Replacement

by Wojciech Cram

  She winced at hearing her full name. She struggled to find words, reaching for her friend. Kotori's good hand pushed her away with enough force that she struck the wall behind her

  before she gained her balance. The world felt dizzy; nothing was where it was supposed to be. "Kotori, please! You don't understand! There were… circumstances!"

  "What? You mean like the fact that Cain's a dragon?" She watched as Beth's face went deadly white. Her green eyes stood out blazingly in the contrast. Kotori turned away, unable

  to look Beth in the eye. "Yeah. I got that part, too, thanks." Her mouth pulled into a deep frown that marred her pretty face. "That was the reason why you didn't want to tell me,

  wasn't it? Because he's a goddamn dragon it makes him our enemy."

  Beth nodded. She was too afraid to speak incase it came out as a sob. In turn, Kotori's disgust only deepened, but she was the one who sobbed. Kotori's good hand punched a metal

  door to a bathroom stall so hard it left behind imprints of her knuckles.

  "I'm your best friend, Beth! You could have told me! You know that I would have taken your side? Do you really think that I would have tried to peel you and Cain apart if you told me about him when I had just found my Soulmate and I would have understood the pain of separation? Do you think I would have let Daybreak take Cain from you? Do you?!"

  She wanted to lie; oh goddess, how badly she wanted to lie! Her dark hair fell over her face as she slowly nodded, feeling herself crumbling against Kotori's justified anger.

  "I never would have done that!" she snapped, the last word coming out as a sob.

  "I'm so sorry, Kotori! I was just so scared! Sacred of everything... I didn't know who to trust or believe anymore!"

  "You wanted me to turn him in," Kotori said, turning away from Beth and drying her tears again. She was breathing deeply, trying to regain control of herself. Slowly, her voice

  became calm and level again. She avoided looking at Beth; avoided the sight of those green eyes turned almost aqua in tears, her ruddy cheeks stained, and her dark, lean hair

  hanging limply over her heartshaped face. If ever there was a time when Kotori could see the Nightworlder in Bethany, it was when her friend cried. "But I didn't. I turned you in,

  instead."

  "M... me?"

  "Yes. You lied to us. Again and again over this past week, you lied to us. You lied to us about Cain. How many lies did you tell us, Beth? You're a traitor. You can't think rationally

  when your enemy is your Soulmate."

  "He's not my enemy anymore! He wants to defect!"

  Kotori spun on her heel. "And what if he's just using your connection to manipulate you? What then, Beth? If Cain's honest, fine. But the mater is that you still betrayed us. I called

  Nick and explained everything. He's on his way to pick you up. I'm to escort you downstairs in ten minutes."

  "Kotori?"

  "He'll pick you up and drive you to the headquarters."

  "Kotori!"

  "There, you'll be put on trial." Kotori reached into her knapsack, laying against the wall of the bathroom, and handed it to Beth. "You have enough time to call Eliza and tell her that

  you're going to be late for supper. Then we're going to meet Nick downstairs. If a teacher asks you what's wrong or why you're leaving early, it's because you have food poisoning.

  Understood?"

  Beth was sobbing. "Don't do this, Kotori..."

  Her friend was still pale and shaking. She licked her lips before slowly answering. "I'm sorry, Beth. I'm a Daybreaker... I'm the Soulmate of a Daybreaker... I follow rules. You

  broke the rules. I'm sure I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't so mad with you right now, but I just can't seem to think of anything else. You didn't just break the rules, Beth. You

  betrayed me... and so now I'm doing the same."

  She grabbed her bag and hoisted it over her bad shoulder. Her good hand grabbed Beth's arm, keeping a tight grip on her so she couldn't make a run for it. "Hopefully you'll forgive me soon, Beth. Cain is still safe. I just told Nick of the relationship between you two. You're going in for witholding information and fraternizing with the enemy. Cain will still be

  safe."

  "Not for much longer! Don't you see, Kotori? I would have told them if I could trust them. Duncan and the others are so obsessed with the idea of stopping Cain that they're going to

  use me as bait to capture or kill him. Someone is going to end up dead in all this, Kotori!"

  Her friend's eyes were inhumanly cold. The only other person Beth had ever seen wearing that same expression was Kaneonuskatew. "Then so be it."

  True to Kotori's words, Nick's white car pulled up in front of the school only a few minutes later. Usually Nick would hop out, a boundless sea of energy when Kotori was around.

  Instead he just sat in his front seat, wearing an expression that almost looked like a sulk. Wearily making her way to the car, Beth climbed into the vacant front seat. Kotori was

  staying at school to finish the day. It was with a dismal heart that Beth realized she was actually jealous of her friend for being able to stay at school. At least if Kotori were ever to

  be kicked out of Daybreak she could still pass the year. Beth was beginning to think she'd missed so many classes that she'd never pass high school.

  They began driving. Nick's mouth was in a tight line, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. Even his normally styled hair was messy in his anger. Finally, after what

  seemed like whatever, Nick spoke. "I can't believe you lied to us."

  "You would have done the same thing for Kotori had you been in my shoes." Beth pulled away from the window to glance in the back seat. A filled canvas back was spread out

  across the back seat. She arched an eyebrow. "What the hell did she call you in the middle of doing? Buying potatoes?"

  "It's none of your business," he snapped.

  Nick rarely snapped. The sound made Beth jump back into her seat, her eyes on the road ahead of them. Shame colored her cheeks and she stared out the window again. She didn't

  like it when Nick was angry. She could feel tears sting her eyes. Why was she crying so much lately? Then she could feel it—a sudden warmth spreading between her legs. Beth

  froze in the car. Dear heavenly goddess… No. Not now. She couldn't stand it now. The tears started running, pushed over the edge by the embarrassment of having her period start

  while she was on her way to an inquisition.

  "Oh, don't cry." His voice was a hiss and from the corner of her vision Beth could see Nick roll his eyes in exasperation. "Don't you dare start to cry. There's no reason to cry!" Nick

  shook his head, staring at the road. "I can't stand it when you humans cry. You're all watery and slobbery and I can't stand it. You have no right to cry you… you little tramp!"

  Beth felt like she had been slapped. She couldn't have heard correctly! Nick being snappy was one thing—and understandable—being called a tramp was another matter entirely.

  "Wh… what?"

  "You heard me! You had everything; you got everything! All I had were lies. He lied to me, and I was stupid enough to let myself be swayed by his words and his pretty face. I

  should have known that I couldn't have trusted him. He called me Queen, promised me power, but all he wanted was you." He went around a corner so fast he nearly sideswiped a

  red pickup truck. The red truck blared its horn, but Nick just kept speeding. "Now he thinks he has you but he's wrong. Now I have you."

  He glanced at her, grinning wickedly. Beth realizes then that the face was a mask. It was perfect, but it wasn't Nicolas. Beth cursed herself; she should have picked up on it earlier!

  Looking closer, knowing what she was looking for, she could see two small, delicate horns hiding amongst Nick's flaming red hair. Her voice came out in a squeak.

  "Drop the disguise, Fala. I can't stand to see you behind Nick's face."

&n
bsp; "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Her smile turned sweet. "Don't you want to know where we're going? Don't you know what I'm going to do with you and Gawain?"

  "Gawain?" Slowly, Beth glanced over her shoulder at the burlap sack. She stared at it in a new light. Gawain was stuffed into that sack, unconscious. What had Fala done to knock

  him out and get him into a burlap sack? She frowned, turning back to Fala. "I don't need to ask. I know where you're taking us. You're going to make Gawain wake the other

  dragons."

  Fala smiled through Nick's face. "Yes. At least Kaneonuskatew didn't fall for a dumb human, I'll give you that. But I am only going to awake the other red dragons, like myself. I'll

  kill the others as they wake up. Kaneonuskatew was willing to kill me. I'm not nearly so kind. I'm going to make him suffer."

  Beth's lips parted softly as she tried to stifle the panic in her heart. Fala was talking about genocide! "You're going to kill off his entire family?"

  "I'm actually doing that for my family, to protect our interests. No, I'm going to leave him alive and break him in the deepest, most intimate way I can. I'm going to kill you."

  Beth felt a scream rising in her throat, pumped their by her heart. She could feel rumbling in the car, so strong it made the glass behind her head vibrate. The sound was coming

  from Fala. The teenager struggled to control her scream; it wouldn't do any good. No one would hear who would be in a position to help her. The car was passing under a sign which

  read 'now leaving Victoria' as Bethany watched black lightning leap across Fala's skin, such a dark shade of red that it resembled the color of old blood.

  She reached down inside herself. The rumbling was pounding in her ears. She plummeted down inside herself, straining for the cord inside of herself that tied her to

  Kaneonuskatew. Her mental shields were crackling under the rumbling sound. Darkness was swallowing her thoughts. She could see Fala's mouth opening, her maw filled with redbloodlightning.

  Beth reached the cord, feeling it shake with excitement as she drew near, as if it were a thing alive. She packed all the power and strength she could find as the

  world caved into the black thoughtlessness. She wasn't even sure if her thought had gone out as she was enveloped in it, and even the cord of her innermost being slipped from her

  hands into the pitch black nothingness.

  Fala pulled over the car as soon as she was free of the city. There was a scenic lookout just outside of town. She parked the car in the area with the densest cover and then

  dragged the two bodies and supplies out of the car. She'd need to act quickly. There was a possibility that the abomination had gotten a call out to her Soulmate for help and there

  was no way for Fala to know about it. It would take too long to drive to the mountains.

  She stripped off her clothes, tossing them into the back seat. The keys she hid under the frame of the care. Then she began to change her shape. Her neck grew longer. Her jaw

  jutted out, sharp teeth pointing out from under her lips here and there. She became bigger—a lot bigger. Her hands became threeclawed hands. Her feet went from fivetoed to

  three. Her shoulder bones rearranged themselves as large, leathery wings grew from her back. Her skin cracked as it turned into scales, darkening into a beautiful rubyred color.

  From behind her another car drove up to enjoy the late fall colors, saw the dragon, and crashed into a tree. Fala could hear the humans inside the smoking car screaming. She

  snarled at them and opened her mouth, shooting down a ball of fire at the car. It erupted into flames and silenced their screams. Fala's headache lessened without their pitiful cries

  around to bother her.

  Flying to the dragons would be much quicker. She flapped her wings, hovering awkwardly as one claw scooped up Gawain and the other scooped up the girl. She grabbed the sack

  of equipment with her hands and then beat her wings quickly, taking her up into the sky.

  Kotori stared at the forest. She didn't know what it was that was calling her to it. More than anything, she wanted to stay away from that line of coniferous trees. The sheer sight of

  them made her stomach shake with nervousness, and yet, that afternoon when class was done, she was feeling drawn to them.

  She decided that maybe it was because she was afraid of them. Something in her subconscious was trying to get her inside the woods to prove to herself that there was nothing in

  them. Michael and his friends were not hiding around every tree, ready to hurt them. In fact, Michael hadn't even been seen since the incident, which was a little strange. As a

  vampire he should have recovered long ago.

  Kotori knew that if she didn't go into the woods soon, she never would again, letting the fear become ingrained into her. She pursed her lips stubbornly, a faint crease appearing

  between her eyebrows. She wasn't going to let that happen. She wasn't about to let her fear have control over her life.

  She walked into the woods. At first her feet shuffled along the ground, but soon she was walking along with her back straight and her chin up. The woods were calling to her otherself,

  and she wished, not for the first time, that she didn't have the cast on her arm.

  It slowly dawned on her, however, that something wasn't right. It had nothing to do with the woods and everything to do with something inside of herself. She suddenly felt a little

  nauseous and displaced. She searched down deeper inside herself for a cause and was startled to feel the silver cord that linked her with her Soulmate was the source of the

  displacement. Something was wrong with Nick, but she couldn't discern any actual emotions from him, just a sickening sense of wrongness…

  And he was closer; closer than he was supposed to be. Her heart leapt into her throat and she veered recklessly off the path, searching for her Soulmate. She was close enough

  that if she concentrated she could smell him. She pushed aside sticks and branches as she pressed deeper into the thicker tangling of trees. Slowly, concentrating on the cord, she

  could feel bubbles of thoughts slowly beginning to rise up from the depths of Nick's mind.

  She found him kneeling on three limbs, one hand clutching his pounding head. Kotori managed to keep from throwing her arms around him to help him up first rather than attacking

  him. "Are you okay? What happened?"

  "There was a girl in the street. I swerved to miss her. Ow." He winced when he stood up, rubbing a shoulder. Nick's face was neutral, but Kotori could see the anger welling up

  behind the blueeyed mask he wore. It didn't help that she could feel their frustrations swirling together, fueling each other's anger and worry. "The next thing I knew, I had jumped

  out of my car to see if she was okay and she was standing there in my form… there was… this… roaring kind of sound... I remember thinking something about lightening… and then

  I woke up here."

  "You never picked up Bethany?"

  "No."

  "Fala." Kotori's hands clenched. "Fala, that other dragon Beth had mentioned! She took your form!"

  He placed his hands on her shoulders to keep her from bursting out of her own skin. Kotori's teeth were gritted and she looked ready to rip something to shreds. "Don't jump to

  conclusions, Kotori. How do you know it wasn't Cain? If they are Soulmates, then it's possible he'd go to all this trouble just to keep her safe and sound."

  "If it were Cain, he would have let her tell us that she was okay before we worried!" She shook her head, exasperated, and her beautiful hair whirled behind her back like a living

  embodiment of her frustration. "Look, we've met Cain, okay? He may be our enemy because he's a dragon, but he's also a really decent guy! He wanted to defect to our side, Nick!

  He wanted to defect because he doesn't want to fight, and he doesn't want Beth as an enemy! He's never been anything but nice to us
! Cain wouldn't do this!"

  Nick didn't look convinced. Kotori clutched his hand with one of hers, holding them under her chin tightly and staring up with all the pleading her pride could let her muster. "Nick,

  please, you have to believe me! I'm not jumping to illogical conclusions! This wasn't a rescue attempt, it was a kidnapping!"

  "Have you seen Gawaine?" Emile asked, coming down from the second level of the log house. Cain, sprawled along the couch with a pile of books scattered by him, glanced over

  the edge of the books to glance at Emile.

  Stunningly beautiful, as most Night Worlders were, Cain thought that Emile was possibly one of the prettiest. He admired the way her curly golden hair tumbles around her neck or

  the way her make up allowed a human man to easily breeze over her face and mistake her painted features for a sign that she was in idiot, writing off the ruthlessness and brains

  behind her blue eyes as their imagination.

  At the moment, her beautiful mouth was lined with worrylines, and her eyebrows were knotted in an expression of concern. Cain made a sound of inquiry, not letting the book slide

  from his grip an inch further. She shrugged, standing on the last step of the stairs and crossing her arms. "I haven't heard him come home from school yet. Normally he's here by

  now."

  "He's a young man," the dragon said, putting the book back in the middle of his field of vision. "He can take care of himself."

  "Only because someone finally bothered to teach him how," she sighed. Cain heard her move into the kitchen and then return a moment later with menthol cigarettes in her hand

  and a wineglass in the other. She was going to go outside in the backyard and drink and smoke where the smell of neither would offend the shifter noses within the house—or so he

  thought. Instead she sat down in a chair opposite him, putting down the glass and the smokes and lifting her legs to her chest. Cain wondered at the stance, having seen Beth take

  it before as well. "Gawain is a remarkable boy."

  "At fifteen, if he is able to conduct spells requiring as much power and concentration as the one he did to wake us up, I can sincerely believe that. The boy has potential."