by Katie French
With the last of my strength, I dragged Sam’s lifeless body onto the shoreline.
Dad watched me, his horror clear. “Oh, God, Lila. How did you know?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling hysterical. “I don’t know.”
Chapter Ten
Sam was dead. I’d talked to him just hours ago, reminding him that Hailey was drunk and couldn’t consent to anything. And now, he was gone.
I kept closing my eyes and shaking my head, denying the horrible tragedy. It was impossible. Sam was fine and feeling ashamed he’d even thought of taking advantage of Hailey, extremely glad he hadn’t done anything stupid. Next time I went to school, I would see him walking down the hall, swaggering like he always did. Then, in a few years when we had our first high school reunion, I would barely recognize him because he would be all mature and responsible: a good guy who’d done some stupid things in high school, but a good guy nonetheless.
Then I came back to reality, reminding myself that Sam was gone, truly gone, and none of this would ever happen.
His pale face was imprinted in my memory, along with the exact shade of his blue jacket. His green eyes had been so wide and full of terror. I hadn’t been able to help him. I’d been too late.
They’ll come for you, Lila. They know you know.
His words played inside my head in a never-ending carousel.
How had Sam gotten to the beach? Had he been left there on purpose by someone who knew I would find him?
Right before I’d asked Dad to stop the car, the ring had burned hot, and then I had seen that thing in the sky. In a panicked moment, my memories had failed me, but the ring’s behavior was something I had experienced before. I knew the warning and what it meant. I’d felt it many times before when I used to wear the ring everywhere, after Mom died and before Dad made me promise I’d give it up. The heat had always meant a dragon was nearby, had always made my heart beat with anticipation, had driven my gaze skyward or toward the lake.
Nothing had changed. The ring still worked the same way, and I couldn’t deny the fact that what flew over Dad’s Jeep had been a dragon. I knew it in my bones. If that meant I was crazy, then I was the mayor of Looneyville. It, at least, made more sense than the disappearances and death of one of my friends.
Pushing my denial aside and embracing my insanity, I pictured the dragon flying overhead, how it had swooped over the trees and turned toward the beach right in the direction where we’d found Sam. With that in mind, it wasn’t hard for me to figure out what had happened.
The dragon had dumped his body there so that I would find it, and so my friend could deliver the threat.
They’ll come for you, Lila. They know you know.
I sat on my bed, wearing black jeans, black boots, and a black top. It would be the first day back in school after the “awful tragedy”—the most creative name the town had been able to come up with—and I couldn’t find the courage to pick up my backpack and go.
I wanted to be brave for Mercedes and the others, but the few interactions I’d had with townsfolk since my classmates went missing weren’t helping. Even people who didn’t know me glowered at me with accusation in their eyes. All they could see was that I was the only one spared from those who’d stayed late at the bonfire. It made no difference that I’d called the cops right away, that Officer Yeager and his deputies had taken their sweet time jumping into action, or that I’d driven all over the county, stapling “missing person” posters on every possible surface.
All that mattered was that I was the freak who’d known where to find Sam’s body, the freak who must be hiding something.
If strangers blamed me, how would my classmates treat me? Climbing triple the number of steps to the top of the lighthouse to light the wick was preferable to finding out the answer to this question.
But I couldn’t stay at home. I had to go to school, had to confront the coward Tom Palmer and the Spanish, soccer-loving Houdini Santiago. I’d searched for them during our time off from school, but they’d managed to hide so far. Finding them at school was my only hope. They had answers, and I was going to pry them out even if I had to use pliers.
Whoever had sent that threat could take a flying leap off Peely Point Lighthouse. It had a nice, jagged bottom.
“Good morning, Li.” Dad pushed a travel mug of coffee into my hands after I shuffled into the kitchen.
The coffee would help, and the fact Dad kept me supplied, anticipating my caffeine depletion levels with uncanny accuracy, was on point.
“You’ll get through today,” Dad said.
It would be almost impossible without Mercedes, but I would.
“I miss Fernando,” I said, the empty cage in the far corner of the kitchen catching my attention.
“We still have Pickles,” Dad said, pointing at the lazy cat sprawled on the floor in a square of sunlight.
Yep, seagulls and cats were perfect topics of conversation. They kept my eyes dry.
School was what I’d expected. I wandered the halls alone, catching glimpses of Mercedes’s ghost to my right or left. Students shot eye daggers in my direction while they whispered behind my back. But in the end, I was able to ignore them, especially after a couple of classmates approached me to say how sorry they were about what happened.
I kept my eyes open for Tom and Santiago, but after a few periods, it was clear they weren’t at school. At lunch, I avoided the cafeteria and sat outside by a tree with a banana and a packet of peanut butter crackers. I was staring into space when the dragon ring on my finger began to warm.
Snapping back into the moment, I jumped to my feet, moved away from the tree, and scanned the sky. Fluffy clouds floated across my vision, but no dragons.
I turned the ring around my finger to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. The temperature of the metal wasn’t normal. Confused, I walked back to the tree and sat. It was then I noticed someone observing me from a picnic table across the grassy lawn.
He was staring straight at me, unblinking. It was the other exchange student Tom had introduced to me. Ki, wasn’t it?
The boy tilted his head as if to answer my question. I swallowed and broke eye contact, thinking of my encounter with Santiago, and his voice echoing inside my head.
Greetings, Dragon Warden, the voice had said.
My gaze snapped back up. Ki was still focused on me, his black hair gleaming under the sun, dark gaze intense as if he were trying to tell me something.
Where are my friends? My thought was angry and righteous.
I waited, chin tilted up in defiance. A moment later, Ki stood and gave me a friendly, almost-flirty smile. He shouldered his backpack, then bent to pick up something that lay at his feet: a basketball. Bouncing the ball, he strolled away from the school, even though classes weren’t over for another three hours.
After he disappeared, I shook my head, feeling like a complete idiot. The guy had been flirting with me while I tried to go all psychic on him. Heat traveled up my neck. Bella Swan on a bad hair day was smoother than me.
It wasn’t until I stopped feeling embarrassed that I finally stopped being stupid, too.
Ki had been bouncing a basketball.
I left school on Ki’s heels and drove toward the lakeside basketball courts. When I got there and parked behind a waist-high hedge, a good distance away from the right-most court, Ki was already shooting hoops. He was alone, pivoting around to evade imaginary players. Behind him, the lake sparkled with the afternoon sun, while seagulls rode air currents without beating their wings even once.
A sporty motorcycle was parked on a grassy patch next to the cement court. I hadn’t seen Ki leave school, but it was obvious this was how he’d gotten here.
After a few moments of wondering if I’d skipped school for no good reason, Tom Palmer’s Hummer appeared around the corner. He parked, got out of the huge SUV, and shared a fist-bump with Ki.
“You creep!” I murmured. “What are you doing playing basketball after wh
at you did?”
Not that I could prove he’d done anything besides possibly saving my life. Still, I was willing to lay all the blame on him.
Tom wore loose-fitting basketball shorts and a tank top with the number twenty-three on the back. He was acting far too relaxed, in my opinion. And he had no business looking as if he’d just sprung out of Sports Illustrated—not with Sam dead.
Tom and Ki faced away from me. I followed their gazes and spotted Santiago jogging in their direction. His brown curls were plastered to his forehead with sweat, making him look as if he’d taken a dunk in the lake. When he reached the other two, he halted, then began jogging in place.
I watched them for a few minutes while they stood there talking. At first, it appeared to be a normal chat, but soon, Ki began to move his hands in jerky, angry gestures. His entire posture went stiff as Tom tried to explain something. For his part, Santiago seemed to have the role of a peacemaker, getting in between the other two as push came to shove, literally.
What were they fighting about?
Hoping to catch a bit of their argument, I got out of the car as silently as I could. Hunching over, I ninja-crept my way along the hedge. When the stupid bush ran out, I stopped and peeked… only to find Santiago standing right on the other side of my hiding place.
I jumped back and almost fell on my butt. Thank God my heart lodged itself into my throat and stopped me from screaming.
But it didn’t matter. He’d seen me.
“Hola,” Santiago said with a dimple punctuating his crooked smile.
“What the hell is she doing here?” I heard Tom ask before he appeared behind Santiago.
I straightened, trying to look as cool and collected as possible. “Looking for you,” I said in a pissed-off tone that made me proud.
Stepping away from the hedge, I squared my shoulders and faced them.
Tom’s blue eyes narrowed as he took a step back.
“Running off to take your SATs again?” I asked.
He shook his head, eyes flicking toward his escape vehicle.
“Where are they, Tom? Where is Mercedes?” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” he said with a straight face, his eyes those of a caged animal.
“Maybe you can lie to the police, but not to me. You knew something was going to happen, and you let it.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” he said, an unwavering conviction in his voice.
“Really? No wonder you needed to repeat your SATs. Otherwise, you would know the meaning of the word accomplice.”
Tom’s eyes darkened, and his jaw twitched.
I made eye contact with Santiago, then Ki. “And what part do you play in all of this? Do they have SATs where you come from?”
“I know what accomplice means,” Ki joked, though the glance he threw in Tom’s direction wasn’t as lighthearted as his words.
“Me too,” Santiago piped in. “It’s when you achieve something.”
“That’s accomplish, you idiot,” Ki said.
“Do you think this is a joke?” I shouted.
All three appeared startled at my outburst.
“No,” Santiago said.
“Of course not,” Ki said at the same time.
Tom said nothing. His blue eyes lowered, and his upper lip trembled ever so slightly. I thought he would say something. Instead, he took a step back toward his Hummer.
Changing my tactics, I reached a shaking hand out. “Please, Tom. Sam is dead.”
His fists clenched, and he turned his head toward the lake. He was trying to hide his reaction from me. Knowing I’d gotten to him, I pressed my advantage.
“Do you remember how he used to hang upside down from the monkey bars until his face turned tomato red?” I asked. “He would do a countdown, saying his head was about to explode from all the blood. Then we all ran away screaming to take cover. Everyone was in on the joke, and we loved it.” A sob choked my last words. There were those goddamn tears. I wiped at them angrily.
A muscle jumped in Tom’s jaw, but it seemed that was all my words had managed to move. His heart was still an unyielding rock.
“That sounds disturbing,” Santiago whispered.
I ignore him and tried one last time, “Mercedes, Clare, Frank. Are they dead?”
Tom looked at me then, and his eyes seemed to hold an answer. A heavy load dropped off my shoulders when I read the dissent in his clear blue eyes. They were still alive!
I lost it then. With rabid intensity, I seized Tom by the shirt and demanded, “Where are they? You have to tell me!”
Tom pried my hand open, releasing his crumpled shirt from my grip. He held on to my wrist, his long fingers tight around it. Our eyes locked in a staring contest. Fury boiled in my gut, and I knew Tom could see it in my eyes.
The moment seemed to last a lifetime as a silent exchange passed between us. The yellow around his pupils seem to suddenly burst into tiny suns, but I didn’t even flinch. Some door inside me had sprung open the moment I put Mom’s ring back on. I had already accepted what should’ve been impossible.
By the time we broke apart, Tom’s eyes weren’t human anymore. Their pupils had flattened into a thin vertical line, and their blue color shone iridescent like an ancient iceberg bathed in moonlight.
He let go of my wrist then, pushing me away and jumping into his Hummer.
Santiago and Ki exchanged meaningful glances that should have made me pause, but there was too much whirling inside my mind already. The main question was: how did I get Tom to confess what he knew?
Chapter Eleven
If there was another exercise more futile than stopping at the police station for answers, it sure was beyond me.
And yet, here I was, in the parking lot of the dumpy building, furious over their lack of progress.
The minute Officer Yeager had seen me coming, he’d locked himself in his office. His secretary hadn’t answered any of my questions, pretending to be on a very important phone call as soon as I walked in. Looking around, it seemed I was not the only one who wanted answers. Several other people were waiting in folding chairs in the tiny waiting room. They glared at me with suspicion on their faces. I thought I heard one woman whisper to her husband, “That’s her.”
Cringing, I turned tail and hurried back to my car. I couldn’t take their accusatory stares, not after the day I’d had.
Outside the police station was no better. Our normally quiet downtown was receiving some newfound popularity. The station parking lot and street parking were filled with cars. Clumps of people gathered on corners just waiting for something to happen. TV crews from all three of the major local networks were parked up front. I spied a sharp-looking, thirty-something man in a shirt and tie, getting ready to go on camera. To think my little town would be on local, maybe national news. It all felt like a nightmare.
An urge deep inside me told to run into their live news feed, spouting conspiracies and dragons, but it wouldn’t do anything but make me a YouTube star and little else. No one would take me seriously if I told them what I believed.
And what did I believe? That dragons—honest-to-God dragons—abducted my friends. That they killed one of them. That Tom was either a shape-shifter or in cahoots with them. And if so, what did that make Santiago and Ki?
What did that make me?
It makes you crazy in the Cocoa Puffs, my internal voice said.
This wasn’t the first time I’d spouted this whack-a-doo theory. I’d believed in dragons from birth until I was ten, the year Mom died. In fact, one ended in direct correlation with the other. When she died, I stopped believing. It had been my belief in dragons that killed her.
The memory of what happened swam up in my consciousness, a black, tarry thing. This time, however, I didn’t shove it back down like I always did. There had already been so much sorrow, so much heartache in my life this week, that a little more was just icing on the cake. I’d been ruminating on Mom’s death since Tom mentioned her in the woods.
Inside my car, my safe space, my fingers twisted her ring around and around.
The story went like this. From birth, I had believed in dragons. It didn’t hurt that I grew up surrounded by them, that my parents were obsessed with them. I had stuffed animal dragons in my crib, dragon posters on my walls, even a Chinese dragon marionette Dad would use to put on puppet shows for me.
From what my parents told me, they had moved to Summers Lake because of the dragon legends, not despite them like most other residents. Every year, we’d make a huge deal out of the commemoration festival, camping out on the beach as spotters. Dad would bring out his binoculars. Mom would drag out blankets, food, and old books filled with lore. She’d read me dragon stories until I fell asleep and they danced in my dreams.
My childhood was full of these dragon moments. I had a very strong memory of being on a blanket on the beach. The summer night was warm. Dad was behind us snoring and Mom was curled around me, our eyes cast up to the twilight stars.
“Dragons are sneaky creatures, Lila. You have to be quick and wise to spot them.” Her finger traced a line of stars above us in a zigzag pattern.
“Why do they hide?” I’d asked. “Why not come out and let everyone see them?”
Mom played with my hair as she answered, her voice vibrating behind me. “Dragons have many secrets. They don’t want humans prying into all their business, so they blend in. Humans don’t even know when they are right up next to a dragon sometimes.”
“But you know,” I said, reaching for her ring.
She took it off, slipping it onto my too-small finger. “I was given a special gift. And someday, I’ll give it to you. But it is not something to be taken lightly.” She pulled it off my finger and placed it on her own.
“When can I have it?” I’d asked, hungry for more.
She shook her head, combing her fingers through my hair in a way that made me very sleepy. “We’ll know when the time is right.”
We didn’t talk about the ring much after that, but I never forgot about it. I’d spy it on her finger, and that yearning would twist inside me again. It got so bad I’d sneak down to her room at night and watch her sleep, seeing the ring’s red eye stare at me, call to me.