“Something’s definitely up with him,” Jade said. “The guy looks lost.”
Kaylee cocked an eyebrow. “Right…and you would know that because…?”
Jade shrugged. “I’m just saying. I remember when we were kids, Reese always…he always knew what he wanted. And when he set his sights on something, nothing stood in his way. But I’ve never seen him so shaken before. Gives me hope.”
There came a shout of alarm from the ocean. Maddox had thrown Edwin in.
“Hope?” Kaylee repeated. “That’s a little sadistic.”
“Well…” Jade curled her arms around her knees, “If someone as sure as Reese can have doubts about something, it makes me feel better about what I want to do.”
“Which is not take the Tamer test.”
“I never said that.”
“Jade,” Kaylee forced Jade to look at her. “If the thought of being a fully-trained Tamer for the Convocation makes you unhappy, then you’re the last person I want as my Tamer.”
“Wow…tell me what you really think.”
“I mean it.”
Jade let out a breath. “I know. And thanks, but I’ll still take the test. I’ve trained so much already, and it’d make my parents happy. But after that then…”
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
Kaylee nudged her. “I know that look. You’ve decided something and you want to tell me.”
Jade smirked. “We can’t hide anything from each other, can we? Yeah, I—and don’t take this the wrong way or anything—but seeing what you did for Dani, how you helped her, it got me thinking about doing stuff like that. Outreach. Social work. That sort of thing.”
“For the Convocation?” Kaylee said. “Don’t they have people like that who go looking for new dragon-kin?”
“They do.” Jade rested her chin on her arms, gazing at Damian and Dani. “But I’m not exactly sure about doing it for them.”
“I still think it’s a great idea.” Kaylee threw an arm around Jade. “You’d be perfect at it.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely. Besides, any outreach you do can’t be much worse than mine. Dani hates me now.”
“No, she doesn’t. Dani’s personality makes it literally impossible to hate anyone. I bet if she ran into another Slayer she’d try to get them to join the decorations committee for the spring formal.”
Kaylee laughed, but it tasted bitter. “You clearly haven’t been paying attention to her the last month or so. She barely looks at me.”
“Have you actually talked to her?”
Kaylee dug her toes into the cool sand, thinking back to the times she and Dani had interacted since the incident. “A little bit…?”
“That night the Slayers attacked us at the Slag Heap doesn’t count.”
“Oh. Then no, not really.”
“I’d recommend that.”
Kaylee felt a flush of embarrassment. She’d made sure Dani was doing okay since joining the Convocation, checking in with Maddox and Alastair to see how she was faring. Part of the reason for doing that had been because she couldn’t ask Dani directly, but part, Kaylee hated to admit, had been because she didn’t want to. It was as if, by avoiding the other girl, the problem would simply fix itself on its own and they could go back to how things had been before.
“Dunk time!”
Kaylee looked up to see Maddox and Edwin rushing towards them, teeth chattering, faces blue. “No more sitting in the sand!” Maddox said.
In a flash, the tip of Jade’s knife was jutting out of the sleeve of her jacket. “Sure about that?”
The boys screeched to a halt. They began backing up, hands in front.
“Maybe later,” Maddox amended.
“Thought so,” Jade said sweetly.
Kaylee grinned as Jade tucked the knife back in her sleeve.
Kaylee jerked awake. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but her neck ached and her body felt heavy and sluggish, as if she’d been out for a while. That was unexpected. She’d had so many thoughts rushing through her mind when they’d all turned in for the night that she’d lain wide awake, staring at the ceiling for hours, while Jade breathed evenly beside her.
Kaylee carefully pulled the covers off and slipped out of bed. Jade mumbled something but slept on.
The rest of the house was quiet. The gentle lull of the ocean surf came through the window in Dani’s room. Kaylee stood in the hallway, letting the soothing sound wrap around her like a cocoon. That lasted for a whole five seconds until a jarring snore rumbled from the game room at the end of the hall. Kaylee glanced inside. Maddox was sprawled across the leather couch. Both Edwin and Reese had taken over opposite corners, curled beneath blankets they’d found in the hall closet. Damian had headed home earlier.
Maddox let out another snore and Kaylee quietly closed the door. She was surprised she hadn’t awakened sooner with that much noise. She was also surprised she was the one up walking around and not Reese with the way he’d acted earlier. Jade had been right. He seemed more strained than usual. She knew he was still doing whatever latest workout program he was on, so maybe he was overdoing it? Or perhaps Mom and Dad were pressuring him to figure out what his plans were next now that he’d taken a break from college.
And that was the weirdest thing.
Kaylee went to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water and perched on the island, letting the cool granite countertop soothe her muscles.
Jade was right, Reese had always known what he wanted, and had a tendency to go after it with a zealousness that bordered on stupidity. Wasn’t it just last year that he was talking about all the great groups he was getting involved with at his college? He’d seemed so vibrant, boundless with expectation for the coming year. Not that Kaylee was any expert at college stuff, but something had happened to him since then. Or maybe he was at the same crossroads of choice Jade was; both deciding their purpose and place in the wider world. Kaylee only wished, like Jade had, Reese would tell her what his was.
Something snapped. In an instant Kaylee was crouched on the kitchen floor, eyes peering into the darkness, pulse racing through her body. The Slayers couldn’t be here. There was no way they’d know how to use Airbnb—
Snap!
Kaylee crept around the island and let out a sigh. The ocean breeze was picking up the blinds hanging from the living room door and dropping them again. She put her water down and went to close the window.
The door was open.
Kaylee stared, her mind trying to make sense of it. Their group had come in late. They’d been tired. One of them simply hadn’t closed it hard enough, that was all.
The blinds rapped on the glass again.
Kaylee began to close it when her eyes caught something on the porch: Footprints in the sand starting off the edge of the concrete. A dozen pairs heading towards the house, and one heading out.
Kaylee stood frozen as the wind chimes tinkled. Then she stepped out, shutting the door firmly behind her. It was a clear, cloudless night, easy to see in, and the footprints led from the back of the porch over the next swell of sand and disappeared.
Something wasn’t clicking. Something in her sluggish mind wasn’t putting the pieces together. Everyone was in the house. They were all sleeping. She’d seen them.
All except for Dani. She’d assumed she was in her room.
Terror seized Kaylee’s throat and propelled her legs to move. She didn’t run. Running would only confirm that this was real and not just a symptom of her tired imagination. She tried to dampen the panic and focus only on following the footprints. There was nothing to worry about. Dani was still inside and these were from earlier. Or maybe Dani was on a walk. Dani…
Was right there.
Ahead, the sandy beach ran straight into a mound of smoothed brown rock. Here the sand shifted to pebbles before changing to large stones, which then collided with boulders, stacked atop one another. There were no other houses beyond this. They’
d purposefully picked this Airbnb beach house at the end of a long line for some extra privacy.
Kaylee could see Dani’s lone figure at the edge of the sea cliff, staring out into the ocean. Kaylee’s heart stuttered into overdrive. Her body moved on its own, unsure of what Dani was going to do—if she was even doing anything—but dreading it all the same.
Kaylee’s bare feet gripped the porous rock as she clambered up the smooth side. She stopped twenty yards behind Dani. Dani simply stood there. It was hard to tell from behind, but she didn’t appear to be doing anything other than gazing at the ocean, the moon, then back again.
Kaylee crouched and crept forward.
Just as Dani stepped off the cliff.
Kaylee didn’t have time to cry out. A half-whisper was whisked from her lips and taken away by the wind. Then she was scrambling over the rocks to where Dani had stood. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—
Kaylee reached the edge and peered down, bracing herself for a gruesome sight below. She didn’t see Dani sprawled at the bottom. Or any sign she’d been there at all.
Kaylee stepped back. That’s when she saw the path. A narrow trail hugged the cliff side, leading down to a crevice of rock below.
Kaylee hurried along it slowly enough to ensure she wouldn’t go flying off the edge herself. For not the first time she wished she could shift to dragon wings. Forget running, she could be soaring after Dani right now.
Kaylee reached the end of the trail and slid between some rocks. After another slight squeeze the path opened up to a slot canyon. It was hard to see her feet so Kaylee used the scar of open sky above to guide her down a couple twists and turns until she came out at a lagoon.
The lagoon was enclosed on all sides except for a lone inlet carved into the rock wall on the other side. Small waves lapped against a rocky shore. Kaylee let her eyes adjust to the new brightness and spotted Dani.
She crouched at the shore like she was about to take off running for one of her soccer games. Her arms were out in front, shifted to dragon scales, and she was pushing and pulling the still water ahead of her. A faint glow of magic was emanating from her, a light aqua blue.
Kaylee could only watch, impressed. She had only seen Dani shift the day she’d been tearing off her scales and at the Slag Heap. Since then, it’d seemed the other girl had avoided having anything to do with shifting except by accident or in desperation.
Kaylee came closer. Dani finished moving the water towards her again, then raised one hand and flicked it. The water gurgled and spat. Dani huffed and tried again. This time the water rose in a small vortex. It twirled together in a braid, hanging suspended in a long thread like a snake poised to strike. Dani held it there until her arms began shaking, then dropped it.
“You’re doing really good,” Kaylee said.
Dani whipped around. Kaylee barely caught the flicker of her arm before a spray of water hurled itself straight towards her. She instinctively ducked and forced a gust of air to explode upward, creating a wall of current that dispelled the attack.
“Kaylee!” Dani gasped, clutching her chest. “Don’t do that! I could have hurt you!”
Kaylee felt the fine, gentle spray misting her skin. “I think I would have been okay.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I—” Kaylee’s mind went blank. Her original goal to find Dani was over, and actually approaching her to talk had been more an impulse than anything she’d planned.
“Uh…what are you doing here? How’d you find this place?”
Dani frowned at her evasion. “My family came to this beach a lot when I was a kid. My dad showed me this lagoon. He—”
She stopped. Her eyes dared Kaylee to say anything about her family, but Kaylee picked up a smooth rock from the shore and tried to skip it. It sank the second it hit the water.
“I saw you practicing,” Kaylee offered. “You were doing good. Really good. Have you started taking lessons?”
“No.”
“Oh. ‘Cause it looked like you had. You’re way better than I was when I first started.”
“That’s because you’re a storm dragon and I’m…” She pulled her arm farther back behind her. “Never mind.”
“Have you thought about starting lessons?”
“No.”
Kaylee sighed. “Dani, I know you’ve been avoiding me, and if you don’t want to talk I get it.”
Dani’s eyes were stuck at the ground at Kaylee’s feet, so Kaylee plunged on. “I know you think I ruined your life and I suck, and this is terrible, but I hope you know you’re still the same person you were, and if you ever want to talk I’m here, and I’ll stop talking now because I’m rambling.”
Kaylee forced her mouth closed before she blurted out anything else. Dani gave a small smile. “I don’t think you ruined my life. It was ruined long before you came along. And…I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you. If it makes you feel any better I’ve been avoiding a lot of people.”
“Is it because…?”
Dani shook her head. “It’s because of me, because I haven’t accepted this yet. I just need to learn to deal with it.”
When Dani said that some sense of understanding came to Kaylee; Something she’d had bonking around in her head for a while, ever since Randy had spoken to her the first time about it. “We…all have our curses. That’s what my uncle said. Maybe not actual magical curses, but things we think hold us back. You and being a dragon-kin, me with…”
Kaylee’s throat caught on the words.
“Jade told me what happened,” Dani said quietly. “About the boy. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Don’t be. I couldn’t do anything about it, I didn’t want it, just like you didn’t want this. But they happened, and it’s part of us now whether we want it to be or not. But we don’t have to ‘suck it up’. It’s not something we get over. We live with it and move on. We don’t let it define us.”
Dani was quiet for a long time. “You really believe that?”
“I have to. Because I won’t believe that you and I have to deal with this the same way the rest of our lives.”
“Huh.” Dani had her hand up and was staring at it. She tilted it this way and that. Then she shifted it, then back again. “I guess I could try looking at it like that.”
“I think we both have to. Otherwise things aren’t going to change.”
And in her mind Kaylee knew it was true. As much as she hated to admit it, Randy was right. Already she could feel a weight lifting from her shoulders and fluttering away. It didn’t mean her problems were gone—she knew that Brendan would probably always haunt her in one way or another, as would anybody else she was forced to hurt—but maybe, just maybe, she could handle it now.
“You think you could show me what you were doing earlier?” Kaylee said.
“Right now?”
Kaylee spun in a circle. “I don’t see anybody here to judge us.”
Dani, too, had looked around as though an entire procession had somehow followed them to the lagoon. Then she held her arms up, raising them so they were parallel with the water. A moment later bubbles appeared on the surface. A twenty-foot strip of water pulled itself up and hung suspended in the air.
“Hold it there.” Kaylee pulled her hands back and thrust them forward, drawing the heat from the water, sucking it out. The suspended water froze into a bridge of ice, which promptly collapsed beneath its own weight and hit the lagoon with a loud slap!
Both of them stared at it. Then they burst out laughing.
The sun was just coloring the horizon by the time the two of them left the lagoon. They were still some distance from the house when Kaylee heard someone calling her name. They started jogging until Kaylee spotted Jade at the back door, hands around her mouth, shouting for her.
“What? What is it?” Kaylee panted, sliding to a stop in front of her.
“Where were you?” Jade demanded. She turned to the beach. “Maddox!”
Maddox’
s head popped over the nearest sand dune. Jade waved. “They’re here! Tell Edwin!”
“Jade, what’s going on?” Dani said.
“We have to go home,’ Jade said. “Kaylee, your brother already took his own car back, but he doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know what?” Kaylee said as Edwin and Maddox hurried over.
“The Book of Kells,” Jade said. “They’ve found it.”
Chapter Nineteen
Well look who decided to show up.”
Kaylee briefly hesitated in the doorway before entering Alastair’s study. Zaria was plopped in an armchair, drink in hand. Judging by her tone, she wanted a reaction. Kaylee was determined not to give her one since the other girl clearly felt the need to show up whenever Kaylee least expected her.
“You?” Jade said, filing in behind Kaylee.
“What’s she doing here, Alastair?” Maddox demanded.
“I’m the reason you’re all here,” Zaria said.
“Hurry up, all of you. That includes you, please, Miss Fairfax.” Alastair gestured for Dani to step inside.
“M-me?” Dani said.
“This concerns you as well.”
Dani hesitated, then took a seat in the corner. Edwin followed her in and gently shut the door. His eyes briefly widened when he saw Zaria. Like Kaylee, he had clearly grown used to her random appearances.
“Zaria’s the one who found the book, Alastair?” Jade said. “We had Kaylee speed all the way back—”
“Safely, of course,” Kaylee hurriedly added.
“—because of her?”
“As much as I hate to admit it, Zaria helped us last time,” Edwin said. “I think we should hear what she has to say.”
“Agreed,” Alastair said. “Are the rest of you okay with that?”
His tone made it clear he didn’t care one way or the other whether they were okay with it or not. There were mixed affirmations from the others. Alastair resumed his spot on the edge of his desk. “Zaria came to me with information concerning the whereabouts of the Book of Kells, which, based on your lack of surprise, you’ve already heard about.”
Dragon's Curse (Heir of Dragons: Book 2) Page 17