by Jill Cooper
Then the game died. They just hadn’t known it.
Heavy tears stung his eyes. He wished there was something more he could do, but there wasn’t. He wished he hadn’t slept with her that day and mostly he wished they had more time together. Wished he had more time. But now he needed to panic. He needed to stress himself out so that when the men finally approached the cabin, he’d be ready for them.
Jake thought of New Haven, his family, and how he would never be able to see them again. He thought of how much people hated him, hated the glistenings, and how unfair his life had been. Even though he missed his town, Jake knew there were injustices and that people weren’t allowed to say and do everything they wanted. If they stepped out of line, they were conditioned. It happened to him once when he was a young boy, and he could still remember the chair and the needles they used to stick his body.
It wasn’t fair that glistenings were deemed as monsters when they were the strong ones. They had wings, they could fly, and were stronger than humans were. So how come the glistenings weren’t running the show? Maybe they should be. Maybe they should have won the war, but they didn’t. Mostly out of dumb bad luck. Jake had never hated humans before, he loved one very much, but looking back at Wendy’s frail body, he began to. They were being hunted like animals and for what? Because humans wanted to kill them.
Jake wasn’t going to let them.
As the rage built inside him, he clenched his fists and felt, for the first time, a fire burning inside him. He heardtheir footsteps and he could see the flashlights so bright outside that it filled the shed with light. Then the lights dimmed and Jake knew they would be on him soon. Could he do it? Could he really protect Wendy? Anger and terror twisted in his belly so he couldn’t distinguish one feeling from the next. His head begun to spin. Lightheaded, he grabbed the door frame with a shimmering blue hand.
Jake groaned as claws extended from his fingers. Instinctively he put his hands on the ground, gripping the dirt as the transformation continued. He snorted, shaking his clothes free with loud flaps from his wings. In his true glistening form, Jake barely fit inside the shed, which made no sense. Glistenings did not get that big, that’s what he was always told.
Using his snout, he butted the door open and stuck his long head outside. His yellow eyes blinked, seeing through the darkness perfectly. Two forms hid behind some trees. Each had a pistol.
He huffed, warning them off with a low growl, keeping his head low. Taking two ginger steps out of the shed, his tail smacked the door closed, shattering it into jagged pieces. The figures pulled further behind the trees, crouching. Jake roared, a dragon’s breath filled with rage. and fire up in the air. The fire escaped his lungs, burning his throat and setting the leaves on fire.
One of the men ran, but Jake, with his wings flapping behind him, swooped in front of the man and landed on his chest with a thud. The gun was thrown clear and the man’s sternum snapped under the pressure from his heavy clawed hoofs.
“Going somewhere?” Jake asked, but his voice was deep, guttural, unlike how he usually spoke. And glistenings couldn’t talk, not when not in human form. He didn’t understand it. Neither did he have the desire to rip the man’s throat out. Jake didn’t want to eat him. He just wanted to stop him. Curious, Jake thought, but then a sound of a snapping twig caught his attention.
The second man charged them, his gun drawn.
Jake howled. He took off running, his wings flapping with a quick breath. He swooped in and took the man in his jaws, but he held him lightly so not to kill him or even cut him. Instead he flew up through the night sky with his captive safely in his jaws, and deep inside his mouth Jake heard the man beg for his life.
He smiled so wide, Jake nearly dropped him. This was more like it.
*****
It had been a long time since Jenna felt physical fear, but she was reminded then what it felt like.
The largest glistening she had ever seen in her life sat perched atop it, almost crushing it under its weight. Jake Monroe just wasn’t a glistening, he almost looked like a dragon, with scales glistening in different hues of blue. She had never seen a glistening with a mane, but he had one and it glistened atop his head and under his snout like a beard. She felt like she was in the presence of a king and perhaps would have dropped to one knee if she were able to move.
Dirk pulled his weapon and aimed at the boy, the dragon. He was not as lost to his senses as she was. “Freeze!” he ordered, using his military voice. It woke Jenna up enough so she drew her own weapon and aimed for Jake, but she didn’t want to fire. She wanted to know if he had consumed human blood first.
“There’s a dead one over here!” Dirk screamed, glancing left.
“Bitten?”
“Unconfirmed!”
“Jake, if you didn’t bite him, I need to know. I need you to come down here and change back, do you understand me?”
“I understand you.” Jake said and Jenna was so shocked, she almost lowered her gun, but Dirk held firm.
“What the hell?” Dirk asked.
Jake swooped down from the ledge and landed with a hard thud in front of them. He bowed his head to the ground and opened his mouth enough so that the second assassin tumbled out. He was alive, but was unable to say anything coherent as he mumbled with tears streaking down his face.
Dirk secured the man and put handcuffs on him. But Jenna couldn’t take her eyes off Jake.
“I thought you would want him for questioning,” Jake said, but Jenna noticed his lips didn’t move. But she could hear him. It was almost as if his thoughts were around her, echoing through the forest and the trees. When he spoke, the nature around him seemed to pulse with a shimmering white light.
“What happened to you?” Jenna asked.
“I don’t know. I told you I’ve never changed before. For all I know, this has always been me.”
“Will the baby be like you?”
“I don’t know. I used to pray he wouldn’t. Now, I think maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.”
Jenna wasn’t sure she could argue with him. The dragon, Jake, didn’t seem hungry for blood or lust for revenge. He was the most docile of any glistening she had ever met and there was something regal, even enlightened, about him. He didn’t seem like a teenager. He seemed wise, like he was hundreds of years old. “I have to secure you. Return you to New Haven.”
Jake laughed, squinting his kind yellow eyes. “I think you know, I can’t allow that to happen, Jenna.”
“Jen,” Dirk’s voice was caustic, “New Haven 56, it’s coming over the wire now, it’s burning. Glistenings have revolted. They’ve seized the Outpost.”
“Then I must go,” Jake said. Jenna became afraid for a moment as he sniffed her. “Your scent is strange, but familiar. Almost like you were meant to be one of us.”
Fear gripped her. “I can’t just let you go. If you leave, I’ll have no choice but to hunt you.”
“You’ll do what you must, just as I. Tell Wendy this was all for her. And that I am sorry, but I must help those like me. For our son. So he will not grow up like I did.” Jake swooped up in the air and Jenna tracked his flight across the sky. Flickering across the moon like a dancing shadow, until he was out of her sight. The trees and mountains lost some of their luster, their beauty, in his absence and Jenna too felt a hole growing inside of her.
It was crazy, it was insane. But it was all true.
Jenna suspected she had not seen the last of Jake Monroe, and he just might well change the world. Change her world. But the rushing of footsteps behind her drew her from her thoughts.
Jane Morgan was a thin woman with tight red curls, just like her daughter. She carried her doctor’s bag and a gun. Her mother always knew how to take care of herself, a trait she passed on to her daughter. “Mom,” Jenna said, “it’s about time.”
“We all have our entrances to worry about, don’t we dear? Where’s Wendy?”
Jenna led her toward the shed and found herself sucking
in her breath at the sighs of the girl, who was just beginning to regain consciousness. Her body was swollen with a child…. and with fluid. She looked to be in extreme medical distress. Enraged, Jenna fought back angry tears at everything that caused this to happen. She stood in the doorway as doctors rushed past her to Wendy’s side.
Jane peered into her eyes by lifting the lids and then rummaged through her bag. “Jaundice. Her liver’s failing. Might be kidneys, too, from the signs of the fluid.”
“Can you save them?” Jenna asked much too quietly for her taste, but couldn’t talk any louder without betraying herself.
“We won’t know until we get them back for a full exam.” Jane gave Wendy two shots in her neck. “This will stabilize her enough for travel. Glistening sickness resembles pre-eclampsia. Your dad’s made a lot of advances recently, but we still need to test it.”
“I don’t think she’ll complain.”
Wendy stirred with a moan. She blinked her eyes and looked around the room.
“Hello, Wendy, I’m Dr. Morgan. I’m here to help you and your baby. First, we need to get you off this mountain.”
“I was having contractions. Where’s Jake?” Wendy asked as two nurses took her by the arm and helped her up, leading her to an emergency gurney that was rapidly being assembled.
“He saved you.” Jenna said. “And he’s all right.”
Wendy’s eyes had many questions as they strapped her in, but there wasn’t time to fill her in, and now wasn’t the time. Jenna turned from them and her mother’s voice stopped her. “You’re not coming with us, are you?”
“I have a prisoner to take into custody. Keep me updated. We’ll come as soon as we can.”
“Let me know. It’s been awhile since you’ve been by for pot roast.”
She supposed she had. Jenna smirked and left the shed behind, to where Dirk stood with their prisoner. His phone was to his ear. He lowered it as their eyes met and Jenna saw something that made her uncomfortable. “Jen, our New Haven...”
She stepped up to him. “What is it?”
He swallowed hard, his jaw clenching. “The glistenings revolted. They’ve attacked Outpost.”
Jenna couldn’t believe it, and their prisoner laughed. She glowered at him, twisting his arms behind his back and shoved her foot in his ass, forcing him to the ground. “Piss me off just a little bit more, and you’re dead.” His silence did nothing to calm her rage. “You killed our Chief. There is nothing stopping me from killing you when you resisted arrest. Right, Dirk?”
“Right.” he said flatly. But Jenna knew he didn’t agree.
Jenna forced the prisoner up and stuffed him in the back of the van. His eyes were smoldering, not with anger, but with duty. “I did my job. What I was supposed to do. Only problem was, the girl got away.”
Jenna slammed the door closed turned to Dirk. “Get us to the closest New Haven to drop this sucker off. Then we’re on our own.”
“Then where will we go?”
“I think you know.” Jenna turned from him and headed toward the passenger’s seat.
Outpost was burning to the ground.
The insides were a ruin of dead bodies and a river of blood soaked through the pavement. Jeff placed his large feet on the chest of a woman—Laurel, he thought they called her—to keep her from escaping. She had a gun in her hand, but her fingers trembled so badly that she was unable to lift the weapon, let alone fire it.
Behind them, droves of cars whizzed by to make their escape out of New Haven 56. They would return to the world. Time to return to civilization, some for the first time. But Jeff knew he wouldn’t be going. He had tasted, feasted, on more human blood than he had any right to. Jeff did it for Marie, for Jake, so they could be free. But now, all he wanted was more to eat. He didn’t know who was going to stop him, but decided right then and there, he didn’t care. First up: Laurel Kramer. She smelled of fear and was rich with fat.
She was going to taste really warm going down.
Jeff roared, sniffing the trembling woman, taking a deep breath he could taste her scent as if he had already bitten her and it was delicious. Thick strands of saliva fell from his snout and he closed in for a bite.
“Stop!” The voice was deep and powerful.
Jeff turned his head away from Laurel and felt glistenings all around him freezing in their spots. They all turned to face a majestic blue dragon swooping from the sky. It landed with precision, crunching the pavement. Its movements were royal as it flapped its wings closed and peered around the ruins of Outpost.
“We cannot continue this,” Jake said, but his lips never moved. “You must stop. We must stop. Humans are weak, but are not our enemy. When we do this, we are our own enemy. You are all free to go, free to live, but we cannot feed on humans.”
Being around this dragon, whomever it was, made Jeff feel better. More in control. He felt is anger subside and with a breath, he morphed back into a man. Falling to his knees, Jeff grunted and heard the grunts of dozens of more. The large dragon in front of him bowed his head down enough so he was eye level with Jeff.
His eyes were warm and kind. Jeff cried and took the large beast’s head in his hands. The beast nuzzled his father’s face with his giant nostrils and huffed against him. “Jake?” Jeff thought he cried all his tears, but renewed ones fell to his cheeks.
Jake cried, and in his father’s embrace, morphed back into a human teen. His arms wrapped around his father and Jeff did the same. “Boy, I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry. I never should have left. Never.” Jake gripped him hard, afraid to ever let him go.
“It’s not safe here. We have to move.” Jeff swallowed hard. “I have to tell you about your mother.”
The New Haven 49 Outpost looked just like the one Jenna was accustomed to the last few years of her life, except it wasn’t burning. But the one on the television monitor was. Every camera crew in a fifty-mile radius was parked outside and taking pictures.
While Outpost physically still stood in Jenna’s mind, it was gone, and any hope that there was good in her was gone with it. A journalist was talking in the mist of all the carnage, but all she saw were fires raging and the blood running through the streets. This was what she fought to protect? This is what was in her?
Dirk gripped her hand. “You okay, Jen?”
“Sure.” Her voice was ice and locked far away. “I need to grab something from the van. Can I borrow your keys?”
Dirk’s face grew with questions but he handed the keys over. Jenna thanked him without looking him in the eye and headed from the command center. Her feet crunched the pavement and the fresh air helped with her claustrophobic feeling as someone strode up beside her. Chief Montgomery, head of the Outpost. Beside the van, Jenna stopped and shook his hand.
“This mess, you have my word, will get cleaned up, Officer Morgan. As far as I’m concerned and the rest of my staff, you should be given an award.”
Jenna nodded her thanks. “Don’t bet on that yet, Chief.”
Jenna slid into the driver’s side and locked the doors, securing the seat belt across her shoulder. In the rearview mirror she saw Dirk running toward the van.
“Jenna,” her comm buzzed, “don’t do this. Let’s talk about it.”
“There’s nothing left to talk about. I’m sorry, Dirk. You’re too good a guy to drag down. Find that bitch Laurel and make sure she pays for everything she’s done.” Jenna turned off her comm and cranked the steering wheel. The tires kicked out rocks in a flurry, as she spun back out the way she came.
Who better than her to find and stop a pack of blood-hungry glistenings? She saw no better way. As far as she was concerned, they were rabid dogs that needed to be put down. And when this was over, if they decided she needed to be put down too, so be it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight Wendy
Wendy laid her head back and groaned as the van rocketed across rocky terrain on its way back to the highway. Every bump
and turn seemed to emphasize that something inside her was wrong, breaking, and only getting worse.
“Take it easy,” Jane Morgan said, and put a soft hand to her face. Her features were worn, like a side of a cliff that had weathered too many hard storms, but beneath them was a gentle beauty and kind eyes. “The medicine will start to work soon. You should feel some relief. We’re headed to a hospital, of sorts.”
She answered Wendy’s unasked question. “You’ll be safe there and we’ll help you deliver your baby.”
“How did you know where I was, who I am?” Wendy asked as they strapped a monitor around her bulging belly. Soon the back of the van was filled with the quiet sound of whooshing water and a fast pulsing heartbeat.
“We’re friends of Rebecca’s. My daughter’s been looking for you, ever since you left New Haven.”
Wendy was quiet while she thought, her hands resting still on top of her belly. “Ms. Morgan. I remember her. My Dad is—was—friends with her.” She glanced out the window and watched the mountains whiz by. “She was looking for who killed him? Did she find him?” The question tightened a bundle nerves in her chest.
“We’ll ask her together, when she comes to visit you. She said she would. Once she took care of some business.”
“What happened to Sally?” Wendy asked.
Jane sighed as she unhooked the ultrasound sensor from the main hub against the wall. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you deserve to know. You never met Sally. Or Thomas Crane. Both of the people you knew were assassins. They killed Sally and were going to the same to you. Once you had the baby.”
Her mouth fell open. Pain pelted through her. She didn’t know what to say. They had seemed nice—well, maybe not nice—but seemed to genuinely care about her, and Jake. Why would they do something like that? “What were they going to do with the baby?”
