by Naomi Sparks
About a half hour after they began, Dez starts to look tired around the edges. His movements are jerky, and he looks frustrated. The men around him look tired, too. And one of them rubs the knuckles absently that he's been using over and over on Faris.
Apparently beating someone is hard work. Go figure.
"You take some time and think about what else we’re going to do to you," Dez says, voice loud and clear.
Hope surges inside of me. It's clear that Dez is getting frustrated that it doesn't seem like he's going to be able to break Faris. But he also doesn't seem ready to kill him yet, either.
Dez doesn’t like a mystery. And Faris surviving that bullet...that’s has to bug the heck out of him.
Dez steps out of the shed and shouts to someone outside of my eyesight. Then he gestures to the men who have been in the room with him and they head as a group out toward the main building on the property, a large white farm house. The man who Dez yelled at has a short exchange with him that I'm unable to hear, then heads towards the shed where Faris is being held. This goon goes to the shed and stands in front of the door. A guard.
My mouth drops open as his features come into focus in the moonlight.
AJ.
I stay crouched behind the corner of the building and watch him while the others head inside the house or into the empty darkness of the open garage next to it. AJ lights up a cigarette and begins restlessly pacing in front of the door he’s guarding. I can see from where I’m hiding that he looks sort of rough and unkempt. His hair is much longer than it used to be and he looks like he hasn’t shaved in weeks. Not at all like the man I used to know.
My thoughts go back to the short relationship AJ and I shared a little more than a year ago. He was a decent enough guy. Never the type to help old ladies cross the street or anything like that, but he treated me with respect and didn’t try to boss me around. At least at first. Then, apparently, Dez got his claws in him. That’s when his mood changed. And that’s when I broke up with his ass.
But, at one time, he was a decent man. If there’s any hope of me convincing anyone here to let Faris go, it’s AJ.
My heart is hammering in my chest when I slowly make my way out of the shadows and begin to walk towards the shed. I glance over at the house and pray that no one there sees me. If I’m caught it means very bad things for me. I glance back towards AJ, who is looking down at his phone in between taking drags off his cigarette. I can almost touch him by the time he notices me.
“What the-“ he stammers out much more loudly that I’d like before composing himself somewhat. “Kyra? You scared the shit out of me. I almost fucking shot you. Goddamn.”
The blood in my veins turns to ice as he lifts his shirt to reveal a rather large handgun tucked into his waistband. He’s got one hand resting on it like he’s about to pull it out. Didn’t know he had that. I should have figured Dez wouldn’t leave an unarmed guard out here, though.
“Yes, sorry, AJ. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. It’s just…I saw you over here and wanted to say hello.” It takes everything I’ve got to keep my voice from breaking.
Right away I can tell something is really off with him. He’s shifting back and forth like he can’t get comfortable. Like he’s full of more energy than his body can contain. His eyes look wild and bloodshot with dark circles under them. And he’s lost so much weight since the last time I spoke to him.
“Yeah. Hey. Hey,” AJ answers quickly, then scratches his neck like he’s trying to dig out bugs. I feel a bit of relief when his hand moves away from his gun.
If it were anyone else I’d think they were very sick, cancer maybe, but in AJ’s case I already know the problem because I see it in most of Dez’s other friends. Meth. It’s got ahold of him, and badly.
AJ pockets his phone and sparks up another cigarette with the one he’s barely finished smoking. “You know you really shouldn’t be out here, Kyra. Your brother said nobody is supposed to be out here.”
“Listen, AJ. That man you have locked up in there- he’s a friend. My friend. He never did anything wrong. He doesn’t deserve whatever Dez and these other guys are doing to him. Can’t we just let him go?”
I look into his eyes to see if he understands, if he’s willing to help me. But I see nothing besides the drug controlling him. The decent man I once knew is long gone.
Though he does appear taken aback for a moment as he seems to consider what I said. Then he shakes his head, mind made up. “Nah. No way. You’re gonna have to go. Come on.” He tosses out his cigarette and grabs me roughly by the arm.
I try to flirt. It’s really my only chance here, I decide. I don’t think AJ is willing to listen to reason. I place my hand on his chest and pull myself close to him.
“Wait, AJ, I…also came out here because I really wanted to speak to you. I miss you. I miss us.”
He gives me a confused look and his grip relaxes just slightly. “Huh?”
I snuggle in even closer and start to do little circles on his chest with my finger. Then I look up at him and give him my best bedroom eyes. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. About our relationship. And I really miss you, AJ. I think maybe I gave up on things with us too fast.”
AJ still looks a little confused but a slight smile is beginning to form on his face. Like he doesn’t quite believe it, but he’s enjoying it. And he shouldn’t, but I don’t care. I just need to distract him. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a rather heavy-looking wrench propped up against the side of the shed. It’s old and rusty and completely out of my reach, though. Unless—
“Oh man,” AJ lets out as a whisper and relaxes even more when I lightly kiss his neck. The whole time, I’m glaring at the wrench and mentally screaming at the thing, trying to will it to fly to my hand like I was able to do with the photograph of my parents. I see it wiggle for a moment and then I feel AJ’s hands clamp down forcefully on my arms and push me away.
“You must think I’m a complete idiot, Kyra. I know that’s your new boyfriend in there. We don’t need people like him hanging around our town or around Dez’s operation. He’s probably a cop or a fed, anyway. He was wearing a bulletproof vest when Dez shot him, right? Come on, tell me.”
I shake my head. “No. No, AJ. He’s not a cop. I swear he isn’t.”
“Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’re going to take care of him. He won’t be a problem anymore.”
My heart sinks. My concentration is shot. I’ve screwed up and lost it. I can feel my ability slipping away from me. Maybe it was all just a crazy dream after all. Or maybe I really am schizophrenic like my grandfather worried I’d be.
“Let’s go,” AJ says with a hint of malice. “We’re going to talk to Dez about this.”
And with that, he’s pushing me towards the house. I struggle against him and plead for him to listen, but he won’t budge. This is it, I tell myself. This is how it all ends. I want to cry out, to scream. Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut and pour every ounce of focus I can into that wrench, which is getting farther away with each step.
Come on…come on! Move!
We make it a few more yards before I hear a loud thunk and AJ lets out a short, pained grunt. With a dumbfounded expression, he instantly releases me and reaches up to feel his head. His eyes go wide and roll back and he goes down to his knees. A second later, and he’s out cold on the ground. Lying between his legs and behind him is the wrench.
“Holy—” I sputter out and crawl over to him. “Ok, this is definitely real. Totally real.”
I take a moment to feel for a pulse. AJ is still alive. But he’s going to be seriously hurting when he wakes up. Whenever that is. But just in case AJ wakes back up sooner than I think, I take his gun and sling it out into the darkness, then I grab the big wrench and take it with me.
I scramble up and back over to the shed. Luckily, there’s no lock on the door. I swing it open and there’s Faris, severely beaten and tied to a chair with thick ropes. He looks a lit
tle surprised to see me.
“Kyra? I- what the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, I came to rescue you, obviously,” I say arrantly.
He doesn’t seem too pleased by this. Faris must be more used to things being turned around the other way. He flexes hard, muscles bulging, and tries to break himself out of the ropes but fails. Normally, I’d bet he could do it, but he’s taken such a beating that he must be drained.
I quickly scan the interior of the shed and find a knife, which someone jammed into the wooden counter nearby. It makes short work of the ropes and within moments, Faris is free. Once the ropes fall, he slumps over and almost tumbles out of the chair.
The problem is immediately apparent. There’s a huge gash on his upper arm where he’s been stabbed, probably with the same knife I just used to cut him loose. Blood is still trickling out of the wound and it looks like he’s lost a lot already.
“Hold still, you’re bleeding,” I say, and then tear off one of my shirt sleeves. Luckily it wasn’t one of my favorites. A moment later and I’ve wrapped the makeshift bandage around his arm.
Faris let out a groan and seems to awaken a bit once I tighten the bandage. “Hand me the wrench, please.”
At least he has time for manners. I hand him the wrench and watch, amazed, as it begins to heat up in his hands. First it’s glowing red and then white, and just when I don’t think it can get any hotter it seems to dissolve into a fine powder.
Faris clenches his fists and cracks his neck. Right before my eyes, the swelling and cuts on his face fade. The underlying scales of his dragon peek through all over his skin and wherever there was damage, it heals. But as he stands, I can tell he’s still feeling weak, and some of the wounds seem to reappear.
Faris says weakly, “I need gold. Or silver. Any precious or rare metal will do.”
I look around but I can’t see anything like that in the old shed. Likely, anything precious or valuable around here would have been stripped and sold long ago.
“Sorry, there’s not any around here that I can find. Just rusty crap, plastic, and wood,” I answer.
“It’s ok, it’s ok. I’m fine for now anyway,” he says. I don’t know if I believe him. “Bren will have some gold back at the campsite. We need to go there.”
I grab Faris and kiss him, long and deep. Then I hold him, careful not to squeeze so tight that I hurt him, and then I fight back the tears that are welling up inside.
“I couldn’t let you die. They would’ve killed you,” I manage.
“Thank you,” Faris says, reassuringly. “I believe I underestimated your brother and his friends just slightly.”
I can’t help but agree with him. “We both did. Let’s get out of here.”
One glance at AJ, who is still knocked out on the ground, then another quick glance at the farm house, and we’re out of the shed and moving across the patchy, overgrown yard.
11
Faris
Thankfully, no one seems to notice Kyra and me as we make our way around the rear of the farm house. Inside, the place is lit up like Christmas and nearly every light is on. Using my sensitive dragon hearing, I can easily make out the shuffling feet and voices of a dozen or more men. Some are drunkenly rambling while others, including Dez, are talking about the beating they gave me and plans for how they were going to make me crack during the next round. Thankfully, they won’t be getting another chance.
It seems Dez thinks that I might be DEA, which is the only reason they didn’t kill me right away earlier. Since I didn’t die after he shot me, he assumed I must have been wearing a bulletproof vest. He even told me during my interrogation that they had a guy set up and waiting in the local hospital’s parking lot to finish me off if I showed up there, so he knew I never went.
Then he pulls up my shirt tonight and sees no bullet holes. That was all the evidence he needed. He was now sure I was law enforcement. And he wanted me alive long enough to get info out of me about what the DEA or whoever were planning. I’m sure his next move after he got that info was to find a nice shallow grave for me out in the desert.
I couldn’t help but smile a little as I thought about it. Amateurs. They’d broken several of my fingers, stabbed me, and beat me until they were worn out, but I was the one getting all the information. And then Kyra helped me get away.
It was difficult not to be irritated with Kyra, though. She’d risked her life to come help me. That was unnecessary. I’m sure I could have absorbed enough inferior metals from inside the shed to heal myself and break free. The person to be most upset with, however, was myself. I really should have fully transformed when Dez and his crew rolled up on me earlier. I could have dispatched them all with ease in my full dragon form. This would all be over and Kyra would’ve never been placed in any danger.
But I’d be lying to myself if I also didn’t really appreciate Kyra’s assistance. Without her I wouldn’t already be free. This woman truly was something else.
As Kyra and I circled around the house and crept through the short, open expanse on the other side, the fence and driveway leading back down to the main road came into view. Now was our chance to get out of there undiscovered.
“It’s a left and then straight down there by the fence, I think,” Kyra says, squinting her eyes in the darkness. “I parked the bike right off the main road in some bushes. It’ll be easy to find once we get down there.”
I was about to lead the way when I thought of something. Even if I couldn’t finish off Dez and his lackeys tonight, at least I could shut down their little operation. That would likely run off some of the men who were working for him, placing the odds even more in our favor. And if we did enough damage, he’d be too busy cleaning up the mess to come after us.
“Kyra, which one of these buildings is where they cook the meth?” I ask, looking back over my shoulder. There were several old barns and small warehouses on the property. All of them were in pretty bad shape and look similar. Mostly metal and rust. I couldn’t nail down where the godawful scent of the meth was coming from exactly because the whole area reeked of it.
“What? Let’s go!” she says and tugs at my arm. “The way out is right over there. Now’s not the time to play hero!”
I shake my head. “No. We’re shutting them down tonight. Your brother isn’t going to just stop after we leave here.”
“We’ll go to the campsite. There’s no way he’ll find us up there. It’s in the middle of nowhere, Faris.” Kyra’s voice seemed strained and desperate.
“Maybe, maybe not. But with Hannah still under observation at the hospital, there’s no way Lex will want to leave town until she’s better. We’ll be under constant threat until then. My crew would be just as much at risk, and I can’t allow that. If we do enough damage, Dez will be too busy trying to pick up the pieces to come after us.”
Kyra lets out a quiet sigh and gives in. “Ok. Maybe you’re right. But I don’t know which buildings they use to cook or store the meth. It’s not like Dez ever gave me a tour of the place, and I tried to stay as far away from here as possible.”
“That’s fine.” I look back across the front lawn, sensing movement. Just a rabbit, thankfully. “We’ll just burn down everything. The entire compound. Or as much as we can.”
Kyra seems incredulous. “Um, and how exactly are we gonna do that?”
“I’m a dragon, remember?” I smile and give her a wink.
Kyra makes her way down to my motorcycle to wait while I navigate toward the back part of the compound. I make it about halfway when I hear the unmistakable sound of voices on the opposite side of a silo.
Two men. I smell the air and taste oil and gunpowder. Armed guards.
I creep around and take a look at them. The two men are standing and conversing with each other and do not see me. They don’t seem to be monitoring any one building in particular, just observing the property, but they do have flashlights in their hands and mean-looking rifles strapped across their backs.
/> A direct attack could work. But then, I really don’t feel like being shot again if I can avoid it.
I decide that these humans have such poor night vision that they won’t see me if I simply stay low and skirt around the edge of the property, which is nearly a hundred yards away. And if they do somehow spot me, I can easily outrun them.
It works. A few minutes later and I’m standing at a small outbuilding which looks like it hasn’t been used for anything in ages. A good a place to start as any. Likely, the two guards will see it go up first and not realize I’m setting all the other buildings on fire behind them until it’s too late.
A few puffs and I splash the side of the outbuilding with dragonsfire. It blazes with eerie, dark indigo flames, my own color, before catching on the wood and more combustible parts of the building and spreading into a bright, orange inferno.
I continue this, working my way across the compound and setting each building alight as I reach them. Some have people inside, I can hear them. Others sound totally empty.
As predicted, the guards go hustling past me, completely oblivious to my presence, racing towards the burning outbuilding. One of them shouts something into his phone. He must be informing the others.
But then, just as the fourth building begins to burn, a thunderous boom resounds out from behind me. I turn just in time to see one of the barns I’ve lit explode. The two guards are caught in the explosion and go down. A shower of sparks turns the night temporarily into day. Fragments of burning wood fly through the air and land all around me.
Well, Dez must’ve heard that. Everyone in five counties must’ve heard that.
The compound is suddenly a beehive of activity. I watch from my vantage point as the doors on the farm house burst open and a flood of men race out and into the night. Exterior lights pop on, illuminating much of the area around the various buildings. Then I see Dez. He’s standing on the front lawn holding his pistol, watching in disbelief at the fires and looking around— for me.