Dragon Riders

by Elle Casey

  She looked back at the building and then at the car. “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to introduce you to your new life and your new family.”

  When she looked up at me there were tears in her eyes. “But I’m crazy.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re not. You’re extraordinary, and until now, no one appreciated that. But trust me, I do. And so will all the people I’m going to introduce you to.”

  She looked down at her hands and smoothed them over her stomach. “I’m pretty sure I just hallucinated that I turned into a dragon.”

  I grabbed her sleeve and pulled her closer to the car. “You’re a fucking wyvern, Long, not a dragon. There’s a difference.”

  She grabbed me into a hug and squeezed the shit out of me. And then just as suddenly she let me go and got into the vehicle. “Mike, touch me, and my wyvern will eat you for dinner,” she said matter of factly.

  I laughed as I got in the car behind her and shut the door. “He’s not going to touch you, trust me.”

  “I’m not?” he said.

  I shook my head. “Not unless you want to die a horribly painful, disgusting, messy death.”

  “Okay.”

  Brad looked at me like I was crazy, but I just smiled. Yeah, that’s right. I’m crazy. Crazy cool. “Let’s ride,” I said, pointing to the road.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Miami. Train station. I need to meet a guy named Jared.”

  “But what about Ben? He wants me to take you to him.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet he does.” I snorted. So he can recruit me over to the Dark Fae. “But I have other plans.” I sat back in my seat and hummed along to the tune playing on the radio. I wanted to hear the story about how he and Ben got hooked up and how Ben knew where to find me, but first I wanted to noodle through my plan. It had to be flawless. It had to be perfect, with every detail accounted for. It had to… A spark of realization hit me hard. I grabbed Brad’s arm hard. “Wait! You have to go get Tony first!”

  “Tony who?”

  I scowled at him. “Tony Green, duh. My best friend in the entire world.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You are such an assbag.”

  “Hey. How about a little respect? I just busted you out of that prison, remember?” He actually sounded a little hurt.

  “Sorry. Let me rephrase: you are such an assbag sometimes. But not all the time.” I looked over at him and smiled. “Thanks. For busting me out. That was really cool of you.”

  He grinned. “You can owe me one.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. Same old Brad. “I do not even want to know what you mean by that.”

  “Get your head out of the gutter. I just figured…” He shrugged, not finishing his sentence and not acting like he was going to either. He suddenly looked uncomfortable.

  “You figured what?”

  He shrugged again, his face going a little pink. “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “No, really.” I reached over and touched his arm as he drove along. “Tell me. I won’t give you shit about it.”

  He glanced at me, maybe to see if I was being serious.

  I tried like hell to look mature.

  “Why does your face look like that?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to show you that I mean what I said.”

  “Oh. I thought you had intestinal cramps again.”

  “Shut up, assbag.”

  He laughed.

  “Come on. Stop fucking around. Tell me what you were going to say.”

  His expression went serious. Vulnerable, even. “I was going to say that maybe you could pay me back by letting me hang out with you and your friends or whatever.”

  I frowned in confusion. “What?”

  He shook his head, looking angry. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You want to be my friend? Hang out with Tony and me?” This made absolutely zero sense. Nobody in his circle ever wanted to hang out with people like us.

  “Yeah. And whoever else.” He looked in his rear view mirror at Long the wyvern.

  I sighed as the picture became clearer. “What did Ben tell you about me, exactly?”

  Brad’s jaw bounced out a few times as he gritted his teeth. “Just that you’re special. That you’re not what you seem. That you’re important. And he showed me some stuff.”

  “Stuff? Like, what stuff?”

  “Fire.”

  That was all he said, but it was all he had to say. I understood immediately. “He told you about the fae, didn’t he?”

  Brad nodded. And then his eyes got all red like he was going to cry.

  “And you want to hang out with the fae. Be fae.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was rough.

  “Why?”

  He shook his head no, refusing to answer.

  “Dude, you don’t have to worry about talking in front of us,” Long said from the back seat. “We just busted out of a mental facility. Trust me, we’ve heard it all.”

  Mike spoke up too. “I put a guy in a coma.”

  Brad looked sideways at me, but I just waved my hand nonchalantly. “Eh, no biggie. I put people in comas all the time. We call it comasizing, Jayne Blackthorn style.”

  “I thought your last name was Sparks,” Brad said.

  “Don’t change the subject. Tell me why you want to be fae.” I tried to glare at him like our teachers would, hoping it would intimidate him a little.

  He sighed heavily and rubbed the steering wheel for a while before he finally answered. “Because my life sucks. It’s either I go fae or I go out.”

  “Go out?”

  “He means he’s going to grease the tracks,” Long said.

  “What?” I twisted around to stare at her. “What does that even mean?”

  She looked at me like I was stupid. “Take the S-train? End it all? Suicide, duh.” She turned to Mike for backup and he nodded slowly.

  I turned my attention to Brad. “What? You? Why on earth would you even think about doing that? You have a great life!”

  A weird noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh came out of his mouth and nose. “Yeah, right. What’s so great about it?”

  I started ticking items off on my fingers. “You play football, you have an nice face and body, a cool car, the vice principal thinks you walk on water, all the girls in school love you,…” I could have gone on and on.

  “You don’t.” He was gritting his teeth again.

  “So what? You hate me. What do you care what I think about you?” At that point, I was worried someone else in the car had been spelled besides just me.

  His voice was quieter. “I don’t hate you. I just…hate the world.”

  All I could think then was: Could this day get any weirder? No it could not. I reached over and squeezed his arm for a second, taking a moment to recognize the fact that no matter what life I was living, no matter what realm I was traveling in, nothing was ever as it seemed. And no one knew better than I did what it felt like to be misunderstood. “I get it, man. I totally get it,” I finally said. “My parents are complete, award-winning dicks. If it weren’t for Tony, I don’t know what I would have done. That’s why we have to go get him. I can’t risk having him kidnapped—or worse—by the assholes who put me in that place.”

  Brad put on his turn signal and moved over a lane. “Fine. We’ll go get the little twerp.”

  I punched Brad in the arm. “Don’t ever call the coolest guy who ever walked the planet a twerp ever again. He’s ten times the human you’ll ever be and a hundred times the fae.”

  He half laughed as he rubbed his arm. “Okay, geez. Violent much?”

  “You have no idea.” I stared out the side window, letting the rest of my thoughts remain in my head. Now that we were on our way to finding Tony, I had to work out the other parts of my plan. There were way too many pieces of the puzzle to put together, and I had to be sure not to miss any.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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  WHEN WE ARRIVED at the high school, my plan wasn’t anywhere near complete. All I could focus on was finding a way to avoid Ben and somehow manage to convince Tony I wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t going to be easy; he’d probably heard where I’d been for the past couple days. It was too much to hope that Rick the Dick would be cool about keeping that information private. I could only imagine what Tony had been thinking this whole time. Probably that I deserved to be in there. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too much convincing to get him to see the light.

  “You need to help me get Tony on board,” I said to Brad as he located an empty spot for his car in the main lot and shifted the engine into park.

  The motor went silent as he twisted the key backward and looked over at me. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “I don’t know. Tell him I’m not crazy, for one.”

  “In my experience, that doesn’t usually work,” said Long from the back seat. “The more you say you’re not crazy, the more crazy you look.”

  Speaking of looking crazy… I twisted around to face Long and Mike. “You guys need to stay here. If there are too many of us, it’ll overwhelm him, and besides…,” I took in their garb, “no offense, but we really do look like escaped mental patients.”

  “Especially in those shoes,” Brad said, looking at my feet.

  “At least she has shoes,” Long said, propping her sock covered foot in the space between the front seats.

  Brad elbowed it off. “Get off, man. Your feet stink.”

  She withdrew it but said nothing, her face expressionless.

  “Be nice,” I said, glaring at him.

  He mouthed the word, “What?”

  I ignored him, chewing my lip as I looked through the windshield. According to the clock on Brad’s dashboard, Tony should be in between classes. “Let me borrow your phone.” I held my hand out to Brad.

  He passed it over.

  I sighed and gave it back to him. “Unlock it.”

  He did as he was told and we tried again. I dialed Tony’s number and waited for him to answer. He picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Hello, this is Tony Green. Who may I ask is calling?”

  I couldn’t help but smile at his formal greeting. Always the Boy Scout. “Hey, Tones, it’s me. Jayne.”

  There was a long pause before he responded. “Jayne. Hi. Whose phone is this?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Listen, I need you to come out to the parking lot.”

  He sighed heavily. “I can’t. I have to go to class.”

  I could tell he was about to cut me off. “Don’t hang up! This is Brad Powers’ phone.”

  “No, it isn’t.” He sounded highly suspicious, but that was better than a dead line, so I kept going.

  “Yes, it is. I swear. Here. Talk to him yourself.” I pushed the phone into Brad’s face. “Say hi.”

  “Uh. Hi.”

  I took the phone back. “See? Told you. He asked me to prom and everything. Come out and see us.” I grinned like a maniac at Brad who was staring at me like I was nuts.

  “That wasn’t him,” Tony said. “That was probably somebody at that…place.”

  I wanted to scream in frustration. Of course Rick the Dick had made sure that Tony knew where I’d been. “Come on, Tones. Please don’t play into their hands. I’ve had about as much bullshit as I can take in one week, believe me.”

  “I actually heard that about you. Your mom told me you needed some time away to…uh…get your head straight.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. But I don’t want to get into that with you over the phone. Just come out to the parking lot, and I’ll explain everything.” Or I will kidnap you and explain later.

  “I really do have to get to class…”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, focusing with all my might on clearing my head. There were vestiges of the drugs they had dosed me with in there, and I had to be one hundred percent me for this. Green Green, wipe me clean, I need to wake Tony from this awful dream. I felt my head being washed of the horrible chemicals, and the clarity that arrived was almost like being on another kind of drug. Damn. Who knew I had magical drugs at my disposal? I should have done this a long time ago.

  “Jayne, are you there?” Tony asked.

  “Yes, yes, I’m here. I need you to come out. Right now. I’m playing the BFF card. You can’t deny me.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was a BFF card.”

  “Well, there is! And I’m calling it in, or using it or whatever. So get your sweet buns out here, or I’ll be forced to come in after you. And trust me, I won’t be quiet about it and I know your class schedule. You can run, but you can’t hide.”

  He sighed like he was totally worn down. “Fine. I’ll come out for two minutes, but that’s it. And I’m not going anywhere off school grounds with you, so don’t even ask.”

  “Fine. See you soon. We’re parked in B Lot right by the front of the school. I’m in Brad’s Camaro.”

  “You’re really with Brad?”

  “Yes, Tony, like I said.” I rolled my eyes. I so did not have time for this nonsense. I ended the call and gave the phone back to Brad. My right leg jiggled up and down as I waited for Tony to arrive.

  “You nervous?” Brad asked.

  “Of course I’m nervous,” I sniped, annoyed that I had to explain myself. But it was better than waiting in silence, so I kept going. “I have to convince my best friend that I’m not crazy and that he needs to come with me to Miami right this second, and I’ve only got two minutes to do that. It’s never going to work.”

  Brad lifted his gaze. “Hey. There’s Ben.” His hand moved toward the car horn.

  I reached over and slapped it away before he could complete his motion and alert my other nemesis to our presence. “Don’t!” I whisper-screeched at him, ducking down in the process.

  Brad scowled at me. “What’d you do that for? He’s cool. He knows everything.”

  “Yeah, dumbass, he knows too much!”

  “Well, he helped save your dumb ass today. Without him you’d still be in that nuthouse.”

  “Whatever. You’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that he’s bad news with a capital B and a capital N.” Huh. B-E-N. His name literally stands for Bad Effing News. I should have seen the signs…

  As if he’d heard me, Ben’s head swiveled right and his eyes locked on mine through the windshield.

  “Uh-oh,” said Long. “Here comes trouble.”

  “Want me to put him in a coma?” Mike asked, leaning forward.

  “No.” I sat up straighter and went to fix my hair, before I realized that not only did I not have any left on my head, but that I also didn’t give a shit what Ben thought about my looks.

  “You got out,” Ben said as he walked up to my side of the car. He looked gorgeous, as usual. Jerk.

  “Yeah. Thanks for your help or whatever.” I really didn’t want to be thanking him for anything, but fair is fair; he’d recruited Brad over to Team Jayne, and Brad did bust me out. How Ben knew I was in there and how much he knew about who I actually was were still mysteries, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to bother to solve them or just avoid him until I could get back to the right time. What difference did it make, anyway? He did scryings and hung out with witches, so it would make sense that he’d cheated the system and figured out what was going on. And there was no way he could win at the game he was playing without my help, so he’d only rescued my butt to make sure he could use me for his own purposes later. At least, that’s what he thought he was going to do. Too bad for him I wasn’t nearly as dense as he thought I was.

  He stuck his hand through the window. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Ben.”

  I was going to refuse to participate in this totally bogus friendly gesture, but then I figured he could use a reminder of—or an introduction to—my power. I took his hand in mine and shook it, letting some of The Green in to wake him up. “Charmed. I think
you already know who I am, though.”

  “And what you are,” he said in a very soft voice, a grin spreading across his face. The space between our hands began to heat up.

  I broke the connection and scowled at him again. “Nice try, but you can keep it in your pants. I’m not interested. See you later.” I turned to face the windshield so he’d take the hint.

  He remained in place, but I could see his cocky smile slipping away out of the corner of my eye. “What’re you doing here, if you’re not here to see me?” he asked.

  “We’re here to…” Brad started to say, but a swiftly delivered karate chop across his chest—courtesy of yours truly—stopped his words from going any further. He gasped for air as I smiled at Ben.

  “We’re here to say goodbye to some friends. I have…you know…stuff to do. Clothes to pack at home.”

  “Going somewhere?” he asked, his expression turning sneaky.

  “Maybe.” I shrugged, looking through the windshield again. I really didn’t want to have a showdown with Ben in front of Tony. I’d almost lost my best friend the first time that had happened in his bedroom in West Palm, and without my fae friends around me, I didn’t have any confidence that I could pull off a win a second time.

  “How about if I tag along?” Ben went as if to pull the car door open.

  “Nope.” I held onto the armrest to keep the door from swinging outward. “No room.”

  He looked into the back seat. “I don’t mind squeezing in.” He winked at one of the back seat passengers.

  Long hissed out a breath that sounded very wyvernish. It made me love her twice as much as I already did when Ben’s smarmy smile slipped away in response.

  “Sorry. My friends need space. They don’t like squeezing.”

  “The last guy who tried to squeeze me is still in a coma,” Mike said slowly as if he were commenting on the weather.

  Ben switched his focus to Brad. “What’s up, man?”

  “Not much. Just chillin’.” Brad looked everywhere but at Ben.

  “You remember what I told you about her, right?”

  Brad shrugged, looking away. My gaze went from Powers to Ben and back to Powers. “Tell me what he said.”