Rock Bottom (Dragon Within #4) (4 page)

    
I stepped
out through the hole in the wall. A half dozen people were spread out behind
the cabin. Five men and one woman. I knew who had done the talking the moment I
saw him. “Rick.” He looked exactly as I remembered. Movie star good looks.
Built like one of those guys in a bodybuilder magazine. But the friendly light
that used to shine in his eyes was gone.

    
I paused,
eyeing the rather large handgun he was pointing at me. He wasn’t a dragon, so
he had no powers to confront me with. But a gun did a fine job of evening
things up between us.

    
“Surprised to see me?” he asked.

    
“Yeah." I was in trouble and I knew it. The others were dragons, I
had no doubt about that. Maybe they were battle trained trackers and maybe they
weren’t, but either way I was outnumbered and outmatched. My control over my
powers was improving. But not enough for me to take on so many of them by
myself.

    
He
glanced past me. “Zack, if you can hear me you better come out or I’m going to
put a bullet in your girl. I can’t kill her, but I can hurt her.”
 

    
“I told
you, he’s...” If I said dead one more time I was going to burst into tears. “He
was knocked out. He can’t hear you.”

    
“We’ll
see about that,” Rick said. “Bret, you go in there and check.”

    
One of
the guys took a step forward, then stopped. He looked a little older than Zack,
maybe twenty one or so. He glanced at Rick. He glanced at me. Then he squared
his shoulders and walked toward the cabin, taking a wide track around me. The
whole time he kept watching me out of the corner of his eye. Sweat beaded his
upper lip. And that was when I realized something amazing. He was afraid of me.
Of
me
, not Zack, though he probably wasn’t too happy about dealing with
him either if he knew about all the dead bodies back in California.

    
I looked
at the other dragons. None of them would meet my eye. Only Rick, who knew me as
Abigail Freeman, the sixteen year old girl who was way out of her depth. The
others only saw a hybrid. To them I was the boogeyman come to life.

    
Bret was
gone all of two minute before coming back out. “She was telling the truth.
Zack’s down. The cabin is empty.”

    
“Is Zack
dead?” Rick asked.

    
My breath
caught in my chest as I waited on the answer.

    
“No,”
Bret said. “Do we want to take him back with us?”

    
I let my
breath out in a whoosh. Even with the danger we were still in, I felt immense
relief knowing Zack was alive. I only hoped he wasn’t hurt too badly.

    
Rick
stared at me for a long moment, before answering Bret without taking his eyes
off mine. “Kill him.”

    
No
thought whatsoever crossed my mind. Which was a good thing, because thoughts
brought hesitation and doubt. My powers worked better without those. I spun
toward Bret, wrapped a band of air around his waist, and lifted him off his
feet. He had time for one short shout before I flung him away from the cabin.
He hit the ground and rolled into the trunk of a nearby tree.

    
A gunshot
rocked the silence. I tensed, expecting to feel some kind of terrible pain.
When nothing happened I slowly turned to see Rick pointing the gun straight up
into the air. He lowered the barrel at me.

    
“That was
a warning shot. It’s the only one you’re going to get. The next bullet that
comes out of this gun is going in your leg.”

    
I was scared.
I want you to understand that. And I’m not talking about horror movie or
nightmare scared, no I’m talking about the kind of scared that makes all your
guts go loose and your legs start to shaking. I’d only felt scared like that
once before in my life. When Alice had me pinned under a shield of air and I
knew I was going to die.

    
“You
better put that bullet in my head instead, because you are not killing Zack.” I
really have no idea how I managed to stand there sounding so sure and firm when
it felt like all my insides were nothing but jelly.

    
“Nothing
would make me happier than to do exactly that,” Rick said. “But I have my orders.
So don’t be stupid. Zack is going to die whether you come along easy or not.
We’ll call it justice. You killed my wife, I kill your boyfriend. It all evens
out.”

    
“That was
self defense,” I said. “Alice attacked me. She was going to kill me. I had a
right to fight back. Zack is defenseless right now. Killing him would be
murder. There’s a big difference.”

    
“Don’t
argue semantics with me,” Rick said. “I’m done talking. Are you going to come
along peacefully, or do I shoot you?”

    
I crossed
my arms over my chest. “I’m not moving.” I could have hit him with a blast of
air, but I didn’t know if the gun might go off. Besides, I was hoping if I
didn’t make any aggressive moves the other dragons wouldn’t attack me.

    
“Fine.
Have it your way.” He took aim at my left leg.

    
A
fireball slammed into the ground between us, knocking everybody off their feet.
I thought it must be Derek and I couldn’t have been happier to see him. But
when I pushed myself up to my knees, it wasn’t my brother I was looking at.

    
“All this
time and you’re still helpless as a newborn kitten,” Megara said in her faintly
lilting accent.

    
I
struggled to my feet. “I am not helpless. I... I was outnumbered is all.”

    
She
snorted, looking through the flames at our enemies. “Pitiful group that. They
didn’t even bother to send veteran trackers. And a human leading them?
Tsk
. You clearly aren’t doing much for our image girl.
We’re supposed to be fearsome monsters, or didn’t you know?”

    
“I know.”
I dusted myself off. Beyond the fire, Rick and the others were also recovering.
“You aren’t going to kill them. Are you?”

    
“Why
not?” she asked. “They’d as soon kill us.”

    
“Killing
them proves their point,” I said. “Are we monsters?”

    
Megara
laughed. “Oh, you’re such a young thing.” She leaned toward the flames. “Boo!”
Adding a little gust of wind to the word was all that was needed to get the
enemy running.

    
Rick
paused to look back at me with such an expression of hatred on his face it made
me shiver, before he too was gone.

    
“They’ll
tell Alastair where we are.” Megara turned around. “So, I guess we better leave
right now.” The air stirred around us. Last time we met, she whirled off on a
tornado, so I thought that
 
was probably
what she had in mind for us.

    
“Wait a
minute.” I backed up. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I have– Oh! Zack.” I
spun around and raced back into the cabin.

    
I
stumbled across the debris at the hole in the wall, but managed to keep my
footing. Glass littered the floor and I crunched my way through it, confident
my sneakers would protect my feet. I crouched down beside Zack and carefully
rolled him over onto his back. He had a cut on his cheek that had already
stopped bleeding, but other than that he looked okay. I figured he must have
hit his head and that’s what knocked him out.

    
Nothing
is more frightening than to realize someone you love, someone you thought of as
this indestructible force, is as vulnerable as anybody else. I brushed the hair
back from his forehead. “Please wake up.”

    
“Worrying
over a tracker?” Megara stepped up behind me. “You’re wasting your time on him,
girl. They’re all the same. Killers. We’re going now.”

    
“No.” I
looked up at her. “I’m not leaving here without Zack and the rest of my
friends.”

    
Megara
smiled in an unpleasant kind of way. “I could make you.”

    
“I guess
you could.” I stood. “But if you wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead and I
don’t think you’re here because you care what happens to me. So that only
leaves you wanting something from me. Whatever it is, you’re not going to get
it by force. So you can agree to wait for my friends or you can leave.”

    
“Well,
now, there’s a spark of spunk I like to see,” Megara said. “Fine. We’ll wait.
But I can’t carry so many. I hope your friends won’t mind a long hike.”

CHAPTER
THREE

    
I sat
beside Zack on a sleeping bag, waiting for him to open his eyes. I don’t think
I’ve ever been so worried about anyone in my life. My stomach was all queasy
like I needed to throw up and I had this little knot of pain sitting right
between my eyes.

    
If you’re
wondering how we got from the living room to the bedroom, it went like this:
Derek and the others got back to the cabin maybe forty minutes after the
attack. It might have been a little longer, I’m not sure. Anyway, he was not at
all happy to see the blasted wall nor to hear about Rick and the gun. But he
was even less happy to see Megara. Which I thought was weird seeing as how we’d
come all the way to Oregon specifically to find her.

    
Megara
wanted to leave as soon as they got there. I had the feeling she really didn’t want
to take Zack with us even though she didn’t say as much. Derek didn’t want to
go at all and I wasn’t too surprised when Brandy backed him up. Hannah let them
know how stupid they were being, in not so nice words, while Curtis hung back
videotaping the whole thing.

    
As for
me, I’d already decided Megara was my best chance at not getting killed. I
surprised everyone, including myself, when I put down my foot and told them in
no uncertain terms we were going with Megara but not until Zack was well enough
to walk. Then I roped my brother into helping me move Zack into the bedroom,
after which I shooed him away and shut the door.
 

    
I was
terrified something might be seriously wrong with Zack. Like maybe something in
his brain was hurt and he was in a coma. It made me feel like screaming and
crying all at the same time. I already knew I was in love with him, but it
wasn’t until he got hurt I really understood what that meant.

    
He could
have died when he hit the wall. Or Bret could have killed him without bothering
to come out and ask Rick first. Those things hadn’t happened, but the
possibility of them weighed on me.

    
Death
used to be this distant thing. Something that only happened to really old
people, or sick people, or people I didn’t know. Then I had to kill Alice, who
I thought was my friend, and everything changed in ways I couldn’t have
imagined. The way I viewed the world changed. Finding out I was a dragon was
huge, but realizing I was capable of killing someone was so much bigger.

    
I had thought
nothing could be bigger than that. Then Kyle got shot. He wasn’t my friend,
really, I only hung out with him because of Brandy. But I liked him okay and
more, I
knew
him. And he died. He was
killed
. For no reason at
all. Those people were after me and he just got caught in the wrong place at
the wrong time.

    
After
that, anyone I knew could die. That should have been firmly embedded in my
brain, right? No. Not Zack. Not until I saw him lying on the floor and I
couldn’t tell whether or not he was breathing. I had to think he might be dead
before my brain could even imagine the possibility.

    
Zack’s
eyelids fluttered and I had to bite my lower lip hard to stop all the things I
was feeling from spilling out. I dug my fingernails into my palms and fought to
hold myself right where I was.

    
I wanted
nothing more than to throw myself at Zack and wrap my arms around him, but I
knew I couldn’t do that. For one thing, I might hurt him, and for another he
might not even want me to do something like that. I hadn’t forgotten how he
said our kiss was a mistake.

    
“What...”
He moaned. “What happened?”

    
My
fingers twitched. “We were ambushed. It was Rick and some dragons. Trackers I
think. They blew a hole in the wall and you were in the way. Does your head
hurt?”

    
“Yeah.”
He slowly sat up. “But I’ll live.” He looked me over. “You okay?”

 
   
“I’m good.”

    
“Oh.”
Zack pressed his hand to the side of his head. “Derek swoop in to save the
day?”

    
How do
you like that? He hadn’t been awake ten seconds and he was already insulting
me. I guess everything in his head was working all right. “Maybe I took care of
them myself.” Have you ever noticed how sometimes relief can come out of you
like anger? “You don’t know. You were unconscious.”

    
He gave
me this ‘come on tell me the truth’ kind of look and I felt my face start to
heat up. “It was Megara,” I said. “She showed up just in time to stop Rick from
shooting me. Satisfied?”

 
   
“Megara is here?” Zack jumped to his feet,
only to sway a little like maybe he was about to fall back down.

    
I started
to reach out to steady him, but he stepped away from me before I could. “She’s
in the other room," I said. "Maybe you should rest awhile longer. You
hit your head pretty hard.”

    
“I’m
fine.” He marched to the door and threw it open. What else could I do but
follow him?