Everyone’s in funeral black. A few mutter curses and some admonish me with finger waggles—I’m not sure if it’s for my assumed actions or my getup. Probably both. But for the most part they just seem in a state of shock or grief.
I manage to keep my own tears at bay, even though Hector urges me to let loose. I can’t, though, because once I start, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop. I know I didn’t destroy these people’s families, but they think I did. I can feel their hatred.
Almost all the chairs are occupied when Trish enters. My heart falls through the floor. Any sign of our friendship is gone, replaced with stark contempt.
“Trish, I’m so—”
With a primal scream, she hurls herself forward, black hat flying backward at the cameramen swarming behind her. She smashes into me. As we tumble to the ground, she rams her fist into my bicep. Something sharp pricks my skin. A needle.
She shoves it farther into my arm, I squirm but can’t break free.
She drives her knee into my stomach. “Stop struggling, you dragon whore!”
Mr. D-man jerks Trish off me. A rivulet of blood trickles down my arm, but the needle’s disappeared into her fisted hand. Thrashing wildly, she gets in a couple of good kicks and curses before he drags her from the room.
Simon comes over and rights the chair. “Can’t say that wasn’t interesting. A bit overdramatic, but it should play well. I thought she was your friend.”
The dam collapses, the tears flood out.
“She was,” I manage to say. My best friend.
He wipes the blood from my arm with a handkerchief. “That’s a nasty scratch she gave you.” He calls for Kim.
As she applies foundation to my “scratch,” I wonder what Trish injected into me. Poison, disease? I consider telling someone, decide against it. Nobody would care. If anything, they’d approve.
Kim finishes, leaving my face a tear-streaked mess at Simon’s command, and the few remaining family members trudge in. All the chairs are taken, except for one—Trish’s—when a nurse rolls my father in via wheelchair, one of those specialized models for the severely disabled.
I have played this moment a thousand times over in the past hours, but it hasn’t prepared me in the least. I start to hyperventilate as the nurse turns him to face me. He’s even more broken than I imagined. Only his eyes seem to work, but the muscles around them are frozen, so I can’t even tell what he’s thinking.
Hector’s saying something in my ear, the nearby camera’s coming closer, but nothing seems real other than the person in the wheelchair who’s supposedly my father. He looks like him, but Dad can walk and talk. He can yell at me, tell me how mad he is, tell me that no matter how much I fucked things up, that he still loves me.
I struggle against the handcuffs. “Let me see him. Please!”
Simon nods to Mr. D-man. The lock clicks and I bolt for Dad, the cameras converging around us.
I have to squeeze my hands between his back and the chair to hug him. He’s limp and heavy. I press my face into his shoulder, my tears soaking into his hospital gown. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.”
He lets out a low gasp. I back away, afraid I’m hurting him.
“He wants to talk,” the nurse says. She extracts a small tablet from the back of the wheelchair and inserts it into a tubular column a few inches from my father’s face. A digital keyboard appears on the bottom half of the screen. Using rapid eye movements, Dad types a message onto the top half. It plays from the tablet speakers in a robotic voice identical to the one I hear in the ER when I’m interrogating dragons.
“You do not need to be sorry. How are you doing?”
I bite my lip until I taste blood. “Okay.”
“You look like you have lost weight. Have they been treating you well?”
I nod. I can’t let him know the truth. I’ve already caused him too much pain. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“You are a good girl.”
“So you don’t hate me for what I did?” Hector says in my ear, causing me to flinch. I forgot he was there. “Ask him that.”
I hesitate. The cameras come in close. The heat from their lights warms my face.
“Melissa, I won’t ask twice.”
Deep breath. “You don’t hate me for what I’ve done to you and Sam?”
“That’s not what I told you to say,” Hector says. “Don’t ad-lib.”
“I would not have come if I had known it would hurt you so much,” the robotic voice says.
“What about Mom? You’re not upset about Arlington?” Hector says.
I clench my fists. “You’re not upset about Mom?”
“Your mom was an angel in a world of demons. She only ever did what she thought was right. You are a lot like her.”
My smile vanishes when my CENSIR jolts me.
“That was your last warning, Melissa,” Hector says. “Ask him this. It doesn’t bother you that Mom killed all those people? Ask him. No changes.”
“I love you, Dad. If you talk to Sam, tell him I never meant to hurt anybody.”
Rising, I remove the earpiece. I’m about to throw it to the ground when searing pain blasts through my head. The world goes dark.
32
“Has the bleeding stopped?”
Hector’s voice pulls me from the void. Floaters flash behind my eyelids. I struggle to open them but can’t. My arms and legs are equally useless. A drumbeat of pain ignites in my skull and accelerates into a pounding throb. Somebody’s pressing a wet towel to my temple.
“You’re hurting me,” I try to say, but manage only a groan.
The pressure abates, the pain intensifies. A warm gush of blood spurts from somewhere above my CENSIR. I choke on bile.
“It’ll be a while before it clots. We need to take it off to stitch her up,” a woman says. The towel holder, I think. Seated beside the bed. A doctor? She reapplies pressure.
“Absolutely not.” Colonel Hanks’s voice sounds staticky.
“We can’t do the show with her bleeding all over the place,” Hector says.
“Then you won’t do the show,” the colonel says.
“We have a contract.”
“It’s not coming off. She might communicate—”
“She’s in no condition for that,” the doctor interrupts. “Even if she were, we’ll hit her up with meds. She’ll be completely knocked out.”
“She won’t be able to communicate?” the colonel asks. “You guarantee that? Your job’s on the line, Captain.”
“She’ll have the functionality of a corpse.” Pause. “She might be able to receive messages.”
“But she won’t remember anything, anyway, would she?” Hector says.
“We’ll use an amnestic, but that’s for standard cognition. I’m not familiar with this condition.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Hector says. “A few dragons sing her lullabies?”
After a long silence, Colonel Hanks says, “Make it quick.”
. . . The armies gather. We will come . . .
The words fade as I regain consciousness. Somebody’s pressing on my head again, but I barely feel it.
“Give her another dose,” Hector says, from what sounds a mile away.
A cool sensation streams up my arm. My eyes blink open and, after a couple of seconds, focus on Cosmo Kim. She sits at the edge of the hospital bed, dabbing at my temples with a makeup sponge. “You’re a piece of work.”
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asks from the other side.
“Confused,” I mumble. The armies gather. We will come. A dream?
While Kim fixes my face and hair, the doctor removes my IV, has me follow a penlight, stethoscopes me, tests my reflexes. Once Hector’s sure I won’t be a drooling Frankenstein, he orders everybody out.
“We’re going to try this again. Colonel Hanks informs us that you two have a deal. If you’re not on your best behavior for the rest of your visit with us, Melissa, that deal is forfeit.”
>
The deal. Keep Baby alive until I return to Georgetown, let me say good-bye to her, execute her when I’m not around. Not the greatest bargain, but it was the best I could get.
Hector tosses me my streetwalker outfit, then leaves to let me change. There’s a small window in the room. It takes me a good minute to get out of bed, another to cross the ten feet to the window.
The armies gather. We will come. A message?
Outside, it’s night. Real night. With darkness and moon and stars. I scan the sky, but the only visible specks of light remain white and miniscule. I lift my gaze from the horizon to the heavens.
Long time, no see, Mom. There’s this baby dragon I know. She’s the reason for this horrendous outfit, so keep that in mind if you’ve got TV up there. I don’t know if she’ll be around here much longer. I hope you two get to meet. I think you’ll hit it off.
“How much longer, Melissa?” Hector calls.
Gotta go. Love you.
As I turn from the window, I catch my reflection in the glass. Barely visible stitches, covered in bronzer like me, peek out from beneath the CENSIR and run from the middle of my forehead halfway to my left ear. Otherwise, I appear undamaged. If only memories could be fixed so readily. A few sutures here, some makeup there, and all the ugly goes away.
I’ve just slithered into my whorefit when Hector and Simon barge in, followed closely by their production crew. They place a green screen against the wall and set up the interview chair in front of it. Hector positions me at an angle that favors my stitch-free side, and we’re ready to continue the charade.
Simon goes into narrator question mode. Hector feeds me the answers. Without Dad here and the family members staring at me, it’s easier to repeat the lies, to accept blame for actions I never committed, to condemn the insurgency and the dragons, to beg for forgiveness.
Some of my responses are directed at the families (“I’m sorry about your wife, Lieutenant. If I’d known how dangerous the insurgents were, I never would have helped them.”), others to the viewing audience (“I don’t blame my mother for how I turned out. She was always troubled, and I guess that made her into a monster. But to me, she was always just Mom.”). Some questions I answer over and over because I don’t get the tone right or I start crying too early or too late.
A long time later—voice hoarse, eyes aflame, head throbbing—it’s over.
Next stop, the Fort Riley draggatoir, where I get to watch the fab four kill Old Man Blue. She’s fastened to a slab surrounded by production lights, cameras, green screens, and All-Blacks. Frank, Kevin, Mac, and L.T. lounge in makeup chairs.
After introducing me to the four dragon hunters, Hector seats me beside Frank so a beautician can fix my face.
Frank notices my tear-streaked makeup, frowns at Hector. “You should feel ashamed, maricón.” He sounds different from TV. Nicer. Which is strange, because I always imagined him to be a jerk.
“You worry about your job, pretty boy, I’ll worry about mine.” The director turns to me. “There’s been a slight change. When I give you the signal, I want you to run up to Frank, who’ll have the sword positioned over the dragon’s head, and take over.”
“You want me to kill her?”
“I want you to redeem yourself.” He waves at the dragon. “This beast murdered dozens of people in your community. What better way to prove your remorse?”
“She was just trying to protect the children.”
“I don’t care, it’s what you’re going to do. Now get it together. I don’t want you crying up there.”
I stand off to the side while the fab four gather around the dragon and congratulate each other on a hunt well done. Hector orders an adrenaline injection for Old Man Blue to liven her up. Her eyes open, her glow brightens. Take away the scars, gouges, and spatters of fake blood that cover her body, and she looks almost like she did that night atop Dragon Hill.
The fab four repeat their congratulatory act. Ceremonial sword in hand, Frank positions himself beside the dragon. “We’ve got a special guest for you, old man,” he says in his gruff TV voice.
“Melissa, move toward Frank,” Hector orders. “Back it up. Be more confident. Shoulders back, hold your head high.”
I obey.
“Pick up the pace. Close your mouth. Snarl a bit. Tell him that you want to kill the dragon, then take the sword.”
“I want to do it,” I say.
“No, no, no!” Hector bellows. “Add more oomph. Like you actually mean it. Start over.”
A dozen or so start-overs later, I manage an overwrought rendition he finds acceptable.
“Now kill the damn thing,” he says.
I grab the sword from Frank, its tip balanced on the middle of Old Man Blue’s head. Sweat slickens my shaking hands.
No.
Not like this.
I roar—
My CENSIR shocks me.
“What the hell was that?” Hector says.
“I was improvising . . . um . . . releasing my wild side.”
“Interesting.” He purses his lips. “Okay. Try it again. More natural. Less screechy.”
Asshole.
I give it everything I’ve got. If anything, Old Man Blue dims.
“Let’s kill it for real this time, people,” Hector says after another adrenaline injection.
I take a deep breath. And another.
“Push in a little bit. It’ll help with the nerves,” Frank whispers.
Bye, old man.
“Good-bye, Melissa,” I hear her say. A memory. Back when I thought there was nothing worse than dragons.
Now there is only silence.
Then Hector: “Hurry it up!”
I close my eyes, tighten my grip, press down, feel the blade slide in through her scales. Far more easily than I expected. I stop.
“Do it, Melissa. Straight down!”
“The dragon’s almost dead,” Frank whispers. “It won’t hurt him.”
“Her,” I mumble. “It won’t hurt her.” My arms lose their strength. The sword wobbles, my vision blurs. “I can’t.”
“Frank, help her out,” Hector says.
Frank draws his pistol and shoots Old Man Blue in the side of the head. Her glow disappears, the hangar darkens.
Hector climbs onto the slab, his Botoxed face gone red. “What were you thinking? I meant for you to help her push the sword through, not shoot the damn thing.” He wheels on me. “And you—”
Frank steps between us. “Leave her alone. You can add the glow back in post-production.”
“Fine. Makeup! Get it under control, Melissa.”
“No makeup,” Frank says. “You let her cry. CGI it out if you want, but you let her cry.”
With Frank’s help, I drive the sword deep into Old Man Blue’s head. While Frank gives his sign-off, I sit beside the dead dragon, thinking about her last words to me.
In the end, she died to protect those children. If she were human, she’d be given a ceremony and medals. But she’s just a slain monster who will be remembered for the lives she took, not the lives she sacrificed herself to save.
And all for nothing. As far as I know, Baby’s the only one left, and she’s on borrowed time.
The armies gather. We will come.
But they’re not coming. Not now. Jets would be scrambling, sirens would be blaring.
In an hour, I’ll be on a stealth transport back to Antarctica. A few hours after that, Baby will be dead. An ax to the head, maybe a chain saw. Wings ripped off? I wonder if they’ll have a talker roar to her before—
No! The dragons will come to Georgetown, they will find us. So what if those words were nothing but figments of desire or anesthesia? So what if we’re a needle in Major Alderson’s frozen haystack? So what if the only dragons Lorena’s seen there in almost three years of endless days and endless nights are those brought in strapped and collared?
Doesn’t matter. Rescue will come. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will. It must. I
look to Old Man Blue. She did her best. She and Vestia and Keith and James . . .
And Mom.
Now it’s my turn.
Colonel Hanks will only keep Baby alive as long as I have bargaining power. And my sole currency is popularity. I recall the messages on that fan website he showed me. Melissa’s supporters love her because she’s crazy.
I can’t disappoint them.
I wrench the sword from the dragon’s head, slick with blood, and clamber atop her.
“Get out of my shot,” Hector shouts, reaching for the tablet that controls my CENSIR.
As soldiers run toward me, I raise the sword. “There are many rules critical for a successful dragon hunt, but always remember this: dragons bleed just like we do,” I shout, then tilt my head up and open my mouth to catch the acrid blood dripping from the hilt. “Dragons feel pain, just like we do, and dragons die, just like we do!”
I plunge the sword into Old Man Blue again and again until Frank pulls me off.
A beaming Hector scuttles over. “That was absolutely brilliant.”
“I want to be your official dragon slayer,” I say, wiping blood from my face.
“We’ll have to see how the ratings track and get permission from the colonel. Why the change of heart?”
“For the children, of course.”
It’s midday when the plane lands in Georgetown. After A-Bs unload several supply crates, Lester uncuffs me and herds me into the Humvee. On our way toward the base, I spot Baby in one of the dragon cages. Unlike the other captives, she thrives in the frigid climate. Seeing her alive and semihealthy puts a smile on my face.
“Enjoy your vacation, Twenty-Five?” the sergeant says.
“Oh yeah, I had a blast. How things been down here? Still killing everything you can?”
“Hoo-rah.”
We visit Colonel Hanks. I give him a rundown of my performance. “Hector’s thinking about making me a regular on the show.”
The colonel frowns. “We’ll see. I don’t want this interfering with your duties.”
“I mentioned that to him. Said you’d probably want a larger cut, too. He didn’t like the idea, but I think he’s open to it. Depending on the ratings, of course.”
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