by C Sharp
She turned and scurried the rest of the way back to her house before a quick slam of the door and a resolute throwing of the deadbolt. She charged up the stairs and down the hall, leaving Shipwreck in a moment of indecision by the bathroom door as he debated whether to sprint past her or return the way he’d come. Chloe slapped on the overheads in her room and walked straight to the window.
Mr. Fitz was still there, watching from the shadows. But Chloe’s eyes drifted past him to the SUV and then to the darkness of the woods beyond. She saw the brief pulse of a flashlight deep within the gloom and resisted the urge to smile.
Instead, she forced herself to remain unaffected and in plain view of the bad man below. Operation Radio Control was a success. Now I just have to stand here and give Kirin a little more time to get through the woods, get to the car, and get away. A wave of red tumbled above the trees and drew her attention back up; it looked like an ocean of flame was crashing across the sky.
A hot, heavy breath swelled up from Chloe’s gut before she heard the echoing rumble of the dragon’s digestion in her mind. For a moment, she actually felt the buzzing of a live spark in her mouth. She opened her jaws and felt the static discharge toward the window. Hold on, Uktena, just a few more days.
Chapter 29
Breaking In
Chloe hadn’t been able to sit down since her mom had left for the dinner shift at Pete’s an hour before. She stood again at her bedroom window, this time with the lights off, as she stared out at the street. The black SUV was there as always—Mr. Fitz was not on duty tonight—but Chloe’s eyes held instead on the bend in the road where she had first spoken to the dragon.
A pair of headlights approached, intermittently flashing through the winter-stripped trees. Moments later, Ezra’s car came into view and slowed toward the entrance to the driveway. As his headlights swept across the SUV, the face of the watching guard was visible behind the tinted windows. The battered Ford came to a squeaky break at the end of the driveway and honked twice.
Chloe gave a last long sigh and then looked at her watch: 5:02 p.m. She snatched the backpack off the bed and fastened it tightly into position as she strode down the hallway. Beneath it she wore an uncharacteristically fashionable powder-blue coat that she’d borrowed from her mother’s closet. It was the most noticeable warm jacket she could find, and Chloe had to admit that under different circumstances, she could have really enjoyed the knee-length cut and the Audrey Hepburn styling. For now, it was useful only for its colorful covering of the all-black garb and the array of tactical equipment she had strapped across her body.
She bounded down the stairs, and her black Chucks skidded to a stop by the large duffel bag by the back door. Within the army-green bag was eighty-some pounds of Mr. Roberts’s still-frozen prime rib. Chloe had left a quarter of the haul in her mom’s meat fridge to replenish what she’d previously taken, plus a little extra to prepare for the possibility of a coming apocalypse… The remainder was still way too much for Chloe to carry.
She grabbed the bag’s straps and shouldered open the door before dragging the meat over the threshold to the back stoop. Ezra was already stepping out of the car to help before she’d turned to lock the door. He lifted the bag with one hand and raised an eyebrow.
“Please just tell me this isn’t a dead body. I don’t want to be an accessory to murder before I even get to college.” He turned back toward the car with the meat bag dangling from his grip.
“Well, it’s not a dead human body,” Chloe answered. “And I wasn’t the one to kill it, so you at least don’t need to worry about the murder rap.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Roberts’s meat, I almost forgot—so grand larceny then.” He popped the trunk and heaved the bag into the back with a heavy thud. He shot Chloe a look over the hood of the car before they both slipped into their seats and banged the doors shut. “And why did you need me to transfer your stolen goods? Couldn’t you get your druggie or surfer boy accomplices to do that?” He turned the key, and the tired little engine puttered back to life.
Chloe noticed that the windshield was still cracked from where the hailstone had clipped it a few months back. “No, and I’m truly sorry to involve you, but the Daedalus Group security team knows Stan and Kirin’s cars, and they’ve been keeping occasional tabs on our movements this last week. I couldn’t risk it.”
The car backed out of the driveway as Chloe kept an eye on the SUV in the side mirror. “I needed someone I could trust with wheels who was also strong enough to lift that bag without making it look suspicious.”
“Don’t you think that you’re being a little paranoid?” he suggested. “You sure you haven’t been hitting your boy Stan’s drug stash?” The car leveled out on the road and headed back the way it had come.
A moment later, Chloe felt the bump of the tires as they rolled over the claw marks in the pavement, and she looked back over her shoulder to make sure that the SUV’s lights hadn’t turned on to follow. There was no sign of pursuit before the SUV passed out of sight behind the trees. She breathed a little easier and turned her attention to Ezra. “Stan’s actually been clean for almost a month, and I know this all sounds crazy, but I need you to believe me when I tell you that everything I’m doing is for a very good reason.”
The two of them drove down the winding road in silence, heading out of the hills toward the meeting place: the parking lot behind Dunkin Donuts just a half a mile from the Daedalus Group headquarters. Chloe took her cell phone from her pocket and quickly texted Kirin that she was on the way. He was there already, monitoring the purloined Daedalus Group walkie-talkie for any indication of trouble. Moments later, his response arrived: All’s quiet. The whole gang is at the pond as planned. C U soon! ;)
She snapped the phone shut and felt Ezra’s attention on her, though his eyes were glued to the road. Despite it all, she found herself hoping that she looked good in her mom’s coat.
“Do me a favor and reach under your seat there,” he said, breaking the silence with the beginning of a little smile on his perfect lips.
Chloe did as was instructed and brought up a neatly wrapped package with a makeshift card taped to the front. She raised an eyebrow and handed it toward Ezra.
He shook his head. “Open it; it’s for you.”
Chloe opened the folded flap of wrapping paper for a card:
Happy Birthday, Lightning!
Here’s a little something for the girl who can do anything.
Love, Ezra
Chloe looked over at his wry smile and felt her face getting hot. “How’d you know?”
“Liz told me. I figured I should give it to you today in case you end up in jail for your actual birthday tomorrow,” he said with a little twinkle in his eye. “Open it.”
She tore open the paper, and her fingers found the smooth surface of well-polished wood. She flipped it over in her hands, admiring the beauty and craftsmanship of the woodwork. It was carved from a single crosscut of a thick tree limb with the natural contours and grain of the wood left intact along the outside edge, but a perfectly cut double opening picture frame in the center.
“I made it in shop class,” Ezra mentioned quietly. “Liz told me about the place where you were struck by lightning, and Kendra got me in past the gate. I cut it from a branch of that tree on the hill.”
Chloe noticed the blackened scar of the lightning burn on the top edge, and her fingers traced the dark lines toward the two rectangular cuts in the center. “It’s beautiful,” she observed with a growing lump in her throat. Her attention settled on the two partitioned photos within.
On the left was a picture of her and Ezra on stage as the King and Queen of Homecoming. She was looking up, and he down, to meet each other’s gaze in a perfectly captured moment of raw emotion. Between them was a blend of shock, embarrassment, elation, and undeniable affection. On the right was a photo of her dramatic sprint toward the finish line in the state championships. Despite all the pain and torture of that moment, the photo
grapher had somehow managed to capture the ecstatic high and wild beauty in Chloe’s face. A perfectly timed lightning bolt was tearing across the sky in the dark clouds behind her, framed almost as if it was an extension of the dark burn on the wood above it.
She had the beginning of tears in her eyes as she hazarded a look back to Ezra. “It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever given me,” she whispered.
He shrugged with a flash of his heart-stopping smile. “I was inspired by you.” His eyes returned to the two pictures. “I know you said you’d never forgive me for Homecoming, but I just wanted you to see that you don’t actually look too upset about it there… And I figured you could always use a picture of me to look at before you go to bed at night,” he said with a smirk.
Chloe laughed and returned her gaze to the picture. She couldn’t come up with an argument to the contrary on either count. In fact, I look thrilled and you look gorgeous as always.
“And the other one is the picture that I look at before I go to bed at night,” he added. “It makes me remember that I can do anything I set my mind to when I wake up the next day.”
“It’s the only flattering picture I’ve seen of that run,” Chloe admitted, feeling unworthy of such a gift or the neglected friendship that had given it to her.
Ezra smiled again and returned his attention to the road as they came out of the hills and stopped at a stoplight. “Kendra took it,” he said. “Though she really didn’t want to give me a copy of it.”
“I have to say, she’s got a good eye… And her taste in men isn’t too shabby either. Thank you. I’ll honestly cherish this as long as I live.” Whether it’s for a couple more hours or a hundred more years.
They drove in charged silence for almost a mile before Chloe saw the brightly lit Dunkin Donuts sign come into view a couple blocks ahead. She noticed only then that she’d been hugging the picture frame to her chest the whole way.
“I can’t talk you out of whatever you’re about to do, can I?” asked Ezra.
Chloe was starting to get scared, but she shook her head anyway. “Nope, just like you said, I’ve set my mind on this, and I’m going to see it through.”
Ezra sighed as the squeaky breaks slowed the car to a halt at a red light. “Okay, then I guess I’m coming with you.”
This caught Chloe off guard. “Wait, what? No, you’re not!”
He nodded. “Yeah, I am. I’ve set my mind, too, and I’m pretty sure that you and your little disciples can’t stop me.”
“Ezra, you have no idea what we’re even doing here! If you get caught, then you can kiss college and football good-bye,” she counseled. “We’re all still minors, but you’ve already turned eighteen. If you get mixed up in this, then you could spend the next four years in jail!”
“Do you plan to get caught?” Ezra countered.
“No, of course not, but no one plans to—”
“And you said it was important—the most important thing you’ve ever done,” Ezra interrupted. “Well, none of you could even carry that bag of meat anyway, so now that’s covered.”
“Ezra, you don’t understand, we’ve been planning this for weeks. We have masks and skills, and we’re all wearing black!”
He zipped up his Black Knights sweatshirt and popped his hood over his head before reaching over to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. Despite Chloe’s inclination to freak out, his touch instantly settled the jangle of her nerves, and she felt like everything might actually be okay. “Don’t worry, Chloe. I’m part of your team.”
The light turned green.
• • •
Kirin and Stan didn’t know what to say when Ezra Richardson hopped out of the car behind the Dunkin Donuts and slung the meat bag over his shoulder with a twirl of his ever- present football. Without saying a word, he strolled over to Stan’s newly renovated van and got in the back seat with a significant dip to the suspension. Chloe was left to deliver a whispered but impassioned argument on his behalf before everyone loaded up and the van roared to life a few awkward moments later.
It was the first time Stan had driven the van since its plummet over the quarry’s cliff. It had supposedly passed inspection to be roadworthy, but Chloe could tell that the patchwork repair job was shoddy at best. More importantly, however, it was the one vehicle between the three, now four, of them that the Daedalus Group had not yet seen. And with the new “tough-black” paint job and “borrowed” license plates that came with the repairs, there would be no easy association between it and the Cow Thief quartet that would soon appear on camera in the Daedalus Group parking lot.
Sitting beside Chloe in the second row, Kirin glanced down to the woodcut picture frame that she’d lovingly placed on the seat between them. He shot a look over his shoulder and met Ezra’s returned gaze. Neither blinked…until the stolen walkie-talkie in Kirin’s grip buzzed to life with a burst of static: “This is Car 1—the Tower is preparing to go live in ten—perimeter status?” said the voice of the security chief that Mr. Roberts had identified as Mr. Duncan the night of the Cow Thief stakeout.
Kirin had found the security team’s dialogue on channel 8 after a methodical search that had also stumbled across a far more scientifically minded exchange that was being directed by Dr. Markson’s team on channel 4. Kirin and Chloe both stared expectantly at the walkie-talkie with a needlessly exaggerated hush between them, as if someone on the other end might be able to hear them listening in.
“This is Car 2—the gate is clear—over.”
“This is Car 3—the nest is empty—beginning area sweep—over.”
“This is Car 4—HQ is all clear—over,” said the recognizable voice of Brent Meeks.
“This is Air 1—cloud cover is good—low-pressure system coming in from the west—over.”
“This is Air 2—standing by at HQ—over.”
Chloe’s palms were sweaty, and her heart was already going a lot faster than necessary. Oh my God, this is actually happening!
“This is Foot 1—the package is secured and freshly sedated—over,” said the distinctly bitter voice of Mr. Fitz with the tinny echo of a big room around him.
“This is Car 1—good status—make sure you keep that radio close, Foot 1—over and out,” said Mr. Duncan with an edge of mockery.
Chloe and Kirin exchanged a nod in the dark as Stan sped down a more rural road past open fields. “So there’s one guard in a car somewhere around the building, another driving around Charlottesville looking for us, and at least one of them on foot inside,” Chloe summarized.
“Hey, so what’s this all about?” Ezra asked casually from the rear.
Chloe took the file from Dr. Markson out of her bag and handed it across the seatback. “It’s about this. We’re busting him out. If you still want in, then stay alert and keep up.”
Ezra opened the folder. His brow lowered and he leaned in for a better look. “What the…”
“The dragon’s totally drugged,” added Stan from the front seat. “How are we gonna move him if we can’t wake him up?”
Chloe didn’t really have a good answer for that as they drove on in darkness with the sound of the photographs turning behind them. He’ll wake up.
“Is this for real?” Ezra whispered.
“No one ever said that saving the world would be easy,” Kirin declared, just as a bright glow of artificial light came into view across the field ahead. Chloe smiled with a swell of affection. Somehow the four of them together in that van felt right, maybe even powerful—like there was a shared energy ignited between them that was more potent than the sum of the parts. There was nothing more to explain as the van slowed to a crawl and Stan glanced nervously at her in the rearview mirror.
“Just keep going past it at the speed limit,” she said quietly. “We’ll loop around back by the service entrance, just like the map says.”
Stan breathed slowly as the van picked up speed again. They came out of the gloom to a brightly lit stretch of road that took them past the buildi
ng’s main entrance. It was a massive sprawling corporate complex with an expansive employee parking lot off to the side. Only a handful of parked cars were left, clustered around the towering American flag-topped pole beside the walkway. A large, white marble statue of the company’s angel wing insignia was bathed in light at the center of the visitor’s drop off. A black Suburban with tinted windows was idling by the front.
Chloe instinctively slid lower in her seat. “That’s got to be Car 4 with Brent Meeks in it,” she whispered as they passed.
The building itself was so brightly lit and clean that it might have mistakenly appeared inviting to the casual observer. But looking past the veneer of polished steel and spotless glass, the whole complex screamed ‘GO AWAY!’ Cameras were mounted above the main entrance, and the outer façade itself seemed to hum with hidden alarms.
Stan continued at a steady thirty miles an hour, though his knuckles were wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly it looked like he might snap it off from the drive column. Chloe reached up and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay; they’ll never even know we were here,” she stated, though she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. Despite her doubts, Stan seemed to relax immediately.
“It’s cool, dude; I could just really use a little weed right now is all,” Stan muttered as they left the expanse of mirrored windows and steel behind.
Looking back, Chloe could see a large windowless annex off the back with a helicopter sitting on a rooftop landing pad. She glanced down at the schematic of the building in her lap and focused on the place where Dr. Markson had put the big red ‘X.’ “That’s got to be where they’re keeping Uktena.”
Stan came to a halt at a stop sign with no other cars in sight. Chloe turned around to claim Ezra’s attention. “Now you see what we’re doing. There’s no time to explain more. This is your last chance to get out and hoof it back to Dunkin Donuts.”