dragons breath 02 - dancing with flames (12 page)

“I heard the dragon doesn’t want you living here anymore,” Justin said, resting a hand on my truck. “Conrad told me something about how even that weird creature thinks you’re too dangerous for us to be around.”

He couldn’t be bothered to say Aidan’s name—the jackass.

I gritted my teeth and counted to five. “I’m killing dragons to protect people—like you. Do you seriously have a problem with that?”

“Well, that’s not exactly my problem.” Justin worked his jaw, silent for a moment. “I’m just…annoyed, I guess. Here I am—a trained soldier—and I can’t defend my own damn neighborhood. You’re nothing but a little college girl, but you get the ability to fight dragons like no one else can. It’s…frustrating.”

I gave him a surprised look—that admission was rather unexpected. “You’re jealous?”

I’d had a suspicion that was his problem, but I never thought he’d admit it.

“Trish and I had a long talk about you last night,” he said, referring to his girlfriend, who was also one of my best friends from college. “She said I’ve been a sexist pig and a few other things I won’t get into. Let’s just say I owe you an apology. You didn’t ask to be what you are, but you’ve handled it better than most people would have under the circumstances.”

I pinched my leg, certain I must be dreaming. It hurt, disproving that theory. “Uh, thanks.”

“Just do me a favor and don’t stay too long. The dragons will be coming out in an hour or so.” He pointed up at the clear, blue sky where the sun steadily climbed overhead.

“I’ll be quick,” I promised.

Justin glanced down the street, his gaze focusing on a house with blue siding where he and Trish now lived. His fists clenched and unclenched several times before he turned his attention back to me. “But before you go, you might talk to Trish for a few minutes. She has something she needs to tell you.”

That piqued my curiosity. How much had I missed after being gone a few days?

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed.

He slapped the side of my truck, and I drove about halfway down the street before pulling into Earl’s driveway. His red brick home wasn’t as big as some of the other houses on the block, but he took good care of the lawn, and he had a nice sized basement underneath for storing survival gear. Aside from my one-month stay here, no one else had lived with him since his wife passed years ago. He was a bit cantankerous and tended to scare most people off.

I got out of the truck and headed toward Earl where he sat on his porch in a rickety lawn chair. His back was stooped a little, and he had a bit of a paunch in his belly, despite being limited to rations for the last few months, but he still moved around fairly well for a sixty-five-year-old. It was his rugged face with the faded shrapnel scar on his left cheek and the gray beard that made him look his age. He snubbed out the cigarette he was smoking with his boot and narrowed his gaze on me. I braced myself for what would likely be a long lecture.

“You get that damn dragon taking kids yet?” he asked, his voice coming out gruff.

I shrugged a shoulder. “Working on it.”

“That’s what I heard.” He stared at me with clear blue eyes. “You do whatever it takes to get that thing, but you make sure to check in with me every so often. That’s all I ask.”

“I will.”

“And you’re gonna have to call your momma soon. You know how she gets if she don’t hear from you.” He spit on the sidewalk. “I don’t wanna be the one explainin’ why you’re too busy to talk to her.”

Earl had a satellite phone and a generator to charge it. Despite all the natural disasters, nothing had affected the satellites overhead, so those phones still worked. The trick was having one that was already operable before D-day and knowing the number to anyone else who owned one. Luckily my stepfather had one as well, partially because our ranch didn’t get good cell phone reception and partially because he was a survivalist like Earl.

“I’ll call her…soon.” It was just that I didn’t know what to say every time we talked. There was never anything good to tell my mom, and I hated lying to her about what I was up to.

At least Earl had kept the secret about me slaying dragons from my parents so far. The last thing they needed was one more thing to worry about. It was all they could do to protect the ranch and keep my brothers from getting themselves killed.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Earl replied, leaning back in his chair.

I left him and headed toward Trish’s place two doors down. It really concerned me that Justin had asked me to talk to her. He wouldn’t do that unless something was seriously wrong with her. Was she sick or depressed? We’d stocked up on as many kinds of medicine as we could, but we didn’t have them all and Danae’s healer abilities had limits. Diseases were still beyond her magic.

Please don’t let anything be wrong with Trish
, I prayed.

I knocked on the door and shifted on my feet as I waited. A few moments later, footsteps came from the inside, heading my way. The deadbolt slid with a click and Trish opened the door. Her curly red hair was a tangled mess, her eyes were swollen, and her t-shirt had stains on it like she’d been out working in the garden recently. Wordlessly, I pulled her into a hug. Her soft form squished against mine and she broke into tears.

“Did…did he tell you?” she asked, her voice coming out muffled from my shoulder.

“No,” I said softly. “Justin just said I should come see you.”

She took in several stuttering breaths, shaking against me. “Oh, God, Bailey. I’m in so much trouble.”

“Shhh. It can’t be that bad.” I patted her shoulder.

“You don’t understand,” she wailed, pulling back to look at me. “It’s worse than you can possibly imagine.”

I examined her from head to toe, not seeing any sign of illness or injury. “Well, you’ve got all your working parts, Justin is still your boyfriend, and as long as I leave soon, you should be safe here. What could be so bad?”

Trish opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I’m pregnant.”

“What?” I took a step back to look at her closer. She’d put on a little weight recently, but not that much. I’d just assumed it was from stress eating. Everyone had their own way of dealing with the dramatic changes in the world, and she took consolation in food. I didn’t judge. Heck, I even gave her some of my rations because it made her happy.

“I found out last night. Danae brought it up after she caught me puking for the third time. She sent Justin out to get a pregnancy test.” Trish paused and seemed to calm a bit. “Would you believe there are still plenty of those in the stores even though almost everything else is gone?”

“Well, uh, I guess it wouldn’t be a priority for the looters, but I thought you still had plenty of birth control and condoms.” This was really the last thing I’d expected to hear. She’d told me a while back Justin was obsessed with preventing pregnancy for obvious reasons, and he had stocked up on everything he could. At the very least, they were going to get married first and wait until things weren’t quite so dangerous.

“We did. We were so careful.” She led me into the living room, and we sat on the couch. “But I guess this was one of those one percent cases or whatever.”

My mind raced. I wanted to be supportive of her, but this was definitely not a good time for pregnancy. She couldn’t bring a baby into the world now when the future was so uncertain, and there wouldn’t be a hospital for her to give birth in. How was I going to help her when I couldn’t even live here anymore? A thousand thoughts raced through my mind, but I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say. Was this why Justin had suddenly become friendlier? Even he didn’t want to do anything to upset Trish further now that she was so vulnerable.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Have the baby, I guess. Even if there was a way to get an abortion, I don’t think I could do it and Justin is Catholic. He’d never agree to that.”

No, he wouldn’t, but I suspected he was about to redefine the meaning of over-protective. Trish was going to have her work cut out for her handling both this pregnancy and him.

“Do you have any idea how far along you are?”

She nodded. “I worked it out with Danae, and we think I’m two months.”

“Wow, so you got pregnant back when we still lived in the library.” That seemed like ages ago, rather than about five weeks.

“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “Who knows where we’ll be by the time this baby is born or if we can find an experienced midwife or doctor to help me…and now you’re hardly around anymore.”

Danae’s combat medic training would have given her some basic skills on how to deliver a baby, but Trish would definitely need someone with more experience to monitor the pregnancy and handle any potential complications. I couldn’t even consider the idea that she might die in childbirth the way many women had before medical advancement reduced the risk. There had to be at least a few people still around town who could help. It was only a matter of finding them, which I was certain Justin would make a priority. In this case, his being overprotective might be a good thing.

I grabbed Trish’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry I won’t be around as much, but if you need anything—
anything at all
—just let me know.”

“Thanks, Bailey.” She managed a weak smile. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”

“Good.” It relieved me to see her mood brighten a little. The last thing I wanted was to leave when she was still upset.

“So, um, you’re staying at that house by the lake now? The one that Aidan uses?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She swallowed. “Maybe I can visit sometime.”

“Maybe,” I said, then glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost noon. “But I have to go now.”

“But you just got here,” she argued.

I stood, grimacing with regret. “I’m sorry, but I can’t risk staying any longer.”

“When will you be back?” she asked, angling her pale face up at me.

“Hopefully in a few days.”

Trish narrowed her eyes. “Promise?”

In the movies, people who made promises almost never kept them. I wasn’t making that mistake. “I’ll do my best.”

She leaped up and gave me a hug. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

I left her house and stepped outside. Two driveways down, Conrad leaned against my truck with his arms crossed. I made my way over to him.

“You’re not going with me,” I said.

“Yes, I am. Someone’s gotta have your back.”

That was the excuse he always gave. It had become almost a habit to go through this argument every time I went out hunting. “Fine, but if you rub it in my face that you’re better with the crossbow, I’m ditching you.”

“Damn, girl, you’re no fun.” He hopped in the truck, waiting until I started the engine and pulled out of the drive before grinning at me. “But I am better than you.”

Chapter 12

Bailey

“Think they’re goin’ to be roaming around here?” Conrad asked.

We were driving around the west side of I-35 where the Thamaran clan of dragons hunted. According to Aidan, their territory took up the western half of Oklahoma with the interstate being the border. I didn’t want to risk getting into it with the Shadowan yet, so I was targeting the other clan for now. I’d get back to Matrika and her fellow dragons soon enough.

A series of gunshots sounded in the distance, followed by the furious roar of a dragon. I glanced over at Conrad. “Think that’s our cue?”

“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, his eyes lighting up. “Let’s get there before the dragon kills whoever is shooting at it.”

I hit the gas, speeding up. “You’re becoming such an adrenaline junky.”

“It’s all your fault.”

More gunfire rang out and I followed the direction of the sound. We arrived at the intersection of 36
^th
and Main Street. On the northeast corner where the local mall was located, a group of bikers were pulling on a red dragon with hooks and ropes they’d somehow gotten into him.

“Oh, shit,” Conrad said. “That’s not Aidan is it?”

I leaned forward, trying to get a good look at the creature while also trying to control my slayer instincts. My blood pressure was already beginning to rise. “No, the coloring isn’t quite the same and Aidan is out of town right now on a mission for his father.”

“How in the hell did they manage to trap a dragon like that?” Conrad asked.

“No idea.” My foot pressed down on the gas pedal. The closer I got to the battle, the more my instincts took over and all I could think about was attacking the dragon.

“Bailey,” Conrad said, speaking my name slowly. “Aidan’s gonna be pissed if you help those bikers kill one of his people.”

I slammed on my breaks about a hundred feet from the bikers, set the gearshift into park, and reached for my sword. “Can’t…help it.”

The primitive part of my mind had taken over. Conrad grabbed my arm, but I shrugged him off and got out of the truck. I raced across the pavement toward the struggling red dragon. Half a dozen bikers gathered around the beast, holding it with their ropes and shooting at it. The hook was stuck in its upper and lower jaws, keeping its mouth shut, but it loosened a little more with each toss of the creature’s head. Any moment, that dragon was going to get free.

“Get back!” I yelled.

Two of the men glanced at me, but none of them stopped what they were doing. They needed to get the hell out of the way before they got hurt. I ran up to the three guys holding the rope extending from the dragon’s mouth and switched my sword to my non-dominant hand to free the other. I took hold of the nearest man and tossed him twenty feet. He landed with a thud, knocking his head into the ground. The adrenaline coursing through my veins fueled my need to move the humans and attack the dragon. I grabbed the next guy, tossing him toward his buddy.

Just as I reached for the third man’s shoulder, the dragon reared up, and the hook came loose from its mouth. It roared a stream of flames at us. Everything went red and orange, blinding me. The man who I’d been grasping disintegrated beneath my fingertips. I was too late. If I’d had just a few more seconds, I could have gotten him out of the way.