by Wesley King
Marcus looked back and saw the drones make another pass over the city, moving in perfect formation. Another brick house was cut to ribbons.
Why are they attacking? he thought. Are they searching for me?
Dree and Marcus rounded a corner and burst across a busy street, where people were running frantically in all directions to escape the onslaught. Armor-clad soldiers came charging down from the local barracks, but as soon as they saw the source of the attack, they stopped and stared at the drones in obvious confusion, lowering their swords and spears with uncertainty. None of them moved.
“Get the dragon weapons!” the commander shouted.
That meant catapults and bows and snares. Dree doubted they would work against the flying machines. Flying steel. She had known it could work, but not like that.
She led them to Rochin’s apartment building and threw the front door open, allowing Marcus to rush inside ahead of her. They flew up two flights of concrete steps before sliding to a halt in front of her brother’s door, knocking frantically.
“Rochin!” Dree shouted. “Rochin!”
She hadn’t seen him in months. She thought back to the day he’d left.
“It’s not right,” her mother had said, wringing her hands together. “You’re only seventeen, Roch. You don’t even have a job. Your sisters need you—”
Dree was watching from her room with Abi, who was in tears. She loved Rochin.
“I won’t stay here for another minute,” Rochin snarled. He already looked half-gone. His eyebrows were shaved into straight lines, his hair crimson.
Dree’s father watched from his chair, not speaking.
“Why not?” her mother asked.
He laughed cruelly. “Why? Look around, Mom. We live in a shack. The world is building up around us, and we’re sinking into the lake. This place is pathetic.”
Dree heard the pain in her mother’s voice. “This is our home. It hasn’t been easy.”
“It’s your home,” Rochin said, opening the door. “I’m tired of hearing about how great our lives used to be. How Dad was some important dragon rider. What are we now? The dragons are being wiped out. That time is over. I’m ready for something new.”
Dree sat on the bed, her arm around Abi. It wasn’t fair—her brother could just run away and leave everything behind: the cold that crept in through the floorboards, the constant fighting coming from her parents’ bedroom, the father that was slipping away.
“Are you going to say anything?” Dree’s mother asked, looking at Abelard.
He was silent for a moment. “No.”
“Of course not,” Rochin said. “I’d say I’ll miss you, Dad, but I haven’t seen the real you in years.” He hesitated, and his hard blue eyes softened when he found Dree and Abi in their room. “Goodbye.”
The door slammed as Rochin left, and the house fell into silence.
Now the door instantly flew open, Dree’s disheveled brother on the other end looking like he’d just woken up, which he almost certainly had. From what Dree heard, all he did was sleep and party and scrape money together where he could, hauling steel and stone to the construction crews. He hadn’t been back to the house once.
He looked at Dree with frantic eyes, and he had a bag in his hand, half-packed.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“The bunkers,” he said. “Where do you think?”
They could still hear the thudding of machine guns and the terrified screams from the streets. Dree frowned. The bunkers were on the other side of the city—ancient stone structures built as a defense against the dragon attacks of old. But it would take at least a half hour to get there, and they’d have to venture out into the open streets to do it. She knew that was not a good idea.
“What are you doing here?” Rochin asked suddenly, looking at Marcus.
Marcus shifted a little under his distracted gaze. Rochin looked a little like Dree, but like a blurry reflection in the water: pale blue eyes that barely seemed to focus, sandy blond hair standing on end, and eyebrows singed into short, straight lines like they had been drawn on with a marker. He wore only his pants, revealing a strong, sun-weathered chest marked with blisters and burns.
“Trying to take shelter,” Dree said impatiently. “You’ll never make it to the bunkers. Can we—”
Before she could finish, the back of Rochin’s apartment was suddenly shredded by machine gun fire shattering the windows and decimating the thick concrete walls. Screams erupted through the apartment building as it was attacked, and one of Rochin’s teenaged roommates emerged from a bedroom, crawling across the floor and shrieking as the walls collapsed around him in a cloud of dust.
Rochin looked back, paused, and then pushed past Dree, sprinting down the hall.
“Get to shelter!” he called behind him.
Dree scowled. Running as always . . . and leaving her behind. Her older brother might have been a coward, but she wasn’t.
Dree scrambled into the swirling debris to help Rochin’s roommate, whom she remembered as Olli. In the months before he left the family, Rochin had introduced them to his new friends. Olli grabbed desperately onto Dree’s hand, blinking in the dust and grabbing at a small wound on his leg. Marcus hurried over and helped pull the boy to his feet, letting him lean heavily on his shoulder. Olli was extremely unsteady as they started toward the front door, and Marcus looked back, nervous.
The gunfire had stopped, but Marcus knew that didn’t mean the drones were gone. He left Olli with Dree for a moment and tentatively walked over to the jagged, blown-out hole that used to be a window, scanning over the skyline. He couldn’t see any drones, neither close by nor over the crumbling southern end of the city, where smoke and screams still floated into the air. Perhaps the drones had done enough destruction for one day. Marcus was just turning back to help Olli when he looked straight up. There, just below the clouds, he saw a massive white shape floating above the building, a red-eyed drone beside it. He realized now that the white drones were far larger than the black ones and seemed to be packing even heavier firepower. Whereas the red-eyed drones seemed to be made for tracking and gunning down specific targets, the white ones were like heavy bombers, designed for mass destruction. Now, though, they were simply watching, letting the clouds drift past them.
It was exactly what they were doing when they had first appeared in Dracone . . . right before they fired.
“Run!” he shouted, starting for the door.
They had just reached the hallway when a massive explosion rocked the building.
Chapter
10
The floor shook violently as cracking and splintering noises raced through the walls. Dragging Olli to the staircase, Marcus and Dree exchanged a terrified look. Both of them understood—the building was coming down. Fast.
They raced down the concrete stairs as quickly as possible—Olli struggling to walk—and Dree led them out into a side alley. Marcus looked up and saw that the drones were gone again—vanished into the cloudscape like phantoms. But he knew they could be back at any second.
“We need to move,” he said, pulling the limping Olli down the alley.
They were just in time. Another earsplitting crack burst into the air, and the three of them looked back in horror as the entire building shifted. Then, with a last horrific wrench of steel and wood and concrete, the building collapsed. A massive tidal wave of debris erupted outward, covering the surrounding area in dust that swept over them. Marcus and Dree both turned away, covering their eyes with their hands. Dree couldn’t even comprehend what she was seeing. The city was in ruins.
They stood there for a moment, looking like freshly carved statues. Marcus looked up at the now-empty sky. Why had the drones attacked the city? What was their goal in killing all those people?
Despite all the questions, Marcus was sure of one thing:
he was to blame for all of this. He had brought the drones to Dracone.
The soot-stained families running down the streets with bundled children in their arms, the ruined shops and homes, the screams that filled the air like horrible music—it was his fault. He watched as the dust settled onto the shattered streets and realized that he was very, very far from home.
Dree and Marcus left an overcrowded hospital, which was teeming with soot-covered, injured civilians, crying families, and white sheets. The small waiting room had smelled like charred flesh, and Marcus had barely managed not to vomit as he sat in there, waiting for someone to help Olli. Even now that he was outside in the fresh air, Marcus felt sick to his stomach.
He wasn’t sure if it was the stench or the guilt.
The attack had stopped as suddenly as it had started. It seemed the apartment building was the last target of the murderous drones. For now, anyway.
Olli was receiving treatment inside, along with the scores of others. For Dree, the waiting room had been unbearable as well. Everywhere she looked she saw Gavri—his blue eyes watching her from the corners. He was crying on the hospital bed, holding his sides. He was looking at her from beneath white sheets. He was dying all around her once again, and he was asking Dree why she had done it. Why she had left him.
But now that she was out of the waiting room, there was only one thought on her mind—the same one she’d had as they rushed Olli to the hospital: Was her family okay? She had to get home and check on them—now.
Dree turned to Marcus, who was still staring out at the city, dazed. The sun had risen hot and full to the south, melting the clouds away and leaving only a cobalt sky stained with the last remnants of smoke. It would have been beautiful, if not for the ruins below. She wondered again about Marcus. What did he know about these weapons?
“Listen, I really need to get home,” Dree said. “What are you going to do?”
Marcus hesitated. He was still very shaken up, his eyes involuntarily darting back to the injured civilians and the crumbling homes. He still felt like he was going to faint every time he saw a white blanket laid across the ground. He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
It was true enough. He’d had the desperate dream that he would go through the storm, find his father, and bring him home. Together, they would clear his name and rebuild their broken family. But he had no idea where to find his father in all this. The city was massive, and it was burning.
Dree didn’t exactly need a companion, but she couldn’t just leave Marcus wandering around the panicked city streets. He looked so lost, and more importantly, he seemed to know something about the machines. If Marcus had any information, she wanted to keep him close by.
“You can come with me,” she said. “Then I can help you find . . . whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Marcus smiled. “Thanks.”
They met eyes for just a moment, and Dree felt a very unexpected shiver run down the nape of her neck, tingling right through her spine and into her feet. She took a small step away from Marcus, she was so surprised.
Marcus had felt something too, and he was just as surprised. He’d never had that kind of jarring sensation before. He wasn’t even sure what it was—it had been like a visceral shock to his bones. Not attraction, but like he was remembering something.
Dree quickly looked away. “Let’s move.”
The two of them cut through the city, with Dree slowing down just slightly to allow Marcus to keep up. Her athletic body was honed from years of hard labor in the forge, whereas Marcus had spent most of his time on a laptop drinking cola and eating chips. He was already nursing a cramp as he followed her down the street, weaving in and out of the crowd. People were bustling in all directions, harried and panicked.
As they ran, Marcus took out his phone again to check for progress. He was running the GPS search constantly, trying to grasp onto any faint signal. It was a vain hope, but since he hadn’t actually traveled anywhere geographically, he was kind of hoping this world existed parallel to Arlington and that the signals might sneak through the same portal he had. But so far there was nothing. He was just a solitary blue dot on an empty space, which sort of reflected how he felt. He tried a call to Jack’s cell phone.
No connection.
For years, Marcus’s only focus had been to find his dad. That had taken up his entire adolescent life. It wasn’t just that he wanted his dad back—though that of course was part of it—it was also that he couldn’t bear to have his dad’s reputation be that of a traitor. A spy. A disappointment to everyone—so much so that no one ever even sent Marcus a card after the disappearance. No one sent flowers. Even his brusque but proud grandpa, George’s own father, refused to honor his son. Marcus had overheard him talking to Jack.
“If he’s alive, he better not show his face near me ever again,” his grandpa had spat. “A traitor . . . my own flesh and blood. It makes me sick.”
Marcus cried for hours after he’d heard that, but he had never for a moment entertained the idea that his grandfather and the others were right. His father was a good man, and if Marcus stopped searching for him, it would be like he finally believed the story.
He would have finally turned on his dad just like everybody else.
Maybe getting to this world proved that his dad hadn’t taken off for Russia, but at what cost? He had led the drones to the portal, and they had subsequently destroyed an entire neighbourhood and killed hundreds. He never should have gone after that portal while he was under surveillance. He’d led the drones right to Dracone, and now whoever his father’s enemies were, they were here too.
“What is that thing?” Dree asked, glancing back at him.
“My cell phone,” he said distractedly. “Do you have phones?”
“Not that I know of,” she replied. “Is it a weapon?”
Marcus snorted. “Not quite. Though it can do plenty of damage.”
“I see,” Dree said, not understanding at all.
They reached the docks, and Dree spotted her house, which was sitting untouched in the clump of decrepit old shacks. Relief flooded through her. Many of the other dockside homes weren’t so lucky: She saw a few houses on fire and a couple more that had been completely leveled to pulp and ash. Obviously the machines had split up after the first pass on the city, as the destruction was widespread. From what she had seen, even one of those massive white ones could have leveled the entire docks by itself. It wouldn’t take much to decimate the rickety old shacks.
She sprinted to her front door and threw it open.
“Abi? Dad?” She looked around. There was no one there. “Anyone?”
Fear gripped her like a cold hand wrapped around her throat. She frantically checked the small house, peeking in bedrooms and shouting their names over and over again. When she confirmed the house was abandoned, she hurried outside, almost bowling Marcus over as he stared down at his phone, frowning. He looked up anxiously.
“Are they okay?” he asked.
“They’re not here,” she said, looking through the window of her neighbors’ house. They were gone too.
“Where are they?” she asked desperately, feeling anger and fear bubbling up beneath her skin like the burning embers in the forge. The fire was waiting. Just like that day with Gavri.
She couldn’t stop it. She felt the heat rising, and she stepped away from Marcus.
“Dree?” a familiar voice said, and she turned to see old Mrs. Warmen emerge from her house, clothed in dirty brown rags, her silver hair a mess of knots. But she was a sharp old lady, and Dree had always liked her. “You’re back.”
“Where are they?” Dree asked instantly, running over and leaving Marcus behind.
“They left,” she replied, her voice a hoarse croak. “Almost immediately after the fighting started. Your dad hustled them all out of there. He was headed for t
he school, I think—a lot of people took refuge there. Might be your best bet.”
“Thank you,” Dree said, relieved. “Are you all right?”
Mrs. Warmen waved a frail hand in dismissal. “I’m fine. I’ve lived through more dragon attacks than I care to count. Getting used to it. Not sure what those things were though . . . never seen anything like it.”
“I know,” Dree said. “I just hope they don’t come back.”
She thanked Mrs. Warmen again and returned to Marcus, who was still madly swiping his finger across the screen. Dree snuck a quick peek at the phone and saw words and numbers glowing through the glass, responding to every touch of his index finger.
“Where did you say you were from again?” she asked.
“Arlington.”
Dree frowned. “Where’s that?”
He lowered the phone. “That’s what I was trying to find out. I have no idea.”
“You don’t know where your home is?”
Marcus shook his head. “No clue. My guess is it’s far away, and that it won’t be easy to get back to.” He looked out over the city. “And I need to find my father.”
Dree rubbed her forehead. “Now you’re missing your father?”
Marcus nodded, cleaning the soot off his glasses. “I think he’s here, in Dracone. But I have no idea where.” He put his glasses back on. “What do we do now? Did she say your family was at a school? Want to go there?”
Dree thought about that for a moment. She knew her family was fine now; her dad would have Abi and the boys, and her mother was far away from the battle zone at the steel mill. Her mom would go to the docks and then head to the school as well.
The people she cares most about will all be there, Dree thought.
In truth, Dree didn’t really know how her mother felt about her. But their relationship had definitely been strained over the years. When Dree was nine, her mother came into her bedroom late at night, as Dree had been tossing and turning her sleep. Rochin had already left to sleep in the main room.