Something kept Seth from giving up, though. There was a tug at his soul, telling him that no matter how crazy this was, he had to keep going. He had to search every square inch of this building to make sure Claire wasn’t in here. He realized that there was nothing rational about this decision. He barely knew Claire, and yet, he felt in his heart that there was more to her than met the eye. There was a reason, an important reason that he needed to rescue her. He didn’t know what that reason was. He just knew that when fate and destiny called upon you to accomplish a task, you answered. And destiny was whispering in his ear right now, telling him that the most important thing in the world was rescuing Claire.
So he kept going, not knowing how long it would take him to reach another clue as to where Claire might be. Destiny seemed to be on his side, though, because only a few seconds later, his hands that had been following along on the wall came to what felt like a large door. The door was metal, and warm to the touch. It also felt like it had a huge dent in the middle. Seth felt along for the handle, and quickly realized that it was gone. The explosion must have really damaged the door, because when he tried to push it and force it open, he realized it was bent as well.
Seth, grew more frustrated and angry by the second. He couldn’t get the door open with simple pushes, so he took several steps backward and ran into the door at full speed. He didn’t slow down as he reached the door. Instead, he rammed his entire body into it. The door gave way suddenly, and Seth found himself tumbling forward, barely able to catch his balance. He tripped over something hard, and nearly went flying down the stairwell in front of him.
“Of course. The stairs. There’s usually a set of stairs not far from a bank of elevators.” After a brief moment, Seth managed to get his bearings and look around. It was still smoky in here, but the haze wasn’t nearly as bad as it was in the main hallways. The crooked, bent door had managed to keep the air a bit clearer. At some point the door must have been open, though, possibly during the explosion, because the stairwell was filled with debris. Seth stepped over a large chunk of wood, and then nearly tripped over another large object on the floor.
He regained his balance, and then did a double take as he realized that the “object” on the floor was actually a human body. With adrenaline pumping through his veins, he bent down and pushed off the pieces of debris that had settled on whoever this person was. The body was limp, but light, and he easily turned it over.
“Claire!” he shouted. But she didn’t answer. Her eyes were closed, and she was either unconscious or…
Seth didn’t want to allow himself to think of worse possibilities. He reached for her wrist, and was relieved to find a pulse there. He quickly checked around for any bones that appeared to be broken, or any other serious injuries. Again, there were none.
“It’s going to be alright, Claire.” He was surprised by how choked up he felt. This girl had gotten to him quicker than anyone ever had before. He’d given her his number because he thought she was gorgeous, but he was realizing now that his feelings went much deeper than just admiring her physical appearance. He didn’t know how it was possible to care so deeply for someone you’d met only a few hours earlier, but Seth didn’t have time to ponder what his feelings meant right now. He needed to get Claire, and himself, out of here. The fire down the hallway was only going to grow, and who knew what kind of damage the explosion had done to the building’s structural integrity?
Seth bent to pick Claire up, gingerly carrying her like a baby in his arms. He hoped she didn’t have any internal injuries that were going to be made worse by moving her, but he couldn’t wait around for emergency personnel to come with proper rescue equipment.
“Come on, girl. Let’s go.”
No sooner had those words come out of his mouth than he was knocked over again by another huge explosion. He let out a roar of pain as a piece of wood hit him on the side of his head, and he could not keep his balance as the ground beneath him shook. He did manage to keep his hold on Claire, even as his shoulder hit the ground with a loud thud. He heard a crack, and winced at the searing pain that went through his arm. Hopefully nothing had just broken.
Through it all, Claire never stirred. She was out cold, and her unresponsiveness was beginning to worry Seth. He had to get her to a medical professional. Forcing himself to sit up despite the pain in his left arm, he tried to stand up and carry Claire again. But he nearly dropped her as a fresh wave of pain hit him. He roared, then cursed. Whatever injury he had sustained in his left arm was not going to allow him to carry any weight. So he did the only thing he could do. He awkwardly managed to sling Claire’s body over his right shoulder. She lay there limp, like a rag doll. He used his right arm to hold her steady, and then began rushing down the stairs again, ignoring his own searing pain as best he could. Behind him, he could hear the roar of fire and crashes, as more and more pieces of the building began to collapse.
On the first floor, things were much worse than they had been. The smoke hung heavy down here now, too. Seth fought his way through it, trying to remember from memory which way he needed to go to get to an exit. He didn’t know this building’s layout all that well, but his life, and Claire’s life, depended on his finding a way out.
Luckily, he stumbled across a side door after less than a minute of walking. The door was a side entrance, but it was hard to tell where he was because the entire building was surrounded by firefighters and fire trucks now. The fresh air filling his lungs felt almost painful, but he breathed it in deeply. A few moments later, he found himself surrounded by concerned firefighters. They were asking him a bunch of questions, but Seth was having a hard time focusing on what they were saying. He felt dazed, like he was looking at everyone and everything from underwater.
“Councilor Morgan!” one of the firefighters shouted. “Councilor Morgan, he’s out. He’s over here. And he brought a girl out with him.”
“Claire,” Seth rasped out. “Her name is Claire.” But no one seemed to hear him. They were all too busy yelling to each other and to Councilor Morgan. Seth stumbled forward, feeling like he was going to faint. The movement jolted his left arm, which sent a fresh, intense wave of pain through his body. Seth roared, and nearly dropped Claire.
“Easy, buddy. We’ve got you. We’re going to take care of you now.” The firefighters spoke in calm, steady tones to him as they took Claire from his arms and led him a safe distance away from the building to sit on the grass and await treatment from a paramedic. Seth tried to see what they were doing with her, but they had her on a stretcher already and were rushing her toward an ambulance. With a grunt, he slowly laid down on his back on the grass. All around him, the world was in chaos. Firefighters shouted, water hoses hissed as they were aimed at the burning building, and wizards on broomsticks flew high above him with cameras, taking pictures for the press.
Seth closed his eyes, ignoring the pain and shutting out the noise. His throat burned and he felt exhausted, as though he’d just spent a half day at the gym lifting weights. But he knew the paramedics were taking good care of Claire, so he could rest easy. He had proven himself as a worthy dragon today. Torch Lake might be struggling to recruit more dragons, but no one could ever say that the dragons they did have were slacking.
Seth had saved a life today, which counted as a good day’s work if you asked him.
Seth smiled to himself. Even if he had been wearing makeup while playing the hero.
That was the last thought Seth remembered having before the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness took him over.
Chapter Four
Seth had never been good at keeping his mouth shut when he had an opinion on something, but he had done his best to restrain himself during High Council meetings. None of the High Councilors wanted to feel like they were being bossed around by some young dragon shifter punk, which Seth was pretty sure was how they viewed him—even though he felt he was far too old to be a proper punk at this point.
So far, he’d managed to sta
y calm during today’s meeting, but his resolve was wearing thin. He glanced around the room to distract himself from Councilor Isviar’s obnoxious speech. The High Council room was filled to the brim with people today. In addition to the High Councilors themselves, representatives from nearly every important government department sat around the large conference room table. Seth sat next to Evan, and on the other side of Evan sat Clint. Beyond Clint sat Leif. All four of them worked for the Dragon Utilization Department, which was responsible for acclimating dragon shifters who were new to town to the way that things were run in Torch Lake. Of course, with no new dragons in town, there hadn’t been much acclimating to do, so the Dragon Utilization Department spent most of its time working with the Dragon Recovery Bureau, trying to convince dragons to move here.
Across the room Seth could see Jake, who served as People’s Governor of Torch Lake. The job allowed Jake to be involved in many of the city’s inner workings, which had allowed Jake to make positive changes in Torch Lake. Seth was proud of Jake, but he hated how busy the job kept Jake. It felt like it had been ages since all of the dragons had been able to gather at their favorite pub, the Winking Wizard, and throw back a few pints together. Seth let himself imagine drinking a cold beer. Sitting at a pub would be so much better than sitting in this meeting, which felt like it was going on forever and didn’t seem to be accomplishing much.
The sound of his name caught his ear and made him force himself to pay attention. He hoped he wasn’t being called on to comment on something that had been discussed while he wasn’t listening. But no, it seemed like Councilor Isviar was only retelling the story of how Seth had run back into the building to save Claire. Seth bit his lip to keep himself from saying something he would regret. He didn’t want the continued fame that rescuing Claire had seemed to bring to him. He hadn’t rescued her to get recognition from the High Council, or from anyone else. He had rescued her because he cared about her. He leaned forward slightly, hoping that Councilor Isviar would say something about Claire’s condition. The last Seth had heard, Claire was still in the hospital, in a medically induced coma. She had suffered severe head trauma and her brain had swollen, so the doctors thought it best to keep her as calm and still as possible until the swelling settled down.
Or something like that. Seth was no medical expert, and the doctor attending to Claire hadn’t seemed interested in taking time to explain things in layman’s terms. Seth hadn’t been allowed to visit Claire, either. No one had, except Councilor Morgan. Not even the doctors dared to refuse the Head Councilor. Everyone else had been told they would need to wait until Claire was woken up from her coma.
But Councilor Isviar did not mention Claire, which meant that there was no news. Seth chewed his lower lip in frustration as the conversation moved on to the cause of the explosion. Seth hadn’t paid much attention to most of the earlier discussions on this topic, because no one had any good information. Everyone seemed to have a theory about how the Dark Warriors had managed to bomb the television building, but no one had any proof of how the bomb had been set, or any leads on what had actually happened. Seth didn’t have a lot of patience for all this theorizing, and had made more than a few snide remarks, which had earned him the general wrath of the High Council. In an effort to continue his subdued silence today, Seth had already started to tune out when he heard Councilor Morgan make a startling announcement.
“We’ve received back reports from the experts studying the building, and they believe they have identified the cause of the explosion.”
Seth sat up, along with many of the other bored people in the room. Everyone had suddenly taken a great interest in the conversation, and Seth almost wanted to laugh. At least he wasn’t the only one who frequently tuned out during meetings.
No one was tuned out, though, when Councilor Morgan spoke his next words.
“It appears that the Dark Warriors were not involved in the explosion.”
Dead silence filled the room, and Seth felt for a moment like the very ground beneath him had been pulled away. He was the first to speak.
“That’s impossible. Who else would have wanted to destroy the building, if not for the Dark Warriors?”
Councilor Morgan turned to look at Seth, and, to Seth’s surprise, there was a smile on the man’s face. “It is possible, and this is actually good news for us. You see, the explosion was not caused by any individual, but rather by a gas leak. The experts who went in found that there had been a gas leak, which, quite unfortunately, no one had ever noticed or identified. We aren’t sure exactly what triggered the explosion, but at some point leaking fumes came into contact with something flammable and the whole thing just blew. The second explosion you heard was caused by the same sort of thing. We’re just lucky that almost everyone happened to be downstairs when the explosions happened. Otherwise, a lot of people on the second floor would have been seriously injured or killed.”
Seth sat back, feeling somewhat stunned. He had been so sure that the Dark Warriors had been involved that he had never stopped to consider the possibility that they hadn’t. He had tried to figure out how they might have set off the explosions, but he’d never even considered that the explosions might have been caused by a faulty gas pipe. When he looked around the room, he saw a similar stunned look on the faces of many around him. Everyone had been so up in arms about the Dark Warriors, and ready to call for a full-fledged manhunt to bring the group down, no matter how impractical that might be.
Councilor Morgan seemed disappointed with the reaction to his announcement. “This is good news, everyone. Obviously, it’s quite sad that the Torch Lake Today building was damaged beyond repair. But you should all be very happy to know that the Dark Warriors were not involved. We’ve all been worrying about how they managed to infiltrate our ranks again to cause this explosion, but now we know that it had nothing to do with them.”
“I…I suppose that’s true,” one of the wizards from the Dragon Recovery Bureau said. And then, everyone seemed to be talking at once. Wizards and shifters alike started cheering and giving each other high fives. Even Evan let out a whoop. But Seth felt oddly detached from the celebration. He felt deflated, although he felt guilty for feeling that way. He should have been happy that this wasn’t related to the Dark Warriors, but somehow he had this strange feeling that he had just been robbed. He had come to see the explosion at the television station as a perfect rallying point. After the explosion, no one in Torch Lake could say that the Dark Warriors didn’t pose a serious threat. Everyone in town would be on board with using whatever resources were necessary to stop them. But now, with the explosion being unrelated to any malicious act, Torch Lake was probably going to go back to business as usual. Everyone wanted to whine about the lack of dragons, but no one cared about the things that were actually making this city unsafe—like the Dark Warriors being brushed off as nothing serious.
The meeting turned chaotic from there, and as soon as Seth felt like he could slip away without being noticed, he did. He made his way out of the High Council building, and walked the short distance back to the Dragon Utilization Department. He sat in his office for a long time in silence. Hours passed as he brooded, spending most of his time staring up at the ceiling and wishing he could take a vacation. He knew better than to even ask. The High Council wanted all hands on deck for the attempts at dragon recruiting, and that wasn’t likely to change any time soon.
Seth rubbed at his left arm, wincing slightly at the soreness. It turned out he hadn’t broken any bones when he fell. He’d merely dislocated his left shoulder, which had been painful but relatively easy to fix. There was still some muscle soreness there, but it would go away soon enough. He’d gotten off easy. His injuries were nowhere near as serious as Claire’s had been.
His office phone rang then, the noise sharp and shrill against the silence of his office. He looked down at the caller I.D. and was surprised to see that it said “Torch Lake General Hospital.” He felt his palms beginning to sweat
as he reached for the phone. It’s like the universe had somehow known that he had just been thinking of Claire. This call had to be about her. He didn’t know anyone else in the hospital right now. Maybe the caller even was her.
“Hello?” he said hopefully.
“Hello, is this Mr. Seth Morley?” a deep male voice asked. Seth’s heart sank. It wasn’t Claire. And if Claire herself wasn’t calling, did that mean this call was to give him some sort of bad news? Had Claire’s condition worsened?
“Uh, yes, hello. I’m Seth Morley.”
“Mr. Morley, this is Dr. Jones calling from Torch Lake Hospital. I’m calling on behalf of Claire Marsh. Do you know her?”
“Yes, I do. She’s a, uh, good friend of mine.” Seth sat up straighter, hoping the doctor wouldn’t question his relation to Claire too seriously and decide that Seth wasn’t close enough to Claire to deserve updates on her health. But the doctor didn’t sound like he was in the mood to question anyone. He sounded tired, and perhaps a bit relieved that he had managed to get Seth on the phone.
“Claire woke up this morning, and—”
“She did? Is she okay? Did the swelling go down?” Seth didn’t care that he was being rude and interrupting. He was overcome with happiness at the news that Claire had woken up.
“Mr. Morley, I can’t give medical information out. Claire herself may choose what she wants to share with you. The reason I’m calling is that Claire is asking for you.”
“She is?” Seth was genuinely surprised. And more than a little pleased.
“Yes, she is. Asking quite emphatically, I might add. She seems rather distressed over something, and I have a feeling that you might be able to help her with whatever it is. She’s refusing to talk to us about it, and just keeps demanding to talk to you over and over. I think you better get down here as quickly as you can.”
Seth was already standing and reaching for his wallet and keys. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Dragon Discovering Page 3