

  Colt winced. “That’s right. I haven’t told you yet.”

  “Told me what?” I asked, my pulse skipping.

  “The reason Gin had those kids”—Colt stopped, his gaze concentrating on the docks and the water lapping against the barnacle-crusted wood and ships’ underbellies—“Kenneth, Marion, and Eugene, was because she’d…she’d been experimenting on them.”

  My stomach rolled in disgust. Ray had mentioned something of the sort, but I hadn’t had time to give it much thought other than I need to get them out. Now that Colt had reminded me I had all sorts of questions.

  I swallowed, my throat scratchy. “Experimenting on them how?”

  Colt slid his gaze back to me. “How old are you?”

  I tilted my chin up a little, meeting his gaze. “Eighteen.”

  He gave me a quirk of a smile. “And I’m almost twenty. Do you remember when you got your pearl? How old you were?”

  Counting back the years from being at The Blind Dragon, I answered, “About ten, I suppose.”

  “I was thirteen when I got my wings.”

  I flinched. Thirteen.

  “My point is, the reason we survived such powerful magical items being attached to us was because of our youth. Maybe it’s because children’s bodies are still developing so rapidly, but whatever the case, we can accept the chimera agent—the new DNA—into our bodies much easier than an adult can. So our percent rate of survival after those surgeries…is much higher.”

  I stared at him. Long and hard. Trying to understand what this could mean, or maybe just refusing to. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying,” he said with a sigh, “that children, maybe as young as eight and as old as fifteen, are being used more and more to transform into monsters. And Gin has developed a way to distribute the chimera agent widely—without an injection.”

  “H-how?”

  “She’s been able to develop a virus that carries the DNA of the chimera. It’s incredibly contagious and seems to only infect children.”

  “A virus? But…but why? Why would she want to infect so many children?”

  Colt grimaced. “That’s what we don’t know. And that’s what I’m worried about.”

  “But the blood vial that Sister Adaline gave you…that has the…”

  “DNA. This is advanced science. Science that the public doesn’t know even exists yet. If the world knew what was possible, there could be widespread panic. That doctor in Manhattan might be able to develop something that could prevent the virus from spreading—or maybe even an antidote.”

  I bit my bottom lip, terror slicing through me in a way I’d never felt before. “Colt…this is…”

  “Not our problem.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t been expecting that.

  His stare had returned to the shipyard and the horizon over the waters of Lake Michigan. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he glared out the window like he was taking aim at something. Some invisible enemy I couldn’t see.

  “That’s a job for the BOI. I’ll get the doctor this blood, and I’ve told McCarney all I know, but then that’s in the government’s hands. It’s their job to protect our country. It’s what taxes are for, right?” He glanced at me with a rueful smile. He was trying for a bit of humor, but it fell short in the lengthy silence of Father Clarence’s car.

  “The government is made of people,” I said quietly. “People protect people.”

  “I’m not going to continue being their pawn.” He shook his head. “When I knocked Foster and O’Connor unconscious, I knew there was no going back.” His eyes, so dark brown they looked like chocolate, glimmered with the reflection of the surrounding streetlights. “Saving the country is not our responsibility. We’re just two people with simple desires.”

  His gaze lingered on me, drop
ping from my eyes, to my mouth, to my torso, and then to my legs. I was hot and my skin felt electric. Like a fuse had just blown inside me somewhere.

  Then he looked away, leaning his elbow on the window seal. “We should go. We have a boat to catch.”

  We hadn’t yet talked about our moment outside the convent door, up against the stone wall and under the shade of the church itself. I guessed he was thinking about it, because I certainly was…and how I’d like to do it again. But he was right. We had to go.

  And I knew what he meant by leaving the problem of the virus to the BOI, but I could see in his tense, coiled posture and his angry gaze that it made him frustrated. Something told me he had loved being an agent, whether he admitted it or not. Stopping criminals and putting down monsters—it was in his blood, right there with the dragon.

  We gave each other one parting look and I reveled in the feeling of his eyes ensnaring mine. Then we got out, closing the doors behind us with a snap that echoed in the chill quiet of the early morning.

  He offered his arm and I took it, the two of us ankling down the docks toward Pier 23, where we were to meet Captain Leroy with his ship. Our steps echoed and creaked across the wooden planks as we started out over the open, frigid waters of Lake Michigan.

  I was honestly surprised at the look of our transport. When Sister Adaline had first told us about the captain and his ship, I’d expected a simple fisherman’s vessel. But this felt like a much smaller version of a luxury cruise liner. I’d never seen the infamous Titanic, but I’d heard of its luxurious decor and superior modeled technology. Of course, the comparison of this boat to the Titanic didn’t make me feel any better.

  Like most ships, it was an aluminum-bodied craft, but with rich brown wood paneling the main cabin at the top. I didn’t know much about boats, but more than a few patrons had talked of them before. One zozzled Harvard boyo spent over two hours describing his uncle’s wooden-motor yacht with a schooner bow and fantail hull and how it cut across the Charles River like the ship of Odysseus himself.

  “Ahoy, there,” a friendly voice called as three figures appeared through the thin morning mist.

  Colt squeezed my hand against his side and shot me a tiny smile, then he raised his arm and gave a short wave. “Good morning.”

  Two gruff-looking sailors with dark trousers and thick leather boots, vests, and frayed jackets came into clear view. One of them pushed an older man in a wheelchair with a plaid blanket draped across his legs, who also wore a captain’s hat, a captain’s jacket, and the quintessential white beard of a ship captain.

  In fact, he looked so much like a captain that Colt stepped up to him and extended his hand. “Captain Leroy, I presume?”

  “Indeed I am. Welcome to the Cassiopeia, Mr. Clemmons,” Captain Leroy said with a smile, grasping Colt’s hand with a clap and a firm shake. He reminded me of St. Nicholas with his white beard and rosy cheeks. “How do you do?”

  “Well. Thank you. And this is Mrs. Clemmons.”

  I froze at the title, trying, and most likely failing, to keep the shock off my face. Mrs. Clemmons? What in the tarnation…

  As if to sell the story, he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, giving the captain a charming smile. Ah. There he was again. The con man who had ensnared me so easily.

  His thumb swept across my ribs and the intimate touch nearly had me leaping out of my skin. Zounds. There was nothing fake about that.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Clemmons,” Captain Leroy said, extending his hand.

  I was still so jingle-brained that I’d barely heard him. It wasn’t until Colt’s elbow nudged me in the side that I came to and presented my hand. The man brushed a scratchy kiss over my knuckles with his whiskers.

  “The pleasure is all mine, Captain,” I said.

  Captain Leroy shifted back in his wheelchair and gave the two of us another warm smile. Then he gestured to the men beside him. “This big lug is Frank, my first mate, and then his brother, Billy. If you two need anything or have any questions you can always come to us.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Colt answered.

  “So then, shall we shove off? It’ll take the better part of the day to cross the lake. But not to worry. Cassiopeia will get you there in time for the train,” he said with a nod.

  “That would be swell, sir.” Colt gently guided me forward, following behind as first mate Frank rolled Captain Leroy up the elevated gangplank to the ship’s main deck.

  “Mrs. Clemmons?” I hissed under my breath, as I shot him a look.

  Colt’s gaze was trained on the backs of the crew. He didn’t even look at me as he answered, “A young man and woman traveling alone together? Being hitched is just easier.”

  My heart dropped a few feet. Disappointment. I couldn’t believe I was feeling disappointment for something so logical.

  He cleared his throat. “And I’d rather…not risk other men after you.”

  My gaze shot up to him, homing in on the slight pink tinge to his cheeks. I had a sudden urge to cover them with kisses.

  “No need to get jealous,” I replied smoothly.

  He grunted, not even denying it.

  “I can just tell them to leave me alone and they’ll actually do it,” I continued, trying to stop my smile from growing. “How do you think I’ve survived at a speakeasy for so long? I do have some self-preservation skills, you know.”

  Finally, he looked down at me, our eyes meeting. “Could’ve fooled me, doll. You’re always doing non self-preservation things…like saving my hide.”

  At that, I grinned fully. “Maybe I think you’re worth saving.”

  For the first time, Colt stumbled. I’d never seen him lose his gait like that—he was always so sure-footed. When he straightened back up, his cheeks were an even darker pink and his gaze drifted to my lips again. “Yes, you’ve made that clear.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Clemmons? We should really get going for first light.”

  Colt and I turned toward the voice above us. Captain Leroy and his crew were already up at the top of the gangplank, looking down at where we were—merely halfway up the walkway.

  After we reached the top, the two brothers set to work disconnecting the plank and getting ready to shove off. The deck was clean and shining. Wooden walls of the cabin area held a line of circular windows that allowed us to look out at the passing waters. A set of stairs led up to the upper level, where I could see another man looking out of the balcony, his hands folded into his jacket.

  Captain Leroy gestured to the door that led into the ship’s main interior. “Right in there you’ll find a lounge and a coffee bar with some light refreshments. Please, enjoy yourself.”

  Colt raised an eyebrow and I wondered if he, too, had expected something more…humble.

  The ship shuddered under our feet, and in no time, the dock and the connecting pier grew smaller as our vessel set off. No sooner had we left the shore than dawn finally woke. Over the waters, the sun peeked, spilling gold, lavender, and shades of orange and pink. The lake sparkled and shone like the world’s largest gemstone, and before I could stop myself, I was crossing up to the bow of the hull.

  The next moment, I felt Colt’s presence next to me, standing…close.

  The wind whistled and the water lapped against the aluminum, and the motor whirred gently. The sun was difficult to look at and it made me squint, but it was beautiful.

  Was this what it was like to cross an entire ocean? No land in sight? Just an endless expanse of glittering blue?

  Instinctually, I leaned back against Colt’s arm and the sturdiness of his chest. For a moment, he hesitated, then his arms came over me, weighted on my shoulders in more than one meaning.

  I closed my eyes.

  Stay with me, I thought suddenly, heart-achingly. Always.

  Since Colt had come into my life, it had
been one terrible nightmare after another. Gunmen, monsters, vampires, and viruses, and yet I’d never felt safer or happier. And it was all because of this quietly powerful and enigmatic man behind me.

  I reached up and threaded my fingers through his, and then placed the palm of my other hand against the side of his cheek and slid it down to cup his jaw. He lowered his mouth to my neck and gave me a lingering kiss. Soft, warm, tender.

  “You won’t run from me again, will you?” he whispered against my skin.

  I opened my eyes and turned around in his arms to look up into his face, half shielded by the low brim of his hat. “No, only toward you.”

  He smiled, a small pull at the left corner of his lips, but he said nothing more.

  Eventually, we would talk about these feelings, but there was so much else before us and it seemed too distracting to talk about this thing between us when our lives were at stake. There was still a whole powerful, mysterious corporation out there with money and influence after me. And this new virus that Colt insisted wasn’t our responsibility and yet…

  While he’d said that it was the BOI’s job to save the country—not ours—I wondered if he could really just walk away. Despite what he’d told me back at St. Agnes, my dragon did have a soul.

  And it was beautiful.

  A horn’s blast from the ship interrupted our moment and the two of us flinched. We separated and our gazes dropped to anywhere but each other—to the deck, the retreating Chicago shoreline, the sunrise, or the gentle lake waters.

  After a couple awkward seconds, Colt threaded my arm through his and led me across the deck toward the main cabin.

  “So what do we do once we get to New York?” I asked.

  “It will take a long time to find this Dr. Durwich. Time we don’t have if we want to find Madame Maldu and figure out who the devil is after you. So it’s better if we drop off the vial of blood to the BOI satellite office and they can get it to him.”