Embracing The Inferno (Dragon Within #5)

by Kyra Dune

  "Abby?" Derek's worried voice broke through my thoughts. "Are you okay?"

  I opened my eyes, trying not to wince at the glare. Everything seemed so much brighter for a second before my nerves steadied. "Yeah. I just... drifted off a little, I guess."

  He frowned. "You should try to sleep more."

  Really? What a genius my brother was. Why hadn't I ever thought of that? Okay, so that's not exactly a nice thing to think, but at least I didn't actually say it. That counts for something, right? I nodded. "Yeah, I'll try."

  Derek and Stephanie exchanged a look. One I bet you've seen before. The kind of look that passes between your parents when they're worried about you but don't exactly know what to do about it. Which was way annoying coming from two people who weren't really all that much older than me. Also, not my parents.

  The food came, stopping us from having what most likely would have been an uncomfortable conversation. I wrinkled my nose at my burger, sure if I actually tried to eat the thing I was going to throw up all over the table. Even the smell made me nauseous.

  I guess my feelings were completely obvious, because Derek said, "You have to start eating again. I swear you've lost ten pounds since Oregon. You're going to make yourself sick."

  "I eat." Although, once he mentioned it, I realized I really couldn't remember the last time I'd gotten more than a bite or two of anything down my throat. I stared at the window again, this time looking at my reflection rather than through it.

  My clothes were definitely hanging off my body in a way they never had before and I was getting this almost hollow look to my face. Not scary skinny, but getting a little too close for comfort. I'd never been fat, but I wasn't exactly what you'd call thin either. Or at least I didn't used to be. The girl staring back at me hardly looked like me. Grief. It's a great crash diet. If it doesn't kill you.

  "It's one thing to grieve," Derek said like he was reading my mind, "but you can't starve yourself to death."

  I grabbed up my burger and tore off an overlarge bite. "There. Happy now?"

  Derek made a face. "I'd be happier if you didn't talk with your mouth full."

  I almost laughed at that. It was as close as I'd come in a long time.

  The burger was good, and once I started eating it I realized how hungry I really was. That nauseous feeling in my stomach went away once I put some food on top of it. I even managed to relax for a few minutes and be easy in the moment, instead of wrapped up in the million things swirling around in my head every hour of every day.

  "I want to talk to you about something," Derek said toward the end of the meal.

  I put the last bite of my burger back on my plate. By his expression I could tell this was something he'd been building himself up to say all night and that worried me. "What?"

  He breathed in and out slow. Beside him, Stephanie shifted in her seat, so I guess she knew what this was all about. "If you mean to stay here, then Megara is right about one thing. You have to train. Now that you have all of your powers it's more important than ever."

  "All of my powers?" I shifted my gaze to Stephanie. "You mean my fire, right? You're scared because of what I did in Oregon." Not that I could blame them for that. I was scared too.

  "It's not that," Stephanie said. "It's just... Well... It's..." She looked helplessly at Derek.

  He took hold of her hand. "What Steph is trying to say is that it would be for your own good as much as anyone else's if you had better control of yourself. I talked to Jonah, he's more than willing to start your training again. That is... If I really can't convince you to leave with us. If you were out of this situation, you wouldn't be in a position where your powers would be dangerous to anyone."

  Yeah, right. Did he really believe that? "Where am I supposed to train?" I asked. "We're in the middle of town."

  "You could use the conference room," Stephanie said. "No windows."

  "Great idea. That way, I can burn down the entire hotel." I gave her a thumbs up. "Real smart." All right, I know I was being a jerk, but I didn't appreciate them laying all that on me right when I'd finally found of moment to relax. It wasn't that I didn't want to train, it was that I was afraid too. Couldn't they understand that? I hadn't used my powers on purpose for anything, not one little thing, since Oregon.

  "Stephanie is trying to help you," Derek said. "We both are. So cool your attitude." He shook his head. "I know you have a lot going on in your head right now, but you can't keep doing this. You don't want to leave and get yourself out of this situation, but you don't want to stay and train for it either. So what do you want to do?"

  I slapped both hands down on the table. "I want to die, okay? Is that what you want to hear." A tremor shook the diner. Cups crashed to the floor. Someone cried out.

  Stephanie grabbed the edge of the table. "Okay, I think we all need to calm down."

  Of course she didn't really mean 'we all', she meant me, because I was the one letting my emotions get out of control again. And that didn't exactly help to prove Derek's point wrong. I did need to train, in this situation or out of it, but I didn't know if I could do it.

  "Stop it, Abigail." Derek's hushed words were firm, but laced with fear. "Stop it right now."

  I hope you never know what it feels like to have someone you care about look at you the way Derek was looking at me right then. It was like a knife to my heart to see my own brother afraid of me. Like I was becoming the thing I'd tried so hard not to be. The monster under the bed.

  I jumped up and ran from the booth, from the diner, from them. But what I really wanted to do was run from myself. My feet pounded the sidewalk, tears falling down my cheeks, as tried to put as much distance between myself and everything else as I could. But things have a way of clinging to you, you know? You can never escape what's in your own head.

  I ran until my lungs burned and I had a serious stitch in my side. Then I stopped and stood there on the sidewalk, panting, pressing my hands to my ribs, looking around with no idea of where I was.

  The neighborhood kind of reminded me of the one I grew up in back in Arizona and that brought on a whole new kind of pain. I sat on the edge of the curb, resting my head on my knees.

  "What am I doing?" I whispered into the night. If Brandy were there I knew what she would say. She'd tell me I was messing my life up, again. And then she would fix it. Only Brandy was dead and I had nobody left to put my pieces back to together but myself. And I think that was the scariest feeling of all.

  "I don't know how to do this." I looked up at the stars. "You were always the smart one, Brandy. I have this plan, but I don't know if it's going to work. I don't know if it's a mistake." I hadn't exactly been working on it lately anyway. Too busy laying around feeling sorry for myself. But it was hard. It was so hard to think, to eat, to even get out of bed in the morning knowing every day it would still be real. This wasn't a dream. Wasn't something I could wake up from. It was my life.

  A scuffling sound behind me had me jumping to my feet and spinning around. Every thought in my head came to a crashing halt. "Zack?" I breathed his name more than I said it. Maybe I was dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or something. It couldn't really be him standing there in front of me. He should be a hundred miles away by now.

  But it was really him. He was really there, looking at me with this wary kind of expression. And if I thought my emotions were all messed up before, that was nothing compared to this. Part of my brain was screaming, wanting to lash out, to hit him, to do something, anything, to make him pay for what he'd done. The other part wanted to do a happy dance, throw my arms around his neck, and never let go. I settled for freezing like my feet were rooted to the spot. "W-What are you doing here?"

  "The same thing I've been doing ever since this whole thing started, following you," he said. "It seems like I can't do anything else."

  "You betrayed us. Betrayed me. People... people died because of you. Get away. I don't want to see your face." But the words didn't come out as hard as I meant them to.
How was I supposed to shout when I could barely breathe?

  Zack came toward me and every instinct I had urged me to pull up an air shield or knock him away with a gust of wind, don't let him get close. He was dangerous. But I still couldn't move. I don't think my body was getting any of the messages my brain was trying to send it.

  And then he was right in front of me, so close I could feel the heat from his body. So close it was like the world was spinning around us and my heart was trying to jump right out of my chest. He reached out and brushed his thumb across my cheek, sending a chill straight through me.

  "Don't touch me. I ha--" He kissed the rest of the word right off my lips.

  For a minute I let myself get lost in the feeling of his lips pressed to mine. The warmth of his arms around me. The drumbeat in my ears. Then I realized what I was doing and tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let me out of the circle of his embrace and it was so hard to think straight when I was looking right into those dark eyes.

  "How could you?" I finally found some volume for my voice, and some anger to back it up with. "How could you do that after we... we..." My face grew warm as I thought of that last night with him in the bunker. "That was low."

  "It's not what you think," he said. "It wasn't me."

  I shook my head, pressing both hands against his chest. "You told Hannah about the secret entrance."

  "Yeah, I did, but -- Don't do that."

  I had started to gather up the air between us to attack him, but the warning edge in his tone made me falter. "Why not? I should kill you for what you did."

  "I didn't do anything. Or at least, not the things you think I did." He sighed. "Will you give me a chance to explain?"

  "Let me go first." I needed a clear head to deal with this and that was impossible to get as long as his hands were on me.

  Zack let me go and took a step back. I immediately missed his warmth. Part of the pain I'd been dealing with the last two weeks was missing him. It's not like I could turn off my feelings, you know. Even if he was partly responsible for what happened at the bunker, I couldn't make my heart stop wanting him. Even right then, when I had every good reason to believe an enemy was standing in front of me, all I wanted to do was fall back into his arms and let the world go away for a little while.

  Putting on the sternest expression I could muster, I firmly told myself this was not the time for acting like a lovesick teenage girl. Even if that was exactly what I was. I crossed my arms. "This had better be good."

  "The night the bunker was attacked," Zack said, "I went the bathroom, and on my way back I met Hannah in the hall. She said Megara needed to see me, it was important, so I went with her."

  "Without bothering to tell me?"

  "You were asleep," he said. "And besides, I didn't think you'd want Hannah to see you in my bed. She didn't say it was an emergency or I would have come back for you."

  "So you say." I tried to sound like I didn't believe him, even though the exact opposite was true. Ever since Oregon, I'd been praying in the back of my mind that it was all a misunderstanding somehow. That I hadn't given my heart, not to mention a few other things, to a guy who had turned around and betrayed us all. I was so ready to believe anything he said, but I was trying really hard to think with my head and not with my heart. Too many lives were at stake for me to make another mistake.

  A muscle jumped in Zack's jaw, but so what if I was annoying him? He deserved at least that for running out on me. "We went to Megara's office," he continued, "but she wasn't there. And when I wasn't looking, Hannah..." He shuffled his feet, looked away from me, and cleared his throat. "She hit me in the back of the head with a lamp. Knocked me out."

  "Are you kidding me?" I asked. "After everything I've seen you do, you really expect me to believe Hannah got the drop on you?"

  Zack flushed. "I wasn't expecting it. We grew up together. Went to school together. We weren't exactly friends, but I thought she was on our side, Just like you did."

  Okay, he had a point there. "But you must have told her about the secret entrance way before that night. So why did you do that?"

  "Because you turned me into an idiot."

  Definitely not what I was expecting him to say. "I did what now?"

  Zack growled in a frustrated kind of way. "Our rooms were so far apart and I got to thinking if we were attacked and I couldn't get to you it would be good if Hannah knew the way out too. In case you were hurt. It was a stupid move and I never would have done it before you went and flipped my life upside down."

  That made me feel really good. Nobody worries about you like that unless they care, right? But on the other hand, it was one more reason why what happened at the bunker was all my fault and that was the last thing I needed.

  "So if you didn't betray us, then why did you run?" I asked. "Do you have any idea what I've been going through, thinking you were part of what happened at the bunker? Going crazy in my head with guilt, because I was the one who told you about the secret entrance. Not to mention leaving me all alone to deal with... with everything." I couldn't say Brandy and Curtis' names right then. I was way too emotional and I really didn't want to start crying again.

  "I knew what everybody would think," Zack said. "I'm a tracker. I'm the enemy. The natural one to blame. I thought it would be better to leave. Give things time to cool off. Your brother tried to kill me, you know."

  I remembered very well that moment in the woods when I was so close to burning myself out, and then this cold feeling had come over me. Saved me. Even if I wasn't a hundred per cent sure Zack wasn't a traitor, at least I knew he was the reason I was still alive. "He thought you were trying to hurt me."

  "Is that what you thought?"

  "Not for one second. But the rest..." I shook my head. "What can you expect? Hannah told me you were part of it, and then you up and ran off. What was I supposed to think? What was I supposed to do? I lost everything."

  Zack stared at the ground for a minute, then raised his head and met my gaze. "I'm sorry I couldn't save them for you."

  And that was it. Major waterworks. I hate crying. I guess it's good for us, a way to kind of clean out all the bad stuff, and you feel better when it's over. But while you're in the middle of it it's awful.

  Zack put his arms around me again and I leaned into his chest. It felt so right, like it was the perfect place for me to be. I couldn't believe I had doubted him even for a minute.

  When I was all cried out I took a step back and made a face at seeing my tears and snot all over him. Again. "As much as I cry on you, you should start wearing Kleenex for a shirt."

  "It's not a big deal." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "So... where do we go from here?"

  "Is there a 'we' here? I mean, for real?"

  He cocked his head to the side. "What kind of dumb question is that? Of course there's a 'we', why else do you I think I followed you here?"

  Well, it wasn't exactly 'I love you', but with him I'd take what I could get. "Come back to the hotel with me."

  "I can't. If I meet up with your brother again one of us is going to die. You know that."

  I did know it, but I didn't want to. "Give me a chance to explain things to him. He can be reasoned with."

  "And Megara?"

  I had no argument for that one. "Well... what then?"

  "I'm doing okay by myself," Zack said. "But you," he looked me up and down with a frown, "look awful."

  Gee, just what a girl wants to hear her boyfriend say. "Thanks. So kind of you to notice."

  "I'm serious. Are you eating? Are you sleeping?"

  "Whoa there, Brandy junior. What's with the third degree?"

  "Can't a guy be worried about the... about his...." He turned red again.

  I have to say, Zack looked extra cute all flustered. "Whatever. I'll eat. I'll sleep. Or at least that first one, I can't control whether I sleep or not. But when will I see you again?"

  Zack shrugged. "I'll be around. Even if you don't see me, I'm keeping my eye
on things."

  "That's not good enough." I thought it over. "Tonight. Midnight. There's a park a few blocks down from the hotel and behind that some abandoned warehouses. Meet me there."

  "I don't think you should sneak out of the hotel. If you get caught--"

  "I won't." I laid my hand on his arm. "I have something I need to talk to you about. But I can't get into to it now, because if I don't get back Derek is going to have a search party out looking for me. Say you'll meet me. Please."

  He sighed. "All right."

  "Thank you." I pecked a quick kiss on his cheek. "See you tonight." And then I took off before he had a chance to change his mind.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Luka and I hunkered down in the darkness beside the hotel, preparing to head out to meet Zack. It was quiet. Like, really quite. Have you ever heard the sound of silence? It's this buzzing kind of noise in the back of your head the world makes when everything is perfectly still. Not even the wind was blowing. It's horror movie spooky, let me tell you. Especially at midnight. I was so glad I wasn't going off on my own.

  "Are you sure you want to be part of this?" I asked Luka for what must have been the tenth time. "If Megara finds out..." Well, I wasn't entirely sure what she would do if she knew I was planning on exposing the dragons, but I could guess it would probably be painful.

  "Curtis would be with you on this, right?"

  I smiled sadly. "Yeah. He would have loved this. A superhero movie with a real life Wonder Woman." Curtis's words, not mine. I hardly thought of myself as a superhero. Far from it.

  "Then I'm in. All the way. For him."

  I swallowed back a lump in my throat, feeling myself two heartbeats away from crying. Like always. Luka was such a sweet guy, and perfect for my cousin. Life can be so unfair sometimes, you know? I couldn't speak or I really would start to cry, and what could I say anyway? I just squeezed his arm to let him know I was missing Curtis too.

  We slipped away from the hotel and hurried down the sidewalk. The road was deserted and everything was dark, except for spots of orange thrown off by the streetlamps. We avoided those on the off chance anyone might be looking out a window.