by Tully Belle
“Ash is a smart person. He would have already figured out who you were and why you were here. That he still continued to pursue a friendship with you makes me believe that he thought you had changed and that you were no longer willing to go through with whatever mission you had been charged with.”
Caran slowly nodded. It made sense, the way he spoke to her about changing and her future. He had figured it out. She should have told him the truth earlier.
“I’ll save him. I’ll do everything I can to make sure that Ash lives.”
“What will you need?”
Caran gave Lyson a list of all the medical supplies she would need to have to keep him alive. She would have everything ready for the moment he turned back into a human. He took inventory in his head and when she was done, nodded.
“Another thing,” he said.
“Yes?”
“While Mac will agree to you assisting in saving Ash, I can’t control what he does next.”
“I understand and I don’t care. The only thing I want is for Ash to be okay. We’ll figure out the rest and what happens to me afterward.”
“Good.” He turned to walk away, leaving the door open.
“I can leave?” she asked.
“You need to clean up and get changed. As soon as you’re ready we’ll take you to the farm.”
Caran hurried out of the cell and followed behind Lyson. She knew that she would still be watched carefully, but there was no way she was going to ruin any chance of helping Ash.
He needed her and she would make sure she gave everything to him. Even if it meant that she would never see him after this.
30
Dried grass littered the floor of the old barn. It wasn’t the same one he’d spent time with Caran at when they came here a few days ago, this one was larger and further away from the main house. The wood walls had faded to a silvery grey and shrunk under the barrage of the weather, letting light and air come through the shrunken planks.
It was an hour ago that they found him. Ash remained inside the stable, nowhere else for him to go.
Mac ordered that no one enter. He hadn’t come in himself yet either, except to confirm that Ash was here and alive.
Caran’s mother would have been surprised when the members of Dragonspark came calling this morning. Ash had made sure that he kept as quiet as a fifteen foot dragon could be when he came here. It was still early, she would have been asleep, and he didn’t linger, making sure to beeline straight to the largest building.
He hadn’t given it as much thought as he should have. On examining the situation, it wasn’t the best place for someone who might die, but in the short time he had to think, it was the only one that made sense. It was away from everyone yet close enough to the city to get him to the hospital. Going back to the Dragonspark facility would have been too risky. For him, for Caran, for everyone. It was possible that Tessa planned on following him, and he couldn’t let her know where Dragonspark was. It was more likely she and her assistant had already fled though.
He needed to concentrate on himself now. While he remained in dragon state, he would be okay, but as soon as he transitioned, he knew he didn’t have much time. Someone needed to get the bullet out. He recalled the sudden loss of air that filled him once he’d been shot. He could feel it, lodged into a muscle, ripping the walls of his lung wide open.
Would he die? He had to prepare for the worst. If he did, then everything he cared about would be destroyed with him. Mac would declare war on Princess and use all their fire and dragon power to bring Tessa down. So far they’d ignored them, thinking they held idle threats with no real danger. And of course, Mac didn’t want to do anything that would draw attention to them. That had changed now. And Caran? She would be taken far away. He couldn’t imagine that Mac would order her hurt, but didn’t know how far it might go.
The only way he could prevent everything from blowing up was to stay alive.
He leaned his head against a hay bale and snorted.
The doors at the end of the stable opened and Mac’s voice boomed out. He told someone outside to keep the doors closed and strode in.
Ash lifted his head and growled.
“I knew she would be your downfall. I told you.” He glared at him, his shoulders pinned back. It was almost as if he was challenging him to fight.
Ash turned away, resting his head back down, closing his eyes.
“You’ve given up. Is that what you want? You want to die?” He punched his fist into his palm. “Is that why you came here?” He swept his arm around the room. “Here, of all places. One spark and the whole place will burn to the ground with you inside.” He picked up a straw, breaking it in half. “It’s a tinder box. You want to go down in flames, is that it?”
No, he never wanted to die. He was trying to save everyone. He swished his tail, knocking over a pile of cut logs. They tumbled to the ground and rolled toward Mac. He kicked the nearest one away and it lifted into the air, hitting a far wall.
“How could you do this to us?”
He was angry, but it was misplaced. Ash knew it as much as Mac did.
“We’re getting a doctor. I don’t care how long he has to wait here, but I’m not letting you go, Ash. Not this time. Not ever.”
His head fell. Ash wanted to tell him that he hadn’t given up. Just because he came here instead of Dragonspark was not an admission of defeat. How come Mac couldn’t see that?
“Lyson talked to Caran.”
Ash lifted his head. He moved closer until he was inches away from Mac, his breath blowing his hair until it stood up.
“She has to go, Ash. She was one of them. I warned you. She’s Princess.”
No. Ash growled low and deep. She was never Princess. She may have been there for a year, may have believed the bullshit that Tessa spun, but she was never one of them. It was clear from the moment he met her. There was no hatred for him or anyone else. She had been fed a lie.
It was after the farm that he knew the truth of her lost year. The covering had started to bubble and at first he’d thought it was an insect bite when his finger touched it so didn’t think anything of it. But it kept pricking at him until he realized she had hidden the mark on the back of her shoulder.
She had every chance to run, but she didn’t. That made her different. The past didn’t matter to her anymore. Someone who was true to Princess would have still tried to take them down. She didn’t. She wasn’t Princess no matter what that mark said.
He couldn’t tell Mac that. That was Caran’s story to tell.
Mac fell to his knees, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t lose you.”
Ash dreamed of a white light surrounding his body and lifting it skyward. He woke when the wooden doors of the barn creaked open. He didn’t bother turning to look who entered this time. It was either Mac come to lecture him again or someone else checking to see if he was still breathing.
He puffed loudly so they wouldn’t have to come close, keeping his focus on a mouse that was nibbling at a rotting carrot on the ground. It’s ears pricked at the sound of footsteps approaching, squeaked then ran between a crack in the wall.
“You need to move back.”
It was Lyson’s voice and Ash startled, not expecting him to come. He turned his head, heavily and slow and strained his neck closer.
“Pete will haul in everything we need for the surgery. We’ve procured Doctor Francis from Greenslopes, who is now on our call, although he doesn’t understand why we are waiting. Seven thousand dollars helped dampen that curiosity.”
Ash narrowed his eyes and surveyed the space. So they were going to set up a theatre in the stable, were they? He dropped his head again. It wouldn’t work here. The whole point for choosing Mrs. Rivers' farm over Dragonspark was so he’d be close enough to get to the hospital, and so they’d let Caran out of her cell. They needed her and an ambulance. Not an old barn. They should know that.
He was tempted to roar in frustration, demanding t
hat they follow his plan, but resisted.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Lyson.
Ash huffed. He doubted it.
“I’ve convinced Mac that Caran will assist. She doesn’t have the full capabilities that’s required for the whole surgery, but we need her to start.” His lips twitched downward, the strain clearly showing on his face. “You better be right about her.”
I am, thought Ash. I know I am.
31
“I’m sorry about this, but Mac insisted.” Juliana clamped the shackle around Caran’s ankle. The thick metal grazed against her anklebone uncomfortably, causing her to wince when it was locked shut. Once Juliana was done it become easier to move. They were tight, but not enough to cut into her flesh. “Try them out,” said Juliana. “I need to see if they should be adjusted.”
She glared. This wasn’t right, but she understood why Mac felt the need to do it. He was hurting and this was his way of trying to regain control over a situation that he couldn’t. She would play along, for now. But she would not forget it.
Caran stood up, the chain between each foot rattling on the floor as she tested how far she could walk. Shuffling would be a better description of what she was capable of. Mac didn’t trust her yet, thinking that she might bolt at the first chance she got. She didn’t blame him, not after what had happened, but he must understand that she had no intention of running.
Juliana sat on the bed, observing her movements before nodding in approval. “There is just one more thing left,” she said. She walked toward Caran and around to her back. Pulling down the neck of her top she scraped her fingernails across her skin until she found the fake skin, ripping it away. It pulled her real flesh with it and Caran could feel the burn as the pricks of blood pooled at the surface. “There is no point hiding anymore,” she said. Her tone wasn’t judgment, more matter of fact. She returned to her front, her hands on her hips.
“After this is done, I want to arrange it to be removed,” said Caran. “Can you organize it for me?”
Juliana cocked her head the side, clearly surprised that she would request this. A smile tugged on the corner of her lips. “I’ll add what you need to the supplies.”
“Good.” Caran turned and walked, as best she could, toward the door. “We should go. We don’t know how much time we have to wait and I need to prep.”
Mac drove and Juliana sat in the passenger seat. They’d made Caran sit in the back, handcuffing her to the belt, which was more for show than purpose. They both knew that if she was serious about escaping that it would take more than the webbing from her seatbelt to stop her. Still, Mac felt it important to send a message to the rest of the people, that he would not tolerate betrayal.
Mac and Juliana did not talk, so Caran too remained silent on the ride down the mountainside. Any other time she would look out of the window, focusing on the long fall to the ground below, but this time she had work to do. She went over and over the procedure in her head, accounting for any nuance or change and what that would mean.
But her mind was faltering. She still hadn’t had any sleep and her reaction times were slowing and that worried her. One wrong move and it could mean the end for Ash.
“How long will it be before he changes back?” she finally asked. “Lyson stayed a dragon for a full day longer than he was supposed to.”
“We don’t know.” Mac’s tone was clipped and it was clear he was uninterested in sharing too much detail. “You’ll just have to wait until he does and be ready.”
“Have any of you ever studied it? It’d be good to know a more precise method than just waiting to see. It could help in the future.”
“No.” Mac pulled on the steering wheel and the car lurched the left. Caran slipped in the seat and had to grip the seat underneath her so she wouldn’t slide too far. “Concentrate on your task right now. That’s the only thing you have to do.”
They were at the bottom of the mountain now, heading toward her mother’s farm. It wouldn’t be long until she saw Ash again.
“I will keep him alive,” said Caran. She waited for a response but when she didn’t get one continued talking. “I know you’ve had trust issues in the past—“
The car slid to a halt, the tires screeching on the black top underneath them. Mac turned, his face seething. “You know nothing about me.”
“And you know nothing about me.” She kept her voice controlled and measured. “You assume that because I came here under Princess orders that I believe everything they do. I don’t.”
“You got Ash shot. He may die.” His voice was pitching higher, bordering on the hysterical.
“He won’t. I’ve sacrificed too many things in my life for other people and I won’t do it again. I’m going to save him.”
“So you keep saying.”
“I am, because I have to.”
Mac narrowed his eyes and glared at her. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you care about him and that’s why you’re doing this. Play the love angle.” He scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“I’m not playing at anything,” said Caran. “And it kills you because you know it’s true. You’re just too caught up in the past to consider that one mistake doesn’t define you. I am falling for Ash, and I think he feels the same about me. If you can’t handle that then it’s your issue to work though. I will save him, because I have to.”
He sneered and turned back to the front. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning white from the exertion. A low growl emanated from him, and for a moment, Caran thought he was going to change into a dragon right here, in the car.
Juliana put her hand on his shoulder, breaking his concentration. He turned to her, took a deep breath. “Just save him,” he said through gritted teeth as he jammed his foot back on the accelerator, the car lurching forward, pushing her back into the seat.
Caran’s mother rocked in the wicker chair on the front porch of the farm house, a cigarette dangling from her top lip, as the car Caran was in drove past the house toward the back of the property. Caran stared at her mother, wondering how much she knew of what was going on. More than she was letting on, likely. Anne Rivers wasn’t stupid. Still, she hoped that they hadn’t made her out to be a betrayer. The relationship with her mother could never be salvaged if she though that about her only daughter.
Caran’s head whipped around to the front window as they neared the old barn. Sentries were positioned at all four corners of the building with two more at the front doors. Caran’s heart thumped loudly as the car crawled to a stop. She didn’t know what to expect.
Lyson came forward when he saw them. He clasped Mac’s shoulder when he got out. There was a worried but hopeful look between them. They glanced over at her, and although Caran couldn’t make out what they were saying, it was clearly about her.
Juliana was still in the car, waiting for orders on what she should do next. Caran was tempted to talk to her, merely so she could hear a friendly word that wasn’t laced with distrust and hatred.
But she wasn’t here to be liked. She was here to save Ash’s life.
Lyson walked back to the building as Mac came around and opened the back door. He pulled the key out of his pocket, unlocking her from the belt and helping her out.
“Come. Let us know if everything you need is inside.” He turned, expecting her to follow him, so she did, as best she could. The grass flattened under her shuffling feet, small insects leaping out of the way so they wouldn’t get crushed.
They reached the barn doors and Lyson opened them, letting in the light and air.
She’d been inside this barn many times when she was younger. Lyson walked to her left, over to a makeshift theatre that had been set up with a bed, lights, a small x-ray machine and other medical equipment. They must have bought in an electrical generator because the machines were alive, ready to display the stats for whoever was hooked up to them.
The dragon that was Ash turned to face her. Its large eyes gleamed like emeralds
. The last time she’d been face to face with a dragon, it had roared at her, burned her leg. She hadn’t known then that it was Lyson, yet knowing this creature was Ash was still so strange. Instinctively she froze, but then steeled herself. This was Ash. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t afraid of him.
She shuffled forward so she could be closer. She wanted to touch him, let him know that she was still here for him.
A guttural groan emanated from the dragon’s nostrils, smoke following. Ash swished his head to and fro almost like he was saying no, don’t come closer, stay away from me. It was a warning that she didn’t want to hear.
She stopped, her heart sinking.
“Is it enough?” asked Lyson behind her. She swiveled on the spot, turning her back to Ash, willing herself to move away from him.
She had to stay strong and not let this rejection interfere with the task at hand. She took inventory of the supplies that they’d bought in. Scalpel, graspers, clamps, retractors. Everything she’d asked for. “We have to keep this sterile,” she noted. “There can be no risk of contamination.”
“John is about to set up the walls and disinfect everything. After that’s done the only people that will be allowed in here are you and Doctor Francis.”
“I’ll need to clean up too.”
“Of course.”
Behind her, Ash snorted in frustration. She furrowed her brow, but kept her focus on the task at hand. “Can I have a moment alone with him?” she asked.
“That’s not possible,” said Lyson. “But I will talk to Mac about the shackles.” He raised a brow. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s okay, I understand that he doesn’t trust me.”
Lyson leaned forward and rested his hand on her shoulder as a gesture of support. He squeezed once then let go. “He feels he’s losing control and he’s blaming you. This is his way of trying to make sure that everything goes smoothly.” He looked down. “You’ll need them off so you can dress in your surgical attire anyway. That should be enough to convince him.”