Carrie Vaughn - Voices of Dragons

Kay nodded quickly. “Yeah, I think I am.” She couldn’t wait to see the news, to see what they were saying about her and Artegal, to see if all this had gotten them the publicity she’d hoped for.

Tam crossed the highway and stuck to county roads, mostly narrow dirt trails that had connected neighborhoods and ranches before Silver River was even a real town. Maybe that would keep them out of sight as they returned to town.

“What are we doing? Where are we going?” Tam said. She looked scared—her white-knuckled hands gripped the wheel, and she chewed her lower lip. But she drove like a pro.

“I don’t know,” Kay said, shaking her head. “If they grab me, they’ll lock me up and I’ll never see the light of day again.”

“We’ll go to the store,” Tam said. Tam’s mom had a souvenir shop in town, selling T-shirts and stuff to tourists. Tam worked there during the summer. “Maybe no one will be looking there. It hasn’t been open since the fire.”

“Okay.”

They’d driven a couple of miles in silence before Tam looked at Kay, anguished. “Oh my God, Kay! What have you been doing? What the hell’s going on that you were with—that you were riding that thing?” She sounded like she’d been betrayed, and maybe she had. Maybe Kay should have told her about this all along.

She told Tam the whole story, start to finish, from that day she fell in the creek to the book to flying to today. When she got to the part about Branigan and spying, she trailed off, not sure yet how the story was going to end and not knowing what else to say.

They continued a little farther in silence before Tam laughed. The laughter was tense, her jaw clenched like she was trying to stop it. Kay looked at her, questioning.

“It’s like Romeo and Juliet ,” she said. “Like trying to be friends when your families hate each other. Like that, but bigger.”

“I guess it is,” Kay said wonderingly. This was another story of two people running around behind the backs of their families because their families were unreasonable. There were people dying on both sides and everything.

“I mean this dragon, Artegal. You aren’t, like, in love with it or anything. Are you?” Tam sounded incredulous.

Kay didn’t even know what it meant to be in love. She thought most of what she felt for Artegal was awe. She was glad she’d met him, even if they never saw each other again. But that wasn’t love, was it? Wasn’t love supposed to be more about feeling safe, wanted, and beautiful? More like what she felt when she was with Jon.

“I think maybe we both thought it was so amazing we could be friends at all that we didn’t want to give it up.”

“Get down,” Tam said. She stared intently out the windshield.

“What?”

“Down, out of sight.”

Police cars with flashing lights were parked ahead. Kay unbuckled the seat belt and slid onto the floorboards, curling up as much as she could and keeping her head down, covered. All that was visible was her back, the dark surface of her coat. As the car slowed, she wanted to look. Keeping her head down was almost impossible, she wanted so badly to see what was going on. But she didn’t. She could hear Tam’s fingers tapping on the steering wheel.

They drove slowly, but they didn’t stop. Then, Tam increased speed, and they were back to driving normally. Another ten minutes passed before Tam said, “I thought maybe it was a roadblock, like they were checking cars, but they just seemed to be watching. I think maybe you should just stay down there until we get to the store, okay?”

“Yeah.” Kay shifted to keep her legs from falling asleep and settled into the pocket under the dash.

When they slowed and started making turns, Kay guessed they’d entered the town. After another minute, the car stopped.

“Can I get up?”

“Wait a minute. Let me get the store unlocked first.”

Tam climbed out of the car and a few minutes later returned to call back to Kay, “Come on. Hurry.”

Grateful to be out of the uncomfortable position, Kay sat up and tumbled out of the car to follow Tam inside.

When the door closed behind them and they were safe in the store’s backroom, Kay finally relaxed. She sank onto a bench by the door and realized she was shaking. From fear, stress, exhaustion—she didn’t know what. From everything.

Tam sat next to her and put her arm around her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?”

Kay shook her head. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Maybe there’ll be a war, but it can’t last forever, right? There’ll be another treaty, and it’ll all settle down. Maybe they won’t be looking for you, then. You can stay here for a while. I’ll go get some food, and there’s a bathroom, so you can wash up. You’ll feel better.”

Kay leaned against her friend, and they hugged. Tam was trying to make her feel better, but none of it was going to happen like that. This could go on for years. Forever. She couldn’t live in the backroom here for years.

“What are we going to do, Kay?”

She and Artegal had a plan. Maybe it wouldn’t work, but no one would be able to ignore it. Something would happen because of it.

Tam wouldn’t like it. No one would like it. But that was what made it a sacrifice, wasn’t it?

Kay stripped off her coat, used paper towels to wash her face and hands, and shook out her ponytail, trying to pick apart some of the tangles in her hair. If she didn’t feel clean, she at least felt a little more awake. The water was hot. She finally felt warm for the first time all day, for the first time in forever. She’d forgotten what warm felt like.

Then she called her mother, rehearsing what she could say without giving too much away, in case anyone was listening.

Tam watched intently as Kay tapped her feet nervously, waiting for the ringing to stop.

“Kay, where the hell are you?!”

“Mom, I’m okay. I’m fine.”

“But where are you?”

“Mom, are General Branigan and them looking for me? What’s going on?”

“It’s a real mess. Just tell me you’re south of the river. Are you?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She and Tam exchanged a glance.

“Thank God.” Mom sighed. “Kay, the dragons are striking everywhere, a dozen cities all over the world. They’re not avoiding fatalities anymore. People are dying, Kay, and the air force doesn’t have enough jets to counter them. It’s not just Branigan talking about using nuclear bombs in Dragon now; it’s the defense secretary, the national security advisor—I’m sorry, you probably don’t want to hear all this.”

Kay stared at nothing, trying to picture it. Wanting to see a TV and not wanting to at the same time. “So it didn’t do any good. We wanted people to see us to try to stop the fighting, but it didn’t do any good.”

“Oh, but it did. Everyone saw you. The news people are having a field day with this. They all got footage of you on that thing, and nobody knows what to make of it. Everybody, everybody’s looking for you.”

That didn’t surprise her, but Kay had a sinking feeling that the rest of the plan wasn’t going to be easy because of it.

“But, Mom, what are people saying? What’s going to happen if I show up?”

“I think all hell will break loose. Half the commentators are saying you’re a traitor. Half of them are calling you some kind of ambassador. This is riling up both sides.”

This had been so much simpler when all she was doing was breaking the law, sneaking over a little tiny river. Then she hadn’t been thinking about becoming a celebrity. She hadn’t meant this all to get out of hand.