Joshua McCune - Talker 25

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Dad asks.

I shake my head and step from the room. “Hello?”

“Mel, thank God. Where are you?”

“At the medical tent.”

“Sam?”

“He’s okay. Smoke inhalation, but they say he’ll be fine.”

“You want me to come give him a kiss?”

I grin. “That would probably wake him up fast, but they want him to sleep a little longer. Where are you?”

“They let us out of the shelter, but they’re not letting us out of school. A-Bs are walking the halls, making sure we’re good little brats. They shut down the vid windows and cut off net access. They wanted to kill our phones, too, but Keith convinced them not to. I can’t reach my mom, Mel.”

“I’m sure she’s fine.” I try to adopt Dad’s neutral tone, but I’m no good at it.

“What is it, Mel? Remember what we promised each other.”

“It’s nothing, Trish. I don’t—”

“Shit, there’s someone coming.”

The line goes dead.

I’m about to pull back Sam’s curtain, but a nearby voice stays my hand.

“Don’t you touch her.”

The voice is familiar, but I can’t place it. I lean over, peep through the slit between curtain and pole.

“Son, this will go a whole lot better for you if you cooperate. It’s no use struggling,” says the A-B who let me in. He and a black-suited man flank a pale woman laid out on a gurney. Aside from the sheet covering her torso and thighs, she appears naked. Her silver-and-black hair falls in waves to her hips. She looks strangely beautiful.

“Please don’t take her.” I shut one eye, cock my head, trying to get a better view, but all I see is a tanned leg, the beginnings of a hospital gown, and an arm cuffed to a chair.

“Tell me where the rest of your group is and I’ll make sure she gets a funeral,” Blacksuit says. He motions to the soldier, who rolls the gurney toward the curtain.

“Hey, Trish, hold up,” I say into the silent phone, then wave to the soldier as he emerges from the room. “She going to be okay?”

He shakes his head. “How’s your brother?”

“Good.” I study the woman’s face. “What happened to her?”

“Found her”—he nods toward the curtain—“and her son at Dragon Hole. A strange lot.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was dressed like Amelia Earhart and her kid was wearing this Euro punk rocker getup.” He grimaces. “I’ll never understand dragon riders.”

My breath catches. The voice, the overdramatic farmboy words, the beauty of the dead mother . . .

“He’s an insurgent?”

“So says the D-man.” The A-B hooks a thumb at the curtain. “Ask me, he’s a few acorns short of a tree. It’s too bad you kids had to grow up in this world.” He draws the sheet over the woman’s face. “Glad your brother’s okay.”

I peek in on my way back to Sam. The D-man is on the phone, but not saying anything. I nudge back the curtain an inch. The clink of rings sliding on rod echoes loud in my ears, but he doesn’t notice.

James does. Those blue eyes watch me from a face blackened by smoke and haunted with grief. I swore if I ever saw him again, he would regret it. But now I can only think of the terrible bond we share.

The curtain rattles.

Protect the children. The words come from my head. Sounds like Trish, but a bit deeper. Just like the last time atop Dragon Hill. Am I completely batshit—

The ground rumbles. The D-man pockets his phone. The rumbling intensifies into an all-out earthquake. I stumble into the curtain. The agent whirls around, his eyes widening when they find me.

“You’re that—”

A sharp tremor sends him sideways. He clutches at a trembling tent pole.

“You need to get out . . . ,” James says, but the rest of his words are swallowed by an explosion of dragon sirens.

The Blues are on the rampage.

Fissuresrush through the tent, vicious subterranean claws that shred anything in their path. They come fast and straight, and when the tendrils of cracking earth reach me, they shift course and accelerate toward the D-man.

A section of asphalt shoots up through the canvas beneath his feet. He surfs the undulating chunk until a secondary tremor tips it over. He slams to the ground, and the pole he clung to moments before crashes onto his head.

“Get out of here, Melissa,” James shouts above the blaring sirens. “It’s the Blues. They can’t control it much longer—”

“Then you’d better shut up, farmboy, and tell me where the keys are.”

He nods at the BoDA agent. “Left pants pocket.”

I drop and crawl over. The agent groans when I roll him onto his side. His eyes are closed; blood pours from his scalp; a splinter of bone protrudes through his left pant leg. Biting my lip to keep from gagging, I fish through his pocket until I find the keys.

I’m lurching toward James when I hear Dad shouting my name. He sounds miles away, but when I pull back the curtain, he’s on the other side of the corridor, no more than ten feet from me. Sam’s slung over his shoulder. My brother’s eyes blink open. He gives me a dopey smile and a gleeful wave.

I steady myself against the worsening tremors and struggle to my feet. “In here, Dad.”

He spins around. “Come on!”

A nurse flashes past him, pistol in hand, and I’m suddenly aware of the patter of gunfire. Sounds like heavy rain, and it’s coming closer, along with the thunder of the dragon stampede.

“Go, Dad. Get Sam out of here. I’m coming!” I yell.

He looks at the agent, at the keys clutched in my hand. “What are you doing?”

Poles clatter to the ground. Sections of tent collapse. Dad stumbles sideways and collides with a gurney, nearly dropping Sam.

“Get out of here, Melissa!” James urges.

“Sam needs you, Dad. Go!” He doesn’t move. “Mom was right about the dragons. They’re not here to hurt us. And they’re not going to hurt me.”

Dad glances toward the exit. “You know where to meet us?”

When we’re not running dragon shelter drills, we’re learning evac routes. “At Henley’s farm. Bet I’ll beat you there.”

“You better, Melissa Anne. Love you.” Then he and Sam are gone.

With the earth pitching me around, it takes a couple of tries to insert the key into the cuffs securing James’s hand. The latch clicks, the world shifts, I’m thrown sideways onto his lap.

He sets me on my feet, wraps an arm around my waist. Leaning on each other, we crouch-walk forward, the ground shaking every which way. We’re almost to the curtain when I hear the groan behind me.

I hesitate.

Another groan. I glance back. The D-man’s sprawled on a slab of asphalt that’s going crimson with blood. Even with our help, there’s no guarantee he’ll survive. But without it, he doesn’t have a chance.

“Help me get him.”

James tenses. “No.”

“He’ll die if we don’t help him.”

“Good.”

A tremor erupts beneath us, knocking over chairs, a cot, and the EKG machine. I stagger.

James offers me his hand. “Come on, Melissa, before it’s too late.”

“I’m not leaving him.” I maneuver my way around fallen medical equipment, a couple of poles rolling to the earthquake’s chant, and chunks of street poking through the tent floor.

The man’s eyes open when I grab his jacket collar. Panic, confusion, anger cross his face. He reaches for his gun. His eyes dart from me to James, and the panic and confusion disappear.

He pulls his gun in one quick motion.

I kick at his hand, but the earth gives beneath me and I lose my balance.

I collide with something, or maybe it collides with me. I laugh but can’t be sure because I can’t hear, and this makes me laugh more. It suddenly seems quite funny, quite ridiculous, all of this. Terrible, but hilarious how bad things have gone, like one of Sam’s twisted dreams.