Dominic finally finds the balls to speak. “What. The. Hell?”
I feel a rumble deep in my throat. Sani runs a hand over my hair. “Shhh.” I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to Dominic.
The safety of his arms around me is like the sight of a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter in the jungles of Indonesia, like the first ray of sun after a long January night in Siberia. I want to stay leaning against him forever and let the world fall where it may around us.
Unfortunately, I know that having these thoughts means I’m diffused enough to get back to work. I pull away from him—slowly, because every molecule of my body urges me to return to his. He slides his hands down my arms until we’re holding hands awkwardly, arms stretched out almost as far as they will go. He lets go, maintaining a gentle pressure on my fingertips for a few seconds after, just in case I need him again.
“Well?” Dominic broke the silence again. “What did Bean say?”
My gaze flickers back and forth between Dominic and Sani. They both have their heads tilted at a slight angle, waiting for my report.
I stomp down the alley toward the street. “I need to talk to Wallace.”
“Wallace?” Sani says in disbelief. “That’s impossible.”
Two sets of footsteps scramble to catch up with me.
“Maybe not. I know a place… Well, it’s probably better if you see it for yourself. I don’t even know what to call it.”
Chapter Twelve
All that time I spent training Wallace is finally about to pay off, but not exactly in a way anybody had planned. I didn’t want to come here, but my options are limited at this point, and I can’t make another move without some intelligence. Dominic hasn’t asked an annoying question for seven whole minutes when we finally arrive at the edge of the warehouse district. Sani’s head is on a permanent swivel. I’m not even sure exactly what he’s looking out for. At this point, I’ve made so many enemies, I guess just about anyone could be out to get us.
I stare up at the imposing concrete-block buildings, biting my lip until the pain clears my thoughts.
I turn to Dominic. “Here’s the deal: I can’t make you invisible, so you either stay here—”
“No.”
I take a deep, calming breath. Well, it’s meant to be calming, anyway. It doesn’t seem to have any effect. “Or take your chances with warehouse security guards and cameras.”
He scoffs. “I think I can handle a rent-a-cop.”
“Don’t get cocky,” I say. “When we get close to the tech warehouses, it gets pretty tight.”
“Can’t you just fly us in?” Sani whispers. His breath tickles my ear, and I close my eyes for a long second.
“No,” I say.
Sani accepts this but—big surprise—Dominic has to ask, “Why not?”
“Lasers.”
The agent snaps his gaze back and forth over the warehouses. He won’t find them here. “Lasers?”
I shrug. “Lasers.”
“Why do we have to go here again?” Dominic asks, a little healthy fear coloring his voice.
“I have to talk to Wallace and…well, the rest is hard to explain. You’ll see.” I look at Sani and ask, “Witnesses?”
He doesn’t have to look or think; he’s already assessed the street. “An ATM camera on that corner.” He points to an intersection a block east. “That’s it.”
I usher the boys around a corner to put a building between me and the camera and finally let the dragon out, careful to control the change. Dominic jumps back at my sudden increase in size and presence. Sani wraps his hand gently around the tip of my tail, and we both go into stealth mode.
Sani could definitely sneak to the warehouse without the benefit of invisibility, but he doesn’t know where we’re going, so it’s easier to follow me if he can see me.
Dominic, on the other hand, is so screwed. Oh well, I gave him the choice.
We make our painfully slow way toward the center of the warehouse cluster. I constantly whisper directions to Dominic. He bumps into me or Sani more times than really seems accidental. Sani—the saint—mercifully takes Dominic’s hand to guide him. Our pace quickens. Twenty minutes after we started, we reach the outside of the group of tech warehouses. This is where it gets complicated.
“Oh!” Dominic says. “Lasers. Got it.”
“You weren’t kidding,” Sani adds.
I smirk. “Now Sani, you know I never kid.”
He shakes his head and lets a tiny laugh escape. If I could make him smile every day, I could be happy. His eyes, through my dragon sight, are incredible. Like twin green flames dancing in the dark. Though, they pale in comparison to his eyes when he’s a dragon: sparkling jade with more shades of green and gold than I could ever name.
Even Dominic’s human eyesight can see the city dust floating in and out of the green lattice hovering in the air, connecting all the buildings from ground to roof, like a radioactive spider web the size of three city blocks. The windowless buildings tower over the three of us, dull and silent concrete facades with unknown electronic treasures inside.
I explain a little as they examine the laser system. “If you cross the plane of any of the lasers, a stampede of security guards will be here in less than a minute. The guards each patrol an assigned section of this area in a random pattern transmitted to them by the system. The guards have transmitters that tell the system where they are so any breached lasers don’t make it go berserk.”
“What is here that needs all this security?” Sani asks.
I shrug. “Something about gadget prototypes and software development.”
“I thought all of that stuff was done in Silicon Valley and geniuses’ basements. Why is it here?” Sani’s forehead wrinkles as he tries to make sense of it.
My answer is simple. “Wallace is in D.C., so this is here.” From what I gathered while we were training, computer geeks will do just about anything to work with Wallace, including following him around the country through his many not-so-legal enterprises. Wherever he is, is a mini Silicon Valley.
“How the hell are we getting through that?” Dominic asks, still staring at the psychedelic pattern of lasers.
“There’s a single clear path to where we’re going,” I say. “Wallace can follow it with his eyes closed.”
“Do you know it just as well?” Sani asks.
“He led me through it once, so…” I swallow a nervous lump in my throat and dig my claws into the asphalt. “Yeah, totally. I got this.”
Three false starts later, we’re finally on what I think—no, I know—is the right path. For the last ten minutes, I’ve had to completely flatten out to my full length and suck in my breath to avoid the lasers flirting with my scales. I’m about as comfortable as Shaq in coach on a transatlantic flight.
I’m stretching in a wider spot on the path when an armed security guard rounds a corner into the intersection we’re standing in. The guard, a twenty-something man with gym-earned muscles and long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, is grinning goofily at the cell phone screen in his hand, so he doesn’t spot Dominic for a good five seconds.
His posture changes entirely when he realizes something is amiss, even before he moves his gaze from the screen. His shoulders pull back and his stomach stiffens, his gait becoming less steady. He begins to slide his eyes up and Sani is on him before his hand can reach the gun at his hip.
Sani’s arms are so strong, but they still seem soft around the man’s neck, his right hand pressed hard to his mouth. What feels like twenty minutes later, the guard goes limp and Sani controls his fall to the ground.
“Did you kill him?” Dominic whispers. Why the hell does he decide to whisper now?
Sani answers him with an are-you-kidding kind of look. “He should wake up in a few hours. Poor man will have a nasty headache, but he’ll be fine.”
Dominic nods as though he approves. As if Sani needs his approval. “Grab his security system sensor thing.”
San
i nods and scans the security guard quickly. His hands are gentle when he slides it off the man’s belt, like the man is a sleeping child he doesn’t want to wake.
“Good call, Dominic,” I say. “I may keep you around after all.”
“I have my uses,” he says, grinning. “They multiply when you give me a gun.”
Well, I had been in a good mood for about three seconds. “I’m well aware of what kind of use you make of a gun, remember?” He can’t see me, but the contempt in my voice is impossible to miss; I’ve been perfecting that for years.
His grin collapses like a neutron star. “You have to believe me, I really don’t remember—”
“Remember what?” Sani has rejoined us with the sensor in his hand.
I start toward the warehouse, taking a more direct route now that we have the high-tech hall pass. “Let’s get moving. Eventually they’ll figure out Fabio over there is compromised, and we want to be safe inside the most secure building in this dump before they do.”
We move silently for the next ten minutes, more quickly, but also more cautiously than before. I’m invisible again because even though the lasers can’t see us, there’s no such luck with the cameras. And I’m a wanted woman now. A few buildings over from our final destination, I find the now very narrow laser-free path and tell Sani to toss the sensor in a dumpster.
“You sure?” Sani asks. “Won’t it be easier to keep it with us?”
“She’s right,” Dominic chimes in. I nearly fall over from the shock of him agreeing with me. “If the device tracks our location and security finds the guy we lifted it from, they’ll know exactly where to find us.”
“Kitty,” Sani whispers at an almost sub-vocal level. He pulls on my tail to stop me, lets go of Dominic’s hand, and places a long finger over his lips.
If it were anyone else, I might be offended. But Sani doesn’t ever shush me just to shut me up. He’s heard something. I hold my breath and stretch out my hearing. We’re against a four-story red brick warehouse next to the bank of dumpsters. I hear it then: lazy footsteps coming from around the corner to the left of us. My heart races, but I relax. Yes, someone’s coming this way, but they’re not looking for us.
Sani puts his lips a hair’s breadth from Dominic’s ear and whispers as quietly as possible. “In the dumpster. Now.”
I can tell Dominic wants to argue, but I think he’s already learned to trust my partner’s judgment. If Sani is being this quiet, there’s a darn good reason. Sani kneels and cups his hand together and gives Dominic a leg up. The agent ducks down amidst the plaster, piping, and other construction debris, quiet as a mouse. Sani jogs silently back to me and finds the nervously flicking tip of my tail again as easily as if he could see it.
The footsteps continue their apathetic pace, maybe twenty feet around the corner. I take four deep breaths, then hold my breath. This is the first time I’ve focused solely on the sounds around me. Other than the footsteps, there’s no sound of anything living. Air conditioners breathe, piping pulses like a heartbeat, and unimaginable electronics hum underneath it all, but there are no human or animal sounds for as far as I can hear.
My eyes go to the spot at the corner just as the footsteps materialize into a man. Or maybe it’s a boy. He’s wearing jeans, cheap tennis shoes, a T-shirt, and a particularly ugly jacket. Greasy brown curls hang over his eyes, which are glued to a tablet, where he’s furiously typing at a virtual keyboard with all five fingers of one hand. Humans and their mobile screens, honestly. His feet follow the laser-free path toward us like they don’t need the rest of the body’s help. It reminds me so much of the way Wallace strolled through here months ago. I guess if someone walks the path often enough, it becomes second nature.
He’s ten feet away, then five. Four. Three. Two.
The toe of his right sneaker barely brushes my front claw, which is attempting to make indentations in the asphalt. I press my full serpentine length against the cool bricks of the building. My hearts erupt. Sani’s hand squeezes my tail just a teensy bit harder.
But tablet boy simply swings his leg a little oddly, like he’s kicking at a rock on the sidewalk. His fingers never stop dancing on the screen. He walks past me, then past Sani.
Just as he approaches the dumpster, a rustling sound drifts out from where Dominic is hiding. It sounds like rocks wrapped in cloth falling over each other but, in the silence, it might as well be a thunderclap. I swear I can’t tell if he’s trying to sabotage us or if he really is that inept.
The only parts of me moving are my hearts. And I think they’re attempting to make up for the rest of my body.
My mouth drops open when tablet boy doesn’t even glance up. The tap tap tapping on his tablet screen doesn’t miss a single beat.
All three of us might as well be statues for the next five minutes.
Chapter Thirteen
Dominic moves first. He clambers out of the dumpster, but neither Sani nor I make a move to help him. He brings a stench of stale garbage out with him.
“You couldn’t be quiet for two seconds?” I hiss.
“I got a cramp.” Dominic shrugs. “Didn’t matter anyway. A herd of elephants could have run around that kid and he wouldn’t have noticed.”
Sani, face tense, drops the security sensor in the dumpster. “We were lucky. Let’s not waste it.”
I nod and lead the way. Finally, finally, finally we make it to the door of Wallace’s warehouse. It’s a crappy, dented brown metal door with huge chunks of paint in a perpetual fall to the ground. Under the shelter of the door’s overhang, I shake Sani loose and snap back to human form. I have to yank hard on the handle, because it’s rusted half shut. My body jerks back when it finally gives, and Sani catches me, hands at my hips. I meet his cool green gaze over my shoulder, and he drops his hands as if he is human and my heat burns the skin of his hands.
But the door doesn’t make a sound as it opens, because the battered appearance is just a facade. Every crumbling bit has been carefully placed to make sure nobody gives this place a second look. I motion for Sani and Dominic to follow me into the airplane-bathroom-sized room and Sani closes the door.
The guys scan the room with their eyebrows raised. It looks like a broom closet made out of brick—and not a particularly well-cared-for broom closet, at that.
I maneuver to the left wall and gently push on a brick with a jagged crack down the middle at eye level—well, it’s at normal male adult eye level, not mine. The brick pieces silently disappear into the wall to reveal something like a camera lens, recessed slightly.
“Give me a boost?” I ask Sani.
His eyebrow pops up, so I point to my right eye and then to the scanner. Understanding washes the confusion from his face. His hands nearly wrap all the way around my waist, and he lifts me easily. The pressure of his long, slender fingers against my stomach is almost more than I can handle. I forget how to breathe as he holds me steady at eye level with the scanner, until it quietly dings. Sani lowers me gently to the ground, and his fingers slide slowly against my ribs as he pulls away, sending chills up and down my torso.
The wall slides cleanly away, and a rush of cold, dry air greets us. I step over the threshold and lights flicker, then steadily glow. The light doesn’t come from light bulbs, but computer monitors—dozens of them spread around a cold steel-gray domed room the size of my high school gym.
“Welcome back, Kitty,” a pleasant female British voice announces. I’ve always thought she sounded not quite motherly, but perhaps like an older sister.
Dominic ducks and turns. “Who’s that?” His hand flies to his side, only to find his gun holster empty.
I ignore him and follow the script Wallace made me memorize. “Thanks, CINDY.”
“You’ve brought guests,” CINDY says.
I marvel at the way a computer works a question into the statement. It has more tact than most humans I know.
“I did,” I answer. It’s the only response that keeps CINDY from sounding a
silent alarm and emergency shutdown. Any other answer, and it would take Wallace days to coax the systems back to life, not to mention bring the full force of the private security company to our exact location. “Keep an eye on the old guy,” I add.
“Understood,” CINDY answers.
“I’m twenty-nine!” Dominic objects.
“Well, you’re about as stealthy as a drunken elephant,” I say.
Dominic walks to the closest screen and reaches his hand out. Before he can touch anything, the screen goes black. He frowns. I laugh.
“Does the D.I.C. know about this?” Sani asks, spinning slowly to take everything in. Aside from the monitors, which form a broken circle around the room, servers stand in rows in the middle of the polished concrete floor. They hum and buzz and occasionally click like a sleeping electrical giant. I imagine I’d be impressed if I knew anything about computer hardware. The steel walls curve up into a smooth steel dome with no light fixtures. I inhale the plastic, metallic scent of computer hardware.
“I don’t think so,” I say, still laughing. “Wallace swore me to absolute secrecy. I thought he was nuts to be so paranoid, but it turns out…”
“Why would he tell you?” Sani asks.
I shrug. “We spent a lot of time together, and he trusted me. He wasn’t allowed out of the compound without an escort during training, and I guess I was least likely to rat him out. He programmed CINDY to let me in on my own ‘just in case.’ Like he knew something was coming.”
Dominic walks from terminal to terminal, screens turning off as he nears. “CINDY is protective. She’s like the guardian of computer geek Wonderland.”
“I told him he was the Wizard, deep in the heart of Oz,” I say.
Dominic smirks. “Then you’re a Munchkin.”
“Ha, ha.” I roll my eyes as I log in to one of the computers. “That makes you the Scarecrow, then. ‘If I only had a brain.’”
To my surprise, the agent smirks and lets out a small breath that just might be a laugh.
Dragons Are People, Too Page 11
