The Other Side

by Joshua McCune

  “You don’t have to . . .”

  “You can go now, James.”

  I grab the hoof and rotate the leg. Blood stains the snow. Praxus continues to stare at me. I spin it three more times before settling on a section with minimal gristle and fur. I lay it down, circle it again and again, act like I’m examining it for the choicest cut.

  Praxus blows smoke at me.

  I glare at him. “I am not a heathen.”

  But I can’t delay any longer. I get on my knees, place my hands on the leg as if it’s a giant piece of corn. Blood and grime slick my fingers. I bend over, press my face close.

  I glance up at Praxus and smile in contempt.

  I open as wide as I can and bite in. A rush of liquid fills my mouth. I swallow it, force my gag into a snarl. I throw my head back violently, rip a hunk loose.

  “Melissa, dragon jets incoming,” James says. “Get the hell out of there.”

  I figure he’s trying to save me some grief, but then Praxus unleashes a tremendous roar. A full-throated “I ain’t getting the hell out of anywhere” sort of thing. By the time I remember I’ve got raw deer in my mouth, he’s scooped me up and dumped me on his back. I spit it out as we blast off.

  I thought he was a streak of speed before. It’s nothing compared to this. Up and up and up we go.

  “There’s a squadron on your six, still several miles out, but closing fast. You need to get out of there!”

  I look around. Can’t see much of anything. The higher and higher we go, the darker and darker it becomes. I strain to listen but only hear the howl of wind and the roar of a dragon. It’s all getting farther away.

  “What . . . what . . . are . . . we doing?” I ask.

  Where are the invisible monsters, human? Praxus demands as James says, “You’re taking the high ground.”

  “High ground? Monsters?” Doesn’t make sense. “They . . . they can see . . .”

  Where are they, human?

  “Who?” I mumble.

  “Melissa, do you have . . .”

  If he says something else, I don’t hear it. The moon’s disappeared. The moon’s disappeared!

  “It’s gone! It’s gone!” I try to scream, but my throat’s blocked and the words can’t escape. The stars are winking out, too. The whistling wind and roaring dragon go silent. My grip on the reins loosens. I slump backward, my feet catching in the stirrups. My head lolls back, and I stare into blackness.

  No moon, no stars. Only blackness. Everywhere.

  “Put on your oxygen mask!” somebody whispers in my brain.

  Oxygen! I need oxygen. I take a deep breath. Pain stabs my lungs. The next breath is worse.

  “Put on your oxygen mask!”

  I fumble at my neck, find the mask, but can’t seem to get ahold of it. My eyelids grow heavy. Everything’s heavy. But still. Feels like I’m floating. Pinpricks of light dance through my vision. So pretty. I smile. This will be a good sleep. No nightmares . . .

  A city on fire. Scorched bodies everywhere. We descend between buildings after a herd of fleeing cowards. We ignite them. Excitement tingles through us.

  Then it’s gone. The world’s black again, turbulent.

  You are better now. Tell me where they are, human, or I will dump you off my back.

  “Put on your oxygen mask!”

  The voices don’t sound so far away, my fingers aren’t so clumsy. I slip the mask into place.

  “Slow breaths,” James says as Praxus continues to threaten me.

  The moon returns, followed by the stars. I lean into Praxus, grasp the reins, and get my bearings. We’re in hover mode, perched above a cloud bank. I peer through the gaps, see only the jagged outlines of mountain peaks.

  I remember my goggles, push them down over my eyes, switch them to infrared. Everything tints greener than it already is. Dragon jets are flying at us from the horizon.

  I tense. Every instinct tells me to flee. But I can’t. I can’t be afraid. For the Diocletians to ever accept me, for any hope of rescuing Allie, I must be Green. I bite hard into my lip, tighten my grip on the reins, imagine these pilots were in Georgetown. The rage swells, the fear fades.

  “Eighteen, coming in hard from your left, right above that three-pronged mountain,” I tell Praxus. He whirls toward our enemy.

  Tell James Everett to unleash my collar. My fire burns hot in my throat, and he is not listening to me.

  “You turned off his fire?” I say.

  “You need to get out of there.” He pauses. “We can’t afford to lose another dragon.”

  “Open his fire, and open our connection.”

  “No. You don’t have the weaponry. He could berserk you.”

  “You opened it a second ago, didn’t you?”

  “You were dying!”

  “I’m gonna die real soon if you don’t open it again.”

  “That was a quick hit. I won’t . . . we can’t . . . dammit, Melissa, we can’t afford to lose another dragon.”

  A dozen missiles launch, screech toward us. Heat seekers.

  Death comes, Praxus says, and looses another sky-trembling roar. I sit up straight, draw my railshot, and join in.

  “Dammit, Melissa. . . .”

  Everything slows, everything brightens. The missiles, the jets, even the bullets. We can see them. Individual pellets of rain that somehow shine against the black backdrop of night. Our heart thumps a slow rhythm as we plunge through the clouds to intercept, to attack, to kill.

  I destroy the missiles with the railshot. He takes out the jets with fire that starts off orange in the back of his throat and turns azure as a spray of liquid from his collar joins the flame just beyond his lips. Explosions warm the sky, their incessant vibrations pushing us into new attack trajectories.

  There is no communication between us. He sees what I see and I see what he sees and we are one. We twirl and loop and roll, and they die and die and die.

  Bullets slice through our wings, lodge in our scales. Pain slashes through us, but if anything, it excites us. We roar and scream and take vengeance on the nearest target.

  And soon enough, the roaring invisible monsters and their roaring invisible missiles are gone, and the only roars belong to us.

  We are invincible. We are alive.

  In a blink, the world darkens, my heartbeat accelerates, the cold returns.

  “Are you okay, Melissa?” James sounds hesitant.

  “Fine.”

  “What’s my name, Melissa?”

  “What?”

  “What’s my name, Melissa?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to know you’re with me, Melissa.”

  Columns of fire plume from the darkness below, funeral pyres for our enemies. I shudder. I remember killing them, I remember reveling in our victories, in their deaths, but it seems an eternity ago.

  “James. Your name is James. Are you satisfied, James?”

  “Yes,” he says, and I don’t need access to his CENSIR to know he’s lying. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “A little cold,” I say. Praxus burns hot beneath me, but there doesn’t seem to be enough warmth in the world to overcome the chill that’s settled in me.

  31

  When we return to the cage, Praxus gets shouts of adulation as a team of medics sets to work on his injuries with bullet forceps, morphine sprayers, and bandage rolls the size of hay bales. When I dismount, I get a CENSIR shock that drives me to my knees. Vincent applies a pair of handcuffs.

  James lifts me to my feet, gently pulls down my oxygen mask. “What’s my name, Melissa?”

  “Again?”

  Vincent strips me of my railshot. “Answer the question.”

  “James,” I say as if it’s an epithet. “And you’re Vincent.”

  The towering instructor shows me his phone, which has a picture of my father in his army dress blues. It’s the publicity photo from when he led the research team that discovered dragons can’t see black.

  “Who is this
?”

  “My father, before he was paralyzed in Mason-Kline.”

  Vincent scrolls back to his gallery—a folder labeled Melissa Callahan—and loads that picture of Mom, Keith, James and his parents, and Oren at Shadow Mountain Lookout. I identify everybody I know before he can ask. I point at James’s parents. “I don’t know their names.”

  “Michael and Dianne.” James shakes his head at Vincent. “She didn’t know.”

  We go through a few more pictures. Sam, Uncle T, Aunt Susan. “Are we done? I’m not . . .” What was the term? “Surfing the scales.”

  “How are you feeling?” James asks.

  “Brilliant.”

  James flinches. “Brilliant, huh? Was that intentional?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who said it?”

  I can’t help rolling my eyes. “Hector the director.” Brilliant. Everything was goddamn brilliant, particularly if it involved slaying a dragon.

  James’s look of concern turns to one of puzzlement. “She might be okay.”

  “Maybe. T-Clef, Grizzly B.” Vincent waves over that pale girl with all those piercings and a skinny guy whose arms are cloaked in tribal dragon tattoos. Vincent looks to James. “You’re dismissed.”

  “I’m sorry. In nae,” James whispers, and steps away to join the other bystanders.

  Vincent says something I don’t hear because I’m looking at James, wondering what he meant by that. But his expression’s back to guarded. Then I hear Vincent say something about sending me back to detox, and my attention snaps to him.

  “I’m okay. I don’t have the itch.”

  “Everybody says that.”

  “Look at my CENSIR. I’m fine.”

  “We keep her in cuffs, and we can handle this chica blindfolded,” the girl says. “Come on, Vince. Pretty sad state of affairs if we can’t.” She hooks her arm through mine, gives this exaggerated smile, like we’re besties about to go on a merry stroll. The skinny boy takes my other arm, though his smile’s not quite so big.

  Vincent grumbles something beneath his breath, checks his phone. “All right. Get her fed and cleaned up. Any misstep . . .”

  “I got it,” the girl says. She looks at me, winks. “I can tell she and me are gonna be one good we. Ain’t that right, Missy C?” She seems very pleased with her rhyme.

  I nod.

  “I’m T-Clef,” she says. “That’s Grizzly B. Try to remember our names. You’ll probably be quizzed later.” She laughs, but I know she’s not kidding.

  She introduces the rest of the Diocletians in the cage, Praxus’s other riders. I hear a couple of murmured congratulations, get a couple of nods of respect, but most everybody keeps their distance.

  “I’m really okay,” I say as she and Grizzly B escort me into the causeway that runs beneath the wall. “You can let go.”

  T-Clef grins. “We could.”

  “But we won’t,” Grizzly B says. His voice is surprisingly gruff.

  “You just got out of detox,” she says. “Reconnecting you to Praxus so soon should have thrown you back down the rabbit hole. Yeah, you seem fine, but . . .”

  “Unless . . . ,” he says. He and the girl exchange a look.

  “Prax? You think?”

  He shakes his head. “You’re right. Not Praxus.”

  “Unless what?” I demand.

  “It’s a possible explanation,” T-Clef says to him.

  “Maybe Everett didn’t throttle the connection very much. Maybe Praxus didn’t have enough time.”

  “Maybe. But they took out an entire squadron of DJs. And you know Prax doesn’t need but a split second. You’ve been there. . . . Probably temporary lucidity.”

  “Or she’s playing us. Didn’t Everett say he figured out how to beat the CENSIR in Georgetown?”

  Beat the CENSIR? “What are you talking about?”

  T-Clef and Grizzly B keep talking over me.

  “Yeah. Perhaps Prax connects with her differently,” T-Clef says.

  “Which makes her unpredictable,” he says, and tightens his grip on me.

  I stop walking. “What do you mean James beat the CENSIR in Georgetown?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Grizzly B says.

  I glare at him. “I’m not worried.”

  “Too many variables, Missy C,” T-Clef says. “Ride the wave until things calm down.”

  I want to scream. “There is no wave.”

  “Yeah, but seeing is believing, and we need to see a little more, you know what I mean? Don’t worry, this is standard operating procedure.” She drops to a whisper, as if we’re not the only people on this side of the wall. “In fact, you’re getting it special ’cause we like you. So come on now, let’s play nice.”

  They tug me forward, keep talking as if I’m not there, conjecturing how I may or may not be under Praxus’s spell, while I keep thinking about what they said about James and beating the CENSIR.

  He was so cruel to me in Georgetown, but only when the CENSIR was on. When they allowed him to take it off for our Kissing Dragons scenes, he acted like he cared about me, acted really well. Said things and did things that weren’t in the script that made me think he actually did care. Then they put the CENSIR back on him, and I was a glowheart dirt stain again.

  After we escaped, he didn’t talk to me in any substantial way except once, to apologize for the way he treated me. Head down, unable to look at me. Sincere and remorseful, or at least he acted it.

  But why? Why would he have faked all that cruelty?

  The only answer I can think of is—to earn our captors’ trust. By proving that he hated me, he proved his loyalty to them, and thus earned time off from his CENSIR, which would have allowed him to communicate with other dragons.

  Maybe Keith and Loki’s Grunts didn’t find Georgetown because of the tracker in my arm. Maybe James told them where it was. Maybe Kissing Dragons was reality, and everything else he did while we were there was the lie.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  And what about now? Who is he now? I shake my head. Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. I repeat this to myself as we wend our way back through the tunnels to the parking lot of SUVs.

  The same guard from before greets us at the blast doors. “She already fritz out?”

  “We’ll see,” T-Clef says. “But she’s a pretty sick flier. She and Prax took out an entire squadron.”

  “I’d keep that on the down low. Joto’s major pissed.”

  T-Clef laughs. “Doesn’t take much. I’m surprised he’s not here looking to get his ass kicked.”

  “HQ sent their team down south on a supply run.”

  As they continue chatting, I envision myself stealing an SUV and some of those railshots. Sneak into Oren’s headquarters, rescue Allie, and make it home before dinner. Piece of pie. I snort.

  The guard tenses, T-Clef gives me a worried glance. Grizzly B tightens his grip on me.

  “I’m fine,” I say, but nobody believes me.

  We move on. I want to ask them about HQ, but don’t want to draw suspicion, so I go with something innocuous. “The guards, they’re not talkers?”

  “No.” T-Clef taps her CENSIR. “The Tatankaville talkers all have to wear tiaras.”

  Grizzly B notices my confusion, grins. “T and her nicknames. My real name’s Bryan. Guess how many people know that?” He makes a zero with his hand. “Lucky I’ve got it printed on my locker. Otherwise I might not know it.”

  She waves her free hand toward the ceiling. “Sure, let’s call our cell G4N6C4. Rolls right off the tongue.”

  “It’s G4N8C4,” Grizzly says.

  “Whatever. Tatankaville sounds much better.”

  “Because of the Colorado Buffaloes,” Grizzly explains. I shrug. He shrugs back. “Yeah, I hadn’t heard of them either. Used to be a college or something.”

  “And tatanka is the Sioux word for buffalo,” T-Clef says with a proud smile. The smile vanishes faster than it came. “The people before us. You think the dragons
’ll remember us when we’re gone?”

  “Nobody’ll forget you, my dear,” Grizzly says.

  They load me into an SUV. T-Clef drives. Grizzly sits in back with me.

  “Windows down, volume up,” she says, back to perky. She opens the windows, turns on the radio. She shuffles through her MP3 player, loads up a bass-pounding rock anthem that sounds like something Colin would like. I want to ask her to change it to something else but refrain.

  She peels out and floors it. Shaking her head from side to side, wind whipping her hair across her face, T-Clef sings along. Grizzly B air drums it every which way and accompanies the deep-throated baseline. “Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.”

  The walls zoom past, the vehicle trembles beneath us. One slight twitch of the wheel, and the bass line will end with a tremendous crash. I welcome the adrenaline that surges through me, distracts me from thought.

  We pass the guard post and soon arrive at the main tunnel. After a stop at an infirmary so I can get my scrapes treated and an injection of morphine, we drive to the prayer center for Praxus’s Posse.

  “That’s not cool,” Grizzly B says as we exit the SUV.

  The graffiti picture beside the prayer center’s entrance shows a hulking Green, smoke rising from its nostrils, wings spread around a cluster of cartoon teenagers brandishing weapons and sneers. The guy with the Confederate-flag bandanna has a streak of red along his neck to mimic a throat slash. Closer, I see it’s ravioli sauce.

  “I bet it was Joto,” T-Clef hisses, rubbing away the sauce with her hand. She looks at me. “It’s really gonna steam his vegetables when we put you up there.”

  “Isn’t he your friend?” I ask.

  Grizzly B chuckles. “They’re practically married.”

  “He’s your boyfriend?” I look at her askance. “I thought you were ready to shoot him.”

  “Gotta keep his macho ass in check,” she says. “We need more strong chicas in this joint. After Evie—”

  “Evelyn?”

  “Ah, that’s right. Georgetown,” T-Clef says. “Don’t get me wrong, the girl’s a real two-faced bitch, but she knew how to turn the screws.”

  “Did she ever,” Grizzly B says.

  “She dead?” I ask, trying my best to keep the hope from my voice.