by D K Drake
Starshade sat and stared at him, her thoughts inaccessible to his mind. Nevertheless, he pretended she wanted to talk to him and continued the conversation. “I know. I should tell her. It just sounds too sappy. I’d rather use a dragon to lure her back. You have to promise not to tell her what I’m thinking.”
Starshade nodded, zipped through Javan’s legs, and pulled him along the path that led to Taliya. He sped up to keep pace with her, irritated by the fact he couldn’t hear her thoughts.
◊◊◊
Frantic, Micah dove behind a wide tree. Too late. A bullet from the Destroyer’s gun clipped his side. Fortunately it only grazed his skin, but it did send a searing jolt of pain to his brain.
Why had he come running without a weapon? He never would have made such a dumb decision in Zandador. Now he found himself hiding, bleeding, and defenseless. While he held his side and listened for his enemy, he began to wonder how the Destroyer even got herself untied. Had Kenton come home and freed her? Did he put a gun in her hands so that she could complete her mission to kill Micah?
He stood and poked his head around the tree. A bullet hit a branch above him. He swatted the branch and leaves out of his way and found himself standing face to face with the Destroyer and her gun.
“If you’re going to kill me,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on hers, “at least tell me your real name. Let me die an honorable death at the hand of…”
He waited for her to finish his sentence. She didn’t. But she did smile. Step forward. Aim the end of the gun between his eyes.
Heat from the metal warmed his already hot skin. He didn’t know how to fight against this kind of weapon. So he didn’t. He remained still and watched her finger prompt the gun to shoot.
Instead of a bang, the gun…clicked.
Micah let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “That was unexpected.”
She shook the gun and tried again. Click.
“Guess today is not my day to die.” He slammed her wrist against the trunk of the tree. She shrieked and dropped the gun. He caught her leg when she tried to kick him and threw her to the ground.
◊◊◊
Taliya watched Javan and Starshade wind through the rows of the garden that stretched on for acres. She wanted to walk with them and study the variety of trees, shrubs, and herbs, but she didn’t dare leave her precious pink egg. It sat cradled atop a pile of logs near the back corner of Luisa’s house and wrapped in a green electric blanket to keep it warm. It needed warmth to hatch. That she could provide. What she couldn’t provide was more time.
Considering they had been on Earth for twenty-seven hours, her dragon clearly was not in the eighty percent of eggs that hatched in the first twenty-four hours. Of the remaining twenty percent, thirteen percent never hatched. None of the final seven percent had ever hatched beyond the three day mark. To make sure her dragon was in that seven percentile, she had stayed awake all night singing and talking to her egg.
“You not use bed last night.”
Taliya startled at Luisa’s observation. “Oh, Luisa. You scared me.”
“Not mean to scare. Bring coffee for tired Taliya.”
“Thank you.” She took a sip of the hot liquid. It felt good on her scratchy throat.
“Why you not sleep?”
“I want to be awake when this egg hatches.” Taliya knelt in the dirt and rubbed the edge of the rough blanket. Besides, the last time she closed her eyes to rest, she almost lost Starshade. She learned Protectors should not sleep around baby dragons.
Luisa grunted. “I have all kinds of plants here. None help unborn dragons. Sorry.” She put her wrinkled hand on Taliya’s cheek. “Be patient. Forget not to take care of self.”
“Sure thing. I’ll rest as soon as I lay eyes on my dragon’s face.”
Luisa walked away, once again leaving Taliya alone with her egg. She sat on her calves, sipped her coffee, and resumed her conversation with the unborn dragon. “This garden reminds me of my home in Fralick. You would love it there. I certainly did. The problem was that I had no one to share it with. Well, I did have Kisa, but she now belongs to Javan, and I no longer have a home. A wall of white winds wiped it out.
“Going on this adventure with Javan has been exciting, but I wonder if Javan only wants me around because I know more about dragons than he does. I can also operate the portal.” Once they returned, would he have any use for her? Or would he toss her aside after he collected all his dragons?
“If he does abandon me,” Taliya said, stretching her legs and slightly bumping one of the logs, “at least I’ll have you. Which means I’m going to need you to hatch. Now would be good.”
The only reaction came from an ant the length of her fingernail marching up the log she bumped. She swept it away, but two more replaced it. “I don’t need any creature, no matter how small, disturbing my dragon. I’m sorry I nudged your home, but you all have to leave.”
The ants didn’t see it that way. Several of them crawled on her hand. She flicked them off. Most of them. One broke through. Bit her wrist. The crippling pain intensified when several more bit her arm. Another attacked her neck.
The loudest, shrillest shriek she had ever uttered in her life erupted from her gut through her lips. She tried to rip her arm off her body to ease her pain. When it didn’t work, she collapsed. She cradled her burning arm and cried, certain she was experiencing the brink of death.
Chapter 39
Taliya’s Darkest Day
“H
it me all you want.” Micah encouraged the Destroyer as she grunted and pounded on his back while he walked up the hill toward the house with her over his shoulder. Those fists had given him a bloody lip and sore ribs, but he eventually won the frustrating fistfight by tackling her when she tried to run away. “I’m happy you’re finally showing some emotion and using your vocal chords for something, even if it is only for grunting.”
The pounding stopped. Her body went limp.
“Giving up that easily, huh? Wise decision. The sooner you understand you’ll never beat me, the sooner we can work through our differences and perhaps become friends.”
She grabbed his dreadlocks and yanked.
“Ow! Don’t touch the hair!” He dropped her on the ground without bothering to be gentle. “Tell you what. I’ll let you walk the rest of the way. All you have to do is tell me your name.”
She gave him a smug look and remained silent.
“Bad choice.” He picked her up. This time, he folded her body around his neck like a scarf and held her arms and legs in check. She squirmed, but his grip was too secure. She couldn’t move. “This is what you get for trying to kill me.”
He continued his march uphill and saw Kenton’s car pull into the driveway. So he hadn’t helped her. That was good news. Or maybe not.
If Kenton hadn’t helped her escape, that meant she had freed herself from her bindings. How did she do that? How dangerous was this woman he carried on his shoulders?
◊◊◊
A horrifying screech chilled Javan. Had Taliya made that sound? Starshade seemed concerned as well, and they rushed through the winding, complicated paths of the garden. When they made it back to Taliya, he found her running in circles, shrieking, and shaking her right arm. “Taliya!” He tied Starshade’s leash to a branch, stopped her in mid-sprint, and noticed tears streaming down her cheeks. “What’s wrong?”
“Pain!” She shook loose from his light grip and kept moving in circles. “So much pain!”
“Why are you in pain? What happened?” He could see welts growing on her arm even though she refused to stand still. “I’m going to get Luisa.”
“Luisa coming.” Luisa stepped onto the back porch and shuffled toward them.
How slow could the woman possibly walk? He needed her here pronto. He ran up to her and latched onto her elbow in an effort to speed her up. “I think something bit Taliya. You have to help her!”
“Must stay calm. Cannot help if I a
m panicked.”
Javan tugged her arm. “Can you be calm and move a little faster?”
“I move as fast as necessary.”
Javan held back his own scream, dropped Luisa’s arm, and sprinted the fifty remaining feet to the nest area. He helplessly listened to Taliya cry as he watched Luisa meander over. When she finally reached them, she said, “Ah. I see.”
“See what? Can you help her? What’s the problem?”
“I see bullet ants.” She pointed to some ants crawling on a log close to the egg. “They give most painful insect bite man knows. One on your shoe. You should get off.”
Javan looked down and yelped. He stomped the large ant on his right foot with his left foot, crushing his own toe. “Is that what bit you, Taliya?”
She could no longer seem to form words and continued to walk in circles while shaking her arm.
Javan turned to Luisa. “You have to help her.”
“She dance.”
“What?”
“Dancing help take mind off pain.”
Taliya’s mouth gaped open. “Dancing. Won’t. Help.” She collapsed. “Would rather die.” She curled herself into a ball and shook.
Javan dropped to her side and wrapped his arms around her trembling shoulders. “Luisa, you can’t let her die. Surely there is something in this garden that can help counteract this poison.”
“No poison. Venom. Not lethal. Will swell. Be pain. Excruciating pain. But she survive.”
“Isn’t there anything you can to do help the pain?”
“Can try extracting venom. Give antihistamine. Waves of pain still come and go for about day. Be better tomorrow.”
“Morrow?” The partial word slipped out of Taliya’s lips. “Can’t. Take this. Pain. All day.”
“Luisa, please.” Javan looked up at the old lady who didn’t seem at all concerned about the agony etched on Taliya’s face. “Tell me what I need to do to help you extract the venom.” If he couldn’t bear her pain himself, he would do whatever was necessary to alleviate it.
He pulled her closer to him, certain that this one going to be one very long day.
◊◊◊
Taliya lifted her heavy head off the soft pillow. A dull pain radiated from the fingers of her swollen right arm to her neck, but the want-to-die pain was gloriously gone. Whatever Luisa had given her to help her sleep must have also worked on healing the ant bites. Then she noticed the clock. And the daylight streaming through the edges of the window of the small room.
“No!” She bolted out of bed and tugged the curtains out of the way. Sure enough, the mid-morning rays of the sun stretched through the clouds and softly kissed the plants throughout Luisa’s garden. “How long have I been asleep? Why did they bring me inside? What did they do with my dragon?”
She shook her head to bring the memory of her darkest day back into focus. She recalled the relentless agony. The endless tears. The throat-scarring sobs. Then Luisa had forced her to eat some sort of sour green soup for dinner. Shortly thereafter, she had fallen asleep in Javan’s arms on the back porch. She liked having him hold her, but it wasn’t something she should get used to. Javan’s friendship was only temporary. Soon he would be king. He wouldn’t need her after he won the throne. Her dragon would need her, though. If she had hatched.
She turned her gaze to the ground right below the window. The dragon’s nest was empty. “Please be alive,” she muttered, bursting through the door and into the kitchen. Luisa and Javan both sat at the round table eating beans and rice, and Starshade, now the size of a fat fox, sat at Javan’s feet. “Where’s my dragon? I saw the nest is empty. Has she hatched? Please tell me she’s hatched.”
“Taliya!” Javan scooted back, causing Starshade to hiss. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. What about my dragon? Where is she?”
He shook his head. “She’s still in her shell. We moved her inside to get her away from the ants and the rain.”
“Take me to her.”
“Sure.” He led her to the cozy living room with a couch on one side and a television on the other. She ran to the couch, picked the egg off the pile of blankets it rested on, and held it in her lap. Holding the egg comforted and disappointed her. She wanted to be holding a dragon, not an egg that had less than seventeen hours left to hatch.
She drew the egg to her chest, leaned back, and froze. The picture staring at her from the wall above the television took her breath away. She slowly stood and walked over to the picture of a conical volcano. It was covered with lush green vegetation surrounded by the kinds of colorful flowers and trees that reminded her of the rain forest in Keckrick. “Where is this? Is this a real place on Earth?”
“Yes, indeed,” Luisa said from the doorway. “That Arenal Volcano.”
“How do we get there?”
Luisa pointed to the left. “Go that way.”
“You mean it’s near here?”
“Si. You can see from garden on sunny day. It past town of La Fortuna.”
“Take me there.”
“Taliya,” Javan said, “why do you want to go near a volcano?”
“Because that’s the best chance my dragon has of hatching. She wants to make her appearance in the rain forest, not in a manmade nest under a roof. I’m sure of it. We have less than a day left of viability. We have to try something different.”
“You sure you want to go into the rain forest? What if more of those ants sting you?”
“I’ll get bit by a hundred of those ants if it means my dragon has a chance to live.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, then. We’ll fly over there after Varjiek eats his noon meal.”
“Thank you.” She rubbed the egg as she stared at the volcano. Not only would she be returning to the familiar territory of the rain forest, but soon she would be meeting her very own dragon.
Chapter 40
Time’s Up
“T
ime to take Jane her lunch.”
Micah ignored Kenton’s statement and turned the television up louder. He hadn’t laid eyes on the Destroyer since he locked her in a storage room in the basement yesterday morning and didn’t care to know when Kenton took her food.
She had ruined his run yesterday. His still side stung because of her today. But the most irritating thing was that he didn’t know how to deal with an enemy who wouldn’t speak.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me.” Kenton stepped between Micah and the television and kicked the footrest of Micah’s recliner into the down position. He pulled Micah out of the chair and put a plate in his hands. “It’s time to take Jane her lunch.”
“You do it.” He pushed the plate back to Kenton. “I don’t want to see her.”
“Tough.” Kenton put his hands up, refusing to take the plate. “She’s your prisoner, and I’m done taking care of her.”
“You’re just mad cause she won’t eat your cooking.” Kenton had returned with a full plate of food every time he had taken her a meal.
“She doesn’t appreciate fine cooking, which is why she’s only getting a simple ham sandwich and plain potato chips today. She’s got to be hungry. Maybe you can use this food to get her to talk.”
Micah considered that. He did want to know who she was and why she wanted him dead. “I’ll try.” He needed to do something besides watch the box of pictures anyway.
He carried the plate downstairs and paused before opening the door. The light was off. Why would she have the light off in the middle of the day? The ten by ten room with its two brick walls and two grey walls made of an unpainted material Kenton called sheetrock had no windows in it. Was she asleep or waiting to attack him once he entered the dark room?
To free his hands, he put the plate on the weird table that had six holes spaced along the sides and was covered with fake green grass. Only then did he moved the chair out from under the doorknob of the room. If she wanted a fight
, he would be ready for a fight.
With one swift move, he opened the door with his right hand and flicked the light switch on with his left, hoping the light would temporarily blind her and allow him to throw the first punch. However, he found her sitting cross-legged on her cot in the corner staring at him with those expressionless brown eyes.
Backing out of the room, he grabbed the food and returned. “Brought you lunch. You can have it if you tell me why it is you work for Omri.”
She ignored him and the food.
“Let me ask another way. What is he using as blackmail to get you to do his bidding?”
Anger flashed in the Destroyer’s eyes. His instincts were right. Omri was holding something or someone over her.
“That’s how my father controls people, you know. He finds something they desperately want, takes it from them, and returns it when they complete their task. Sometimes, anyway. He’s not known for his integrity in deals.”
She blinked back her anger. Her emotions became neutral again.
“Tell me what he has that you want. I know how he thinks. I know how he manipulates people. I can help you. I’ll keep you safe if you talk to me, but you have to talk to me.”
She threw her plate of food. It whizzed past Micah and slammed against the wall behind him, then dropped onto the cement floor.
“Guess you’re still not ready to talk.” He stepped over the scattered food. “Think about what I said. I’ll be back at dinner time. We can chat then.”
He closed the door behind him and replaced the chair under the knob to keep her locked in. What was so important to her that she was willing to kill him to get it back from Omri?
◊◊◊
“No.” Taliya shook her head through the falling rain at the spot by some boulders Javan suggested. “We would have a nice spot to sit, but I don’t think my dragon would be comfortable there.”
