I was the Serpent, but not a snake. My mother had misled us. She’d left the clue there, right in front of us the entire time. I felt like such a fool. I was the one who’d trained for this. My sister was our physical protector and I was supposed to be the warrior of … of knowledge. But I’d not seen it. I was too close. Or I didn’t want to see it.
But it was there, and Morgan had found it. Dracosicarie. Our mother had taken our very name from it. My feet were moving, though I’d no idea why. I’d kept secrets my whole life, and yet I was heading toward Logan, an incredible need to share this. To tell him.
I stepped through the door to find him perched on the sofa, elbows braced against his knees. His face went blank for one instant when he saw me frozen in the doorway, and I had the distinct feeling he was remembering me in his shirt again. But then he saw my expression and stood, immediately back to Logan, my protector.
I took a step toward him, unable for a moment to form the right words, and then he was standing before me, hand coming to my bare shoulder. “What is it, Brianna?”
My eyes fell to the notebook, over the words that held our future.
“Dracosicarie,” I said, running my fingers across the letters. “The words are not the same, Logan. It doesn’t mean what we thought.” My gaze came up to meet his. “Drake. She took our name from the old text. From this,” I pointed at Morgan’s handwriting, “Dracosicarie.”
I could see the recognition in his face as the acid words ran through my mind. Logan would know what they meant. Not the daughter of the Serpent. Sicarie. As in assassin. Murderer.
Dragon Slayer.
Logan’s mouth moved, as if he planned to say something, to comfort me, but there were no words. He was Aern’s best friend. He’d been trained his whole life to protect the Seven Lines, to protect the blood of the Dragon.
“Is it all a lie?” I whispered. “The prophecy. Logan, is it—”
“No.” His voice was thick. “No, Brianna. You just,” he struggled for words, and then decided, “it can’t be.” He stared into my eyes with a determination and trust I didn’t feel. “You are here to save us.”
My stomach dropped. Logan hadn’t seen my visions, hadn’t felt those images of Aern. The fire, pulsing through the city. The end of everyone.
I was here to save them, but from whom? Morgan was harmless now, a captive of the Division. The only other dragon was bound to my sister.
Logan’s hand wrapped around my other arm and he forced me to meet his gaze. “It’s just another clue, Brianna. One more hint from your mother. To save us.”
I tightened trembling fingers on the notebook. “Okay,” I answered. “One more clue.” I pressed my lips together, fighting hard to decide what this meant. Had she been leaving me clues? And if so, what else had Morgan discovered? The lock of hair, the notes, they couldn’t mean he was simply obsessed with her after she was gone. There had to be some reason he still believed. There had to be some reason he was meant to stay alive. “Do you know where he held her?” I asked.
Logan’s grip on my arms loosened. “Morgan?”
I nodded. “Council didn’t know he had her, right? So he must have been keeping her somewhere else.” Logan’s stare softened as he considered my question. “Somewhere he’d gone, probably alone. You and your men were watching him, right?”
The alarm in my expression was replaced by this new resolve, so Logan’s arms fell to his sides, one hand slipping into a jean pocket. “We did,” he answered. “Not officially, of course—”
I cut him off. “Then where? Where did he hide her?”
“Brianna, you don’t understand his schedule. A man like that, his life isn’t so easy to track.”
“Make a list,” I said. “It will be somewhere dark and cold. Two of the walls are reinforced metal. The doors are painted gray; some place industrial, I’m sure of it. Florescent lights, concrete floor, and she can hear him coming for a long while before he gets there, so it must be a big building. Open I think, aside from the room she’s in.”
Logan stared at me. “Brianna,” he tried to keep the concern from his features, “you can see her?”
I swallowed hard. I hadn’t meant to tell him that. My eyes trailed back to his. “Not now.”
Not since she’s dead.
There was a long silence before Logan wet his lips. “I’ll make some calls.”
Chapter Twelve
Abandoned
I’d settled onto the couch while Logan created a list of addresses. My bare feet were tucked underneath me as I paged through the other documents when he finally sat his cell phone on the narrow coffee table.
“There are seven locations we could check, but these are our best shot.” He pointed at three blocks of text on a note pad, his writing clean and sharp, not at all like Morgan’s. “Does anything stand out to you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’ve only been through Stanton. The Jamison plant, didn’t that burn last year in some kind of gas leak accident?”
“Explosion,” he said, his level tone making me wonder if there was more I didn’t know, something the news hadn’t reported. “But there were a few buildings left standing.”
“Okay.” I sat up. “Let me just grab my shoes.”
He raised a brow at me. “You don’t think this should wait until morning?”
I glanced at the window, but could see nothing except our own reflection against the dark of night. “Right. I guess daylight’s probably better.” I bit my lip, remembering Emily and Aern’s warnings about getting rest. I didn’t think I could sleep at all, but they were right. Plus, I didn’t exactly want to snoop around abandoned warehouses at night with Morgan’s men gunning for me.
“Bri,” Logan said from beside me, and I turned, lip still tucked beneath my tooth.
His gaze lingered on my face and I asked, “What?”
He smiled, more to himself than for me I thought, and said, “Can I help you look for something?”
My attention fell to the documents on the table. “I suppose,” I replied, surprised at the disappointment in my voice, “we’re looking for anything else my mother’s hidden.”
Logan squeezed my arm. “It was hidden from the others, Brianna. Not you.”
The gesture was so casual it sent a momentary shock through me. I swallowed hard. I knew his words were true—she’d meant to keep us safe, Emily and I—but it still stung. We’d been lied to for so long.
“It’s no different,” I said, not believing I was admitting it out loud, “than what I’ve done to Emily.”
Logan stared at me for a long moment. “For the right reasons,” he said before finally picking up a stack of papers to search for other clues. “It will all turn out, Brianna. You’ll see.”
I huffed out a laugh. They all had faith in me. I was their savior, their prophesied hero come to light. And I was digging through paperwork for a sign. Me, the Dragon Slayer.
I woke the next morning with my face plastered to the arm of Logan’s couch. He sat reading through Morgan’s journal, my feet lying haphazardly across his lap.
I jerked to sitting, pulling them under me as a hand went to my face, but Logan didn’t flinch. “What time is it?” I asked, rubbing a cheek and sorting my hair into place.
“Early,” he said, masking a crooked smile at my attempt at composure. “You have time for more sleep if you want.”
He’d been right; I slept like the dead. But at least I was sleeping. I shook my head as I peered at the pages he had open.
He indicated the book with a nod. “This is really disturbing.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered, remembering the things Emily took out of the box she’d been searching. My voice was hoarse from disuse and my muscles ached to be stretched.
Sensing my mood, Logan laid the journal on the table. “How about you get dressed and I make breakfast,” he glanced at his watch, “and we can be on the road before sunrise.”
“Yes,” I managed. “Perfect.”
After a much needed hair brushing, and a large helping of freshly scrambled eggs, we were loaded into the black sedan and headed for the industrial parks in old downtown. Logan must have made arrangements with his team, because there were occasional beeps and blips on his various devices as we drove.
The sun came up to mostly empty streets because it was a Saturday in late October, in an area where no one really lived anymore. Vacant houses became abandoned apartment buildings, windows busted, shattered glass lining weedy sidewalks. Graffiti marked more and more brick walls, and chain link fencing sagged against broken supports and piled up trash.
A weight settled in the pit of my stomach, silently protesting the idea of my mother here, alone and trapped, causing my hand to tighten on the door grip.
“I’ve been wondering about something,” Logan said, his voice startling me back to the pristine interior of the car, the quiet hum of the engine as he idled at a stop sign.
“What’s that?” I asked.
His eyes were ahead, scanning the area before driving through the intersection. “The bond,” he said, “between Aern and Emily. Is that something unique to them?” He turned right without signaling, barely glancing at me as he did so. “Or do all of your kind have the ability to create a union?”
My kind. The words bothered me more than they should, I knew, but I couldn’t say why.
He waited.
“No,” I said finally, shaking off that niggling feeling. “I don’t think … well, none of us should be able to.” I stopped, baffled by the idea that I had no clue about my kind. I’d only truly known my mother and Emily. It wasn’t like we’d had an honest history lesson on ourselves. Why was Logan asking? Because of me? Because of the prophecy? I clarified, “It’s just Emily as far as I know. But I can’t be sure.”
He nodded.
We were silent for several minutes before he asked a new question. “Are you all prophets, aside from Emily?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “My mother for certain, possibly hers. It might be something that’s passed directly, but Emily … well, we’re twins, so there’s no accounting for what could have happened.”
“What about a written history?” he asked. “Some way for you to find the others?”
I twisted the hem of my shirt between my fingers. “I don’t know if there are others, Logan.”
He did look at me then. “Because you were hidden?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think she meant to die so soon. I think she had every intention of telling us more.” The words hurt, because I believed them with all of my heart. And because if it was true, then there were no guarantees my power would save us.
Logan pulled the car to the curb in front of a massive metal-sided building.
“She had a choice, Brianna.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “you have to choose between two bad things.”
He stared at me, only able to guess at the horrors my visions had shown me, and said, “Sometimes, you have to make your own options.”
Despite the fact that we were outside the warehouse that had possibly housed my captive mother, that my visions were warning me of fire and death, that we were nearly alone in our quest and that I was possibly the world’s last remaining prophet, I found myself smiling at his resolve.
The warehouses were far from empty. They were littered with containers and boxes, and occasionally a dark furry mass skittered across the slicked concrete floors. What was noticeably absent was any sign of people, human or otherwise, among the cardboard and empty pallets dispersed throughout the buildings. No food wrappers or soda cans, no chairs posted near the entrances, not even a homeless person using the rooms for shelter. Nothing. Whatever Morgan was planning for these properties, he’d not gotten started before the Division had imprisoned him.
We drove from location to location, crossing each possibility off the list through most of the morning. It wasn’t until the fourth warehouse that things changed.
“Wait,” Logan said as we crossed in front of a wide roll-up door. He pulled one of the devices from his pocket and sent a message to his team.
“What is it?” I whispered beside him.
“There,” he said, pointing to the line of the roof over head, “see that conduit? That is new. Someone’s made upgrades to this building, and I’m guessing it’s security.”
“Like cameras?” I asked.
The device in his hand beeped and Logan read the screen. “Yes,” he tipped it toward me, “but apparently the feeds aren’t running outside the property.”
“You mean they were watching from the inside?”
A prickle crawled over my skin when he nodded. “Looks like everything is shut down now, though,” he said.
His assurance didn’t help, because if the men who’d watched it were gone, then we were likely on the right track. But I followed as he disabled the locks and led me through the entrance. Because I couldn’t not find the place that held my mother.
High shuttered windows let in narrow streams of light to streak across the empty, sealed-concrete floor. There was no scent of must or stale air, no sign of those dark, furry masses. A set of offices lined the wall close to the doors, and the other wall was boarded over what would have been the roll-up doors that allowed trucks to access whatever cargo it had held. Painted beams and columns filled the otherwise empty space, which only helped to emphasize the fact that it was too clean.
I started to reach for Logan’s hand, but stopped when I saw how it hovered over the holster he’d strapped to his leg. His eyes scanned the space before he tilted his head toward a set of doors on the far wall. “There. This property has seven buildings, but only four are climate controlled.”
“You don’t think he’d let her freeze?” I asked skeptically as we walked across the space.
He glanced over at me. “No. I don’t think he would deign to make himself uncomfortable.”
The doors led to a graveled pathway between three of the buildings, one exposed brick and one covered in gray metal siding that appeared to have been an add-on to the furthest building, which was painted block. Logan chose the gray metal, which looked to be the newest of the three, and pried the keypad cover off to gain access to the wiring that secured the door.
“I wonder why my mother didn’t teach me that,” I whispered.
He grinned, not taking his eyes off his work, and said, “Maybe she knew you’d find me.” We both fell silent as his words, meant purely as lighthearted banter, settled between us. Because it might have been true.
Logan cleared his throat. “Stay close.” His shoulders shifted as he twisted the lock free and pushed the door open.
The building was set up as a workshop, with giant drill presses, welders, and equipment I couldn’t imagine the purpose of. A thin band of corrugated fiberglass lined the walls just below the rafters, shedding ample light into the space. Chain hoists and pulleys hung from thick metal cross beams, their hooks old and rusted. The door closed behind us with a solid thunk, no echo.
“I don’t think this is the place,” I whispered.
Logan shook his head. “Not likely.” He pointed toward the back of the space. “There’s a door there, it’ll probably lead us to the other building.”
I followed him through, anxiously scanning for something that looked familiar. When we reached the back door, I realized a lock-picking skill would have been completely useless—it was welded shut.
“Looks like we found it,” I said.
“Maybe,” Logan answered, “but it’s definitely something he didn’t want us to see.”
Logan stepped back, surveying the wall and ceiling before following a cross beam with his eyes. He started walking, jerking his head for me to follow. Before I knew it, we were standing in front of a metal tower of sorts outside the far end of the gray-sided building.
I stared at the narrow metal strips crisscrossing the three main beams. “Is this supposed to be a ladder?”
Logan bit back a grin. “It
is today.”
“It doesn’t even touch the roof,” I pointed out.
He didn’t spare the gap between the structure and the rooftop another glance. “It’s close enough.” He put a hand on my lower back to urge me toward it. “Go ahead, you first.”
“Because you’re going to catch me if I fall?” I asked, resting a toe on the first rung.
He managed to keep a straight face when he said, “Because I want to be sure it’ll hold the weight.” But when I glanced up again, I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. “Come on, Brianna. We’re losing daylight.”
I shook my head at him as I reached for a higher grip. He followed as soon as I’d given him enough room, staying as close as possible without interfering with my speed. It was taller than I realized, and even though I wasn’t afraid of heights, I knew better than to look down. When I reached the roof line I stopped, and Logan climbed up behind me, reaching around to grip the rungs outside my hands.
“Okay,” he said, his voice low in my ear, all hint of humor gone, “you’re going to slide a leg over, and then one hand to grab the ridge cap. Once you’ve got a good grip, take your other leg over, and finally your hand. Keep your knees bent, understand? I don’t want you to let go until I’m across.”
I nodded and he stayed pressed up against me for a long moment, as if maybe he was reconsidering the idea. “I can do it,” I said. “Just make sure and get me down safe.”
He smiled, his face inches from mine. “I’ve got you, Brianna. I promise.”
He moved his left hand out to let me free and I reached a leg across as instructed. It wasn’t as far as it seemed apparently, because I was able to slide my grip across the tower rung and get my fingers over the ridge cap without letting go, but I still didn’t look down. I bent my knees, grabbed the edge of the cap with my other hand, and Logan was behind me again in a matter of seconds.
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